[Dailydrool] I think I just need to vent

[Pamela McQuade]

OK, I've never been the most graceful person, but this weekend I hit a 
low point that is hard to forgive myself for.
 
My husband asked me to hand him our postal scale, a metal and plastic 
item that is all edges, some of them metal. I grabbed it, handed it to 
him, but before he could fully grasp it, I pulled my hand away, and this 
nasty item fell to the floor.
 
Horton was lying under my desk, in the footwell, where he always is. I 
bent down to grab the fallen scale and noticed he was holding his foot 
at a funny angle; then I saw it was bleeding. Poor baby, when the thing 
fell, a metal edge hit his dewclaw and nearly did a dewclawectomy. It 
was obviously painful, so I began to make plans to take him to an ER.
 
Drew and I got our poor, limping puppy to the car. While I was boosting 
him up into the van, I noted that our neighbors across the street, who 
are famous for parking their cars so that we can barely get out of our 
driveway have done that again. (Did I mention that we were in the midst 
of an sleet storm and that we live on a hill and have a quite narrow 
street?) OK, I'm not happy about it, but we can probably make it. Until 
one of the neighbor's [fill in your own epithet here] friends pulls up 
directly in back of their cars.
 
I am not usually a screamer. Even when I scream, people often can't hear 
me. But as I finished putting Horton in the car, I called out to the 
friend (who of course was driving an SUV, not a compact), asking him to 
pull back so we could pull out. My tone was probably not particularly 
friendly. I was worried about Horton, who was in pain; I was not sure 
that the dewclaw was all that was involved. The friend starts giving me 
some mouth about how he's picking up his friend (heaven forfend that his 
perfectly healthy, young friend should walk five feet more to get to the 
car) and can I wait a minute? Meanwhile, the neighbor he is picking up 
is nowhere in sight. Didn't I just mention to him that my dog needs to 
go to the ER? Was the driver some kind of doctor with X-ray vision who 
could tell it was nothing serious?
 
About this time everyone on the block probably heard me yelling at him 
that my dog had to go to the ER, and would he move the car? He started 
whining and complaining that I didn't have to go ballistic, he'd move 
the car; he finally did so. Even with the extra space, Drew had a hard 
time getting the car out. And of course Drew was mad at me for yelling 
at this whippersnapper who evidently doesn't care much about dogs.
 
I am glad that Horton did not have a life-threatening problem. He might 
have died while I tried to get the driver to put his foot on the gas 
instead of in his mouth.
 
Horton was less than thrilled to go to the ER. Everything scared him, 
and he was in a lot of pain because the false dewclawectomy hit shortly 
below the top of the claw, where the quick comes down. The very nice vet 
took him in the back and did a real dewclawectomy, much to Horton's 
dissatisfaction. But it was quickly over (pun intended). Some Rimadyl 
helped out the pain.
 
Every time my neighbors park this way I worry that I will have to take a 
dog to the ER and will be unable to get out. It finally happened. But I 
can guarantee that, if anything, things will get worse not better. Now I 
will be the crazy lady who yells at them about their cars (I have made 
polite if terse requests before this, and they have continued to leave 
their cars on the street in the most inconvenient place and at the most 
inconvenient times. I admit that fed into my irritation at the 
whippersnapper. But I am not the only neighbor who has had this problem 
with them, so I do not think I am totally unreasonable.)
 
Next time that happens, I may be at the wheel. As I drive in the 
direction of the blocking car, I hope the driver will move. Because when 
I'm at the wheel, not Drew, I will take no hostages. Don't put my 
animals at risk, because things will not be pretty.
 
Call me crazy, but if it were bloat and not a dewclawectomy, I would 
really be dangerous. It's a bit scary to realize I could turn that 
quickly into a completely different person, because 99.9 percent of the 
time I would cave in to the other person. But even the mildest person 
has limits. I think that young driver hit mine.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets