OK, I could have prevented this. But...

Driving home tonight, as I made the transition from city to country, an SUV zoomed up behind me and tailgated me for a bit. I was going at or maybe a shade over the speed limit (55), which anyone who knows the area would know is, if anything, too fast to drive at night with so many deer around.

After a very short while, the driver zipped out into the other lane and gunned it, passing me as we rounded a curve - gentle curve, but still a curve. Idiot, I thought. Now, when I'm driving out at night and somebody passes me, I generally wait maybe 10 seconds before turning my high beams back on, to give them some distance. If they tailgate me and drive like morons, I might wait only 5 seconds - I'll give them a little distance, but I won't go the extra mile. That's what I did tonight. In retrospect, kind of a mistake.

As soon as I put the high beams on, the SUV - by now maybe a tenth of a mile ahead - braked. Big time. I hit the brakes. The SUV started going. I slowly started going. Then he braked again and came to a dead stop. I wasn't going fast, but I had to brake hard and swerve onto the shoulder. He swerved onto the shoulder in front of me. I swerved back on to the road. He swerved back on to the road. At some point in this, he had a shot at bashing me on the passenger side and I thought he was going to (his SUV was an old beater; I say "he" but I didn't get a look at the driver), but it didn't happen. Also at some point in this, I did turn off my brights. The SUV started going down the road again.

I followed - giving plenty of distance. OK, this was really dumb, but after giving that driver the normal amount of time - he was way down the road - I turned my brights back on. The SUV's brake lights went on again. I pulled over and called 911. The SUV kept going, passing someone up ahead while going up a hill.

I had his plate number, and I gave it to the dispatcher along with a description of the SUV and its direction of travel. She said if any squads were in the area, they'd look for it. About a mile down the road, I saw a sheriff's SUV in a bar parking lot. As I passed, its lights (regular, not emergency) went on and it started pulling out. I turned and kept going on my way down a different road. I'd like to think they tracked the guy down.

I'm fine. My car's fine. As the title of this post says, I could have prevented this. But...

My dog has sinned

Remember from the last post that Jehovah's Witnesses booklet that my dog knocked in back of the TV stand. Well....

That's the shredded remains of the first few pages. I'm on the fifth day of leaving my dog alone, out of her crate, for a full shift while I'm at work. When I got home tonight, I discovered that she extracted the booklet and gave it some good chewing attention while I was gone.

I found the rest of the booklet upstairs and relatively intact; she apparently carried it up there at some point during the evening.

I don't consider this a major breach of rules on the dog's part, so she gets a passing grade for the night. The only major incident so far was on the first day, when she pulled a Ziploc bag of dog food off the kitchen counter (I had forgotten it was there), tore into it and ate it while I was at work. Aside from that, I've discovered a few things (a boot, a glove) moved around to different parts of the house, but nothing - other than the Jehovah's Witnesses booklet - destroyed.

If they come back, I guess I can legitimately say, "My dog ate it."

I'm on their list

I was sitting in the recliner around midday earlier this week, reading a book, when there was a knock on the door. It startled me, because someone knocks on the front door of my rural home maybe once every two months, if that.

I didn't bother running around to the side window to see who it was; I just opened the door.

"Hello - remember us?"

"Oh, God," I thought to myself.

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Let me go back a few months. It was sometime in late summer or early fall. There was a knock on the door. The conversation went something like this:

"Hello. Are you troubled by all the strife in the world, by the negative ads in the election?"

"Um... I guess."

"What are your hopes for the world?

"Um... Peace and prosperity for everyone?"

"Well, all that is possible and will happen when God returns. Are you ready for that day?"

"Um... I guess?"

Jehovah's Witnesses. This went on for about five minutes, with me too polite to ask them to leave, and them clearly too used to "Um... I guess" responses to be thrown off by my mounting discomfort.

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A sidenote... I have nothing against Jehovah's Witnesses, or any other religion that respects my beliefs as I respect theirs. It's just that, well, my beliefs are kind of undefined, and I've always felt that I've got better things to do with my time than ponder the issue. And I certainly am not going to delve into the topic with strangers standing on my doorstep.

And a second sidenote... In my childhood home, we had a "front" door that was never used, and in fact was sealed up with insulation year-round except for the little window that allowed quite a view into the heart of the house. Our "back" (or, more accurately, "side") door was the one we always used. As a kid, without fail, the only people who knocked on our front door were Jehovah's Witnesses. When they came knocking and I was home alone, I hid. Sometimes, I got caught in the living room with no exit other than to use the hallway where anyone looking in the front door window could see me. So, I used military special-ops maneuvers to dash and roll and cower behind furniture and door jambs as I made my way back to the safety of my bedroom. Eventually they would give up, stop knocking and leave.

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Back to my visitors.

It was a father and son. I did not take photos, but I think I have come up with two good representations by digging into my pop culture memory. The father looked like actor James Cromwell. The son looked like an autistic kid from New York named Jason McElwain who was made famous a few years back when he got in a high school basketball game and scored a ton of 3-pointers (that was back when I had ESPN and they played that story over and over).

The father (image from Wikipedia):

The son (image from Today Show Web site):

The son took the lead in the discussion, but he stuttered and stammered quite a bit. His dad was providing backup and assistance as needed. I guess the son was a proselytizing trainee. Eventually they asked if I'd like some literature. I said sure. They gave it to me and left. I set the booklets on top of the TV. They sat there for a couple months because I felt guilty about throwing them away.

Then, in November, I came home from running errands during the day to find a couple Jehovah's Witnesses brochures tucked in my front door. I overcame my guilt in about a week that time, and they ended up in the trash, too.

Then, the visit earlier this week.

"Hello - remember us?"

(Pause) A drawn-out, hesitant "Yeah"

"Did you watch the inauguration last week?"

"Yes"

"Are you hopeful about the future and what the president will do?"

"Um... I guess"

"What do you hope for in the world?"

"Um... Peace and prosperity for all?"

"Have you thought about all the wonderful things that will happen when God returns?"

And so on.

They asked if they could leave some literature again. I took it.

Only this time, before they left, the father said, "Read it over. Maybe we can discuss it in the future."

Oh, no. Do they have a list? It seems I'm on it.

Home during the day? Check.

Does not display a gun or sic the dog on us when we arrive? Check.

Takes our brochures? Double check.

So I face a dilemma. 

They are not hostile or pushy. If they were, I'd have no trouble telling them to please leave and not come back. But they aren't, and it seems wrong to tell them that. I haven't and will not invite them in the house, but to tell them to stay off my property seems unduly harsh.

Maybe I'll have to resort to my childhood special-ops maneuvers next time they come, and hope they go away on their own.

In the meantime, their latest booklet was sitting next to the TV until the dog, while snuffling around, knocked it off and in back of the TV stand. It'll probably be there for months.

Dreaming, Vol. 4

Last night I dreamed (I think. I hope?) that I woke up, and there were doors slamming and footsteps in the house. The layout of the bedroom and house were different than my bedroom and house, so I'm pretty sure it was a dream.

In the dream, I pulled the covers up over my head and hid. That's about all I can recall.

Possible explanation? The dog has taken up nighttime residence on an old rocking chair in the bedroom. If she squirms around during the night, the rocker bangs against the wall.

Odd side note... when I got up this morning, I noticed that the back door was unlocked and slightly ajar. I'm usually really paranoid about keeping that shut and locked at night, though I'm sure that, in the course of bringing in some stuff from the car the previous evening, I forgot to close it all the way. But still....

Cooped up

It hasn't been above zero here since Monday night. I haven't left the immediate area of my house since then - just twice-a-day walks with the dog (we've kept them short; even she doesn't really want to go out), going out to get the mail and take out the garbage, and a few other trips to the garage.

I wish I could say I've gotten a lot done around the house. I've done some projects, but not a lot. I did find out that my dog really, really seems to like Fritos. She's been clinging to her crate a lot again, but the sound of a crinkling Fritos bag (more so than other "food noises" - I tested) brings her running.

I'm a little worried about my car starting on Thursday when I'm forced to head into town for work. I think this is the coldest weather it has been in, and the battery is getting old. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Update

The dog was gone Sunday morning. Someone must have been out looking for it and found it.

Anger at neglectful owners aside, at least they had the decency and cared enough to take it back home.

I don't know for sure who it belonged to. I have not seen any of the neighborhood's roaming black dogs, so I haven't been able to conclusively narrow it down.

Riddled with guilt

** Writer's note: upsetting post

When I'm out and about and see an animal in potential danger, I stop. I've moved turtles off to the side of highways, corralled loose dogs and called their owners, etc. 

So that's what went through my mind as I approached my house tonight after work. It was dark, and a car was coming from the other direction on my road - a relatively major thoroughfare, with speeds of 55+ mph. Right in front of my driveway, that other driver did something - swerved or slowed down - that drew my attention to... holy cow - there's a black dog right in the middle of the road!

No, I did not hit the dog - I was only going like 15 or 20 mph as I slowed to make the turn into my driveway. I passed the dog and saw it was eating road kill. I had to stop to let the other car pass before turning, and the dog looked right at me, then returned its focus to the dead animal (rabbit, I think). There are a few loose dogs that roam the neighborhood, and I recognized it as one of those; I wasn't sure who owned it.

I drove up the driveway and into my garage, and got ready to go out to the road to coax the dog into my driveway and out of danger. Wait, I thought - even with the full moon, I won't be able to read its tags without a flashlight. I'll grab the one out of the back of the car. So I spent a few moments digging around for, and not finding, the flashlight.

I gave up and walked out of the garage, and got about 10 steps down the driveway when... Oh my God, there's a truck coming really fast... it's not slowing down... I can't look.

There was a crash. The pickup truck kept going into the night. I knew, right away, that the dog was dead. The total silence - no yelps of pain, no whimpering - confirmed it. In the immediate aftermath, I couldn't bring myself to look at the scene.

Twenty, maybe 30 seconds, and I would have had that dog out of harm's way! If I hadn't looked for that flashlight! If I hadn't stopped for a burger on the way home! 

My head was spinning. I started shaking. I was on the cusp of hyperventilating. Still outside, I called my dad and asked him what I should do. I called the sheriff and reported it, and they said someone would stop by. All the while, I could hear other cars, maybe three or four, hitting the dog.

I went in and saw my own dog, tail whipping against the side of her crate, whimpering and barking, waiting to greet me. She needed to go out. I walked lock-step with her as she did her business, and got her back in the house ASAP.

I realized that when I called the sheriff, I had not actually seen that the dog was dead. So I steeled myself up, grabbed the house flashlight and gingerly made my way out to the road. It was about 50 feet down the road, mostly off to the side.

My neighbors across the street have a dog I've heard and never seen; they keep it in the back. I was almost certain it was NOT theirs, but I didn't know for sure, so I knocked on their door. It was after 10 p.m., but the lights were on and I figured they'd wonder about the sheriff's car anyway. It was not their dog. Two more cars hit the dog as I talked to them. It was night, the dog was black... I guess I can't blame them.

About 10 minutes later the sheriff came out. He looked, and there was no collar. He said someone would be by to pick up the body on Monday. It will have to sit out there all day Sunday.

I thanked him for stopping, and felt a bit childish for not being able to look for the tags myself.

I went back in the house. I thought about the times I'd seen this dog, and became pretty certain which home it belonged to. I don't know for sure, but I think the owners are the same people who had another dog, a yellow one, that got hit in front of my house one evening last summer. That dog, miraculously, survived - in part because I drove it to the vet. Its owner had been drinking and was too drunk to drive, so she frantically asked me to chauffeur the both of them into town.

So then I was getting angry. Those idiots! Didn't they learn their lesson? Didn't the sight of their one dog, trailing a mangled back leg last summer as we hustled it in to the vet's office, teach them anything? Apparently not. And, both times, I've been forced into dealing with the aftermath.

It was after 10:30. There was no way I was knocking on that home's door at this hour, given that kind of news and given that I wasn't 100 percent sure it was their dog. There was nothing else I could do.

I flopped down on the recliner, turned on Saturday Night Live (I needed something to laugh at, and, fortunately, it delivered this week), and petted the dog as she rested her head on the arm of the chair. After a while, I got down on the floor, and gave her a hug as she leaned her weight against me. I told her she was a good dog, as the sound of cars passing outside gave me chills.