My Stupid Dog

So I have a doberman, and for the sake of anonymity (because a dog really needs that), we'll call her Ceiling Fan. Ceiling Fan, to put it gently, is a hopeless idiot. I've never met an animal so reminiscent of Simple Dog from Hyperbole and a Half in all of my life, with the unfortunate exception being that Ceiling Fan is much bigger and much more capable of destruction. She once got so frightened by the appearance of a water sprinkler that she ripped the entire thing out of the ground and tried to bite the water that sprayed out of it.

This is like her Vietnam.

Story time. On a rainy day a few years ago, I was getting a ride home from school with one of my friends. As I exited my friend's minivan, I noticed an odd little lady in a yellow rain slicker, standing in the middle of the street outside my house and staring into the sky, her face pelted by rain and her whole body completely rigid. I was slightly unnerved, as the whole scene was a bit reminiscent of the scene in It where the little boy gets his arm ripped off by the sewer-dwelling demon clown (what an incomprehensible book/incomprehensibly awesome movie).

I decided to ignore her, and was about to open my front door when I heard her yell.

"Hey! Do you live there?"

I paused for a moment, my hand hanging in the air, and slowly turned towards her, hoping she was addressing someone else. Alas, she was facing my way, and after ensuring no one else was in my immediate vicinity, I steeled myself for the inevitable social interaction.

"Well hey there, little guy! Don't you wanna balloon?"

"Nope."

"Um. Yeah?"

She got a bit giddy at this and started hopping in place. "Oh! Do you happen to own a doberman?"

Oh God damnit, I thought. "Yeah, why?"

"Because I saw her running away and I chased her into this bush!" The accomplishment and pride in her voice was palpable as she excitedly began gesturing to a massive bush in the front yard across the street. I told her to wait a moment, at which point I entered my house and verified that Ceiling Fan was, in fact, gone. The only living thing in the house was my fat basset hound, who seemed completely oblivious to Ceiling Fan's absence, and whose defining physical trait is that she always smells exactly like Fritos. 

After grabbing a jacket and leash and bidding my other dog farewell, I rejoined Slicker Lady in the street, where she had gone from standing in the street to plowing her way through my neighbor's massive bush (hahaha. Oh man, that sounds nasty). I watched her thrash around for a bit, whereupon she informed me that my dog was not, in fact, in the bush.

It was at that point that I got a call from my mom. I asked Slicker Lady to give me a moment to answer my phone. She seemed a bit helpless, as without her bush thrashing, there really wasn't much she could do, so she reverted to her natural sky-staring state. I awkwardly looked at her for a bit, then turned my attention to my phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, is Ceiling Fan missing?"

"What the hell? How do you know?"

"Because I just got a call from a woman who says that Ceiling Fan is sitting in the backseat of her car."

"...What?"

"Look, I need to get back to work, I'll give the woman your number and you can talk to her. Let me know if you get our dog back."

"Um..well, alright, I'll -"

Click.

"- try. Ok then."

"I love you mom!"

"Nope."

While waiting for Ceiling Fan's unfortunate new supervisor to call, I engaged in a bit of strained small talk with Slicker Lady, where I learned that she really was quite an unfortunate creature. Our dialogue was mercifully cut short by my phone's ringing. I looked at her and said "Hey, thanks for letting me know that my dog ran away, but I think I can get it from here."

"...Oh."

Slicker Lady wheeled around and, without saying a word, bolted to what I'm assuming was her house further down the road. After taking a second to process her abrupt exit, I answered my phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, is this your dog sitting in my backseat?"

"I'm assuming, yeah."

"I'm at the elementary school down the street. I was picking up my daughter from school, and as soon as I opened the door for her your dog came sprinting out of nowhere and just leaped into my car."

"...Huh."

Dibs.

About ten minutes later, I had walked to the nearby school and managed to find the woman's car. Ceiling Fan was staring at me from the rear window, furiously wagging her tail and just happy as shit that she had finally done something to make me proud. I thanked the woman and apologized profusely for Ceiling Fan's behavior, which the woman surprisingly found really endearing. Ceiling Fan was mushing her face into the window and covering the whole thing in slobber. "She seems really excited to see you," she said. "I'll open the door."

"No, best let me do that."

I immediately braced myself, spreading my feet and holding her leash at the ready, dreading the result of opening this woman's car door. Confused, she asked me "Why are you doing that?"

"You'll see."

I pulled the door handle, slowly, carefully, my ears straining and waiting for the worst. 

Click. 

The moment the car door latch released, Ceiling Fan tackled it from the inside, flinging the door open and nearly decapitating the woman's poor little daughter. Absolutely mindless with joy, Ceiling Fan torpedoed into my crotch, giving me a warm greeting and doing her best to communicate to me her latest adventure. 

"FRIEND!!!"

After a brief wrestling match on the sidewalk, I successfully restrained my dog and attached the leash to her collar. I hurriedly said goodbye to the woman and proceeded to walk my dog home, hoping that my dog's impromptu attempted murder of her daughter hadn't left too much bad will. When I got home, I took Ceiling Fan's leash off and took a seat on my staircase. She sat down in front of me, her chest heaving with her excited breathing, gazing at me expectantly and waiting for me to commend her on her latest display of idiocy.

I tried headbutting your testicles into paste because I love you.

She's a nice dog.