Don't Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I take a walk around my neighborhood every night between 1:30 and 3:00a.m.  I do it so I can hear the dogs bark.  And bark and bark and bark and bark.  It's not that I love the sound of barking dogs.  In fact, during the day, I hate it.  But at night, I find a little peace in it.  I guess you might call it peaceful revenge. 

I live in a neighborhood filled with dogs.  I can't ride my bike or run anywhere without being gruffly interrupted by a mad dog.  In the second house on the left there are four.  The next house has two. Then the next three houses each have one.  And that's when I head out towards the trail.  In the direction of the mountains the first house on the left has six.  Then it's quiet for three minutes until I'm greeted by four more.  This is just in the first 600 yards (as in unit of measure, not dog confines).  It only gets worse as I get more miles into my rhythm and reverie.   If I have to look on the bright side, at least I'm usually being barked at and chased on the other side of a hedge or fence, but it's still a bit alarming.

I've been asking myself day after day if the barking bothers the dog owners or if they even hear it.  I wonder if they're embarrassed that their pets are such a nuisance.  I'm pretty sure the answers to these questions are no or I would have seen at least one shy smile as if to say they understood that it happened everyday and they were sorry for the disturbance.  It's when I continued looking for these shy smiles and not finding any that I finally decided to make their dogs bark at night.  And thus began my much-later-than-evening strolls.

In the still hours of the night when I'm sure the farmers are deep asleep, their barking dogs make me (not so shyly) smile.   I stop to enjoy them.  If I keep walking, the pleasure is fleeting because the barking stops as soon as I've passed.  So I've found a couple of good places to rest, lean on a tree and pretend I'm that black cut-out silhouette guy smoking a pipe.  I bend my leg just like he does and I  listen to them bark.  And listen and listen and listen and listen. 

I like to imagine what's going on inside.  By that hour I'm hoping that the house is really cold
because the fire lit before bed has probably gone out.  Farmers go to bed early.  There's nothing to do around here when it's dark.  So, I picture them lying there for a bit, listening to the dogs and assuming that there's no danger and the barking will stop.  But as long as I keep my pose, the dogs keep barking.  So then I imagine them rolling over and putting their handmade quilts over their heads so they don't hear it anymore.  But the barking continues.  Eventually, they have no choice.  They don their icy slippers that have been chilling on the cold tile floor for the past several hours and go to the window.  This is the part I really like.  I don't have to take cover until they're totally out of bed.  My warning comes from the clank of the inside window.  They have to open that before they can get to the outside shutters.  This means that for a few seconds at 2 a.m. or so, they're getting a nice blast of cold air up their pajama sleeves.   That's when I smile, think "just what the doctor ordered!" and move on to the next patient.  

As hard as I've searched I haven't found anything that says, "Revenge is the best medicine."  In fact,  I'm sure it's no surprise that most of what I've found is a bit more like, "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind," by Gandhi . Or  "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves," by Confucius.
 
But I did run across this, by Anne Frank. "I won't bore you anymore on the subject...all my plans of revenge...must be abandoned in order to keep the peace.  Oh I'm becoming so sensible."  And then I smiled because SENSIBILE in Italian and SENSIBLE in French and Spanish are all defined as 'sensitive' in English, which means 'having or displaying a quick and delicate appreciation of others' feelings.'  

Thanks to Anne (not Gandhi or Confucius) I've given up on this whole revenge thing.  It was just one of those daydreams I have when I'm running anyway.  It's not that I like the idea of becoming sensible (in English) because it seems a bit boring and lacks a certain.......je ne sais quoi.  Sensible people don't take walks in the rain without their umbrellas.  They don't buy knee-high boots with 37 eyelets and hooks that have to be re-laced every time they wear them when the same boots are available with a hidden zipper.  And they probably don't put sugar on their low-fat, diet cottage cheese.

So, rather than worrying that I'm becoming sensible in English, I tell myself that I'm becoming SENSIBILE or SENSIBLE in one of the other languages and console myself with my kindness.


 
"Revenge is like biting a dog because the dog bit you."  --Austin O'Malley
I thought I'd include that one just for laughs because it's really laughter that's the best medicine.