Well my wife, son and dog just got back from our daily evening walk around the neighborhood and my adrenaline is still pumping.  It’s still pumping not because of our meandering walk, but more so for the run-in we had with a neighbor, and I use neighbor in the sense that this person lives in the neighborhood.

Here’s a little back-story to what lead to what occurred this evening.  Recently I decided I needed to loose weight, get more active and live a more healthy lifestyle.  The past few years have been wrought with the stress of a nightmare remodel and the happiness of our son Skyler born.  My lifestyle had changed with the times becoming sedentary and day-in-day-out hum-drum.  It was now time to change that.  I started a diet and increased my activity.  I now get up every morning at 5:30 and go for a 1 mile walk with our dog Luigi, I go for a short 10 minute walk at lunch when I can and another 1 mile walk with my wife, son and dog in the evening.

Mind you, when we moved to this neighborhood one of the best qualities that we loved about living here is the neighborhood.  All the neighbors wave and say hi to you if they are going for walks or playing with their kids in their front yards.  Skyler is part of the Ticatica Kids Club.  Ticatica is the name of our small street.  We know the neighborhood gossip lady, and are luckily on her good side.  We’ve been invited over to our neighbor’s houses for USC football games or the occasional cigar in the backyard.  Ole, one of the few remaining original owners in his late 80′s, lives at the end of the street.  He keeps an eye on the street for everyone walking down the street shirtless in San-a-belt baby blue cut off pants that are pulled up two inches above is belly button.  He speaks of stories of World War II and shoots the trespassing skunk that get too close to his backyard.  All in all it’s really a nice quite and safe place to live.

A couple of months ago our neighbor, Al, from across the street, warned us about a little chihuahua that chased him and his 3 year old grandson up the hill.  A few weeks ago we found that dog.  On my route there is a street called Kiska Drive.  On this street there live two dogs with short man syndrome.  The worse of the two is a stupid chihuahua.  We have been chased a few times by mindless dog, when one time, about a month ago, the dog chased Luigi and me with Skyler in the hiking backpack up the street when the owners saw this, piled into their car and raced up the hill to get him, all the while you could hear the father yell at his daughter and his daughter yelling at her father about the dog.  She jumped out of the car, swooped up the dog and returned to the car yelling, “It’s because he hates you too.  That’s why he runs away!”  No apologies to us, but it didn’t matter, I  just turned and kept going up the hill thinking to myself I don’t need to be a part of this.

This brings this story to about two weeks ago.  Evening walk, Skye, Skyler in the stroller, Luigi and me, we were walking up Kiska Drive.  The dogs were out.  I’ve had enough of this.  If the dog were to even get near kicking range of Skye, Skyler or Luigi, he was going to know it.  Normally I am a peaceful, animal loving person, but when an animal threatens my family it’s a different story.  I walked over to the front door the whole time with this ‘Rat’ dog snapping at me.  I rang the doorbell and the 9 year old daughter answered the already wide open door.  I firmly said how this was not the first time this has happened with their dogs barking and trying to attack my dog while we were walking on the street, the next time this happens I would call animal control.  She picked up the dogs and put them inside and closed the door.  Problem solved, so we thought.

This evening’s walk.  We turn the corner on Kiska Drive and low and behold the little rat dog was out and going after Luigi.  The rat dog’s mother was out and noticed this going on, she came over to grab the dog but the dog kept barking and charging Luigi.  I was pushing Skyler in the stroller, Skyler was watching from the safety of his stroller, Skye had Luigi on the leash and Luigi was trying to back away from being attacked by the psychopathic rat dog.  The owner finally grabed the dog, no apology, and headed back to take the dog in, as she did she stopped and turned around to say, “Are you the ones who yelled at my daughter and threatened to call animal control?!”

Mind you, we hadn’t even said anything to this lady so for her to assume this was a pretty big leap.  I told her, “I warned your daughter that this dog is always out and tries to attack us when she is out.”  Obvious enough since the rat dog just did it again.

At this point she through out a few swear words, told us to call animal control, cussed us out again and headed back inside.  This is where it got worse.  Her husband walks out of their backyard and starts yelling at me.

Snapshot picture at this momment: I’m pushing our two year old son up the hill in the middle of the street trying to cross it, Skye is walking Luigi on the sidewalk across the street and this gang banger husband in a wife-beater tanktop and tattoos is coming after me.

“Hey F**ker, you want to start something?!”  I think he repeated that a few times as I ignored him and kept walking up the hill.

“Hey little Sh**, I’m talking to you!” was another thing he said, (hey at least my diet’s working huh?)

I took a mental note: cell phone is in my left pocket, we are in public, if anything happens I can’t drop the leash to Skyler’s runner/stroller because we are on a hill.  I stopped and squared up.

I really don’t remember much that he said, I was trying to stay calm as he went off on being mister macho, ape man.  He was basically pissed off at me for telling his 9 year old daughter to keep their dogs inside.  Apparently his 9 year old daughter embellished the story of what happened saying that I yelled at her and threatened her and scared her.  I refreshed his memory of the time they drove up the hill to pick up their dog from chasing us and he began to calm down, realizing he was in the wrong.  Skye stepped to help ease the pressure of the conflict.  I apologized if I scared his daughter and also stated that his dogs scare my 2 year old son so I am just protecting my family.

He finally backed down, hopefully realizing the whole story.  I offered my hand and he shook it, turned around and he walked home.

It is surprising to me how people can get so angry at something so small that the first thing they want to do is go beat someone up.  This was the closest I’ve been to getting my ass kicked since I was bullied in 7th grade by a red-neck 8th grader.

When we got home, there was a part of me that wished I pulled a Bruce Lee meets Chuck Noris on this looser but what good would that have done.  Skye tells me we did the right thing, and I know we did.  It makes me think how lucky I am.  I have a family who loves me and a family I’d do anything for.  This poor looser guy yells at his daughter, probably beats up his wife and his dogs don’t even like him.  I feel sorry for that a-hole.

Note to self: Kiska Drive is now off the route.  I need to expand my loop to 1.5 miles anyway.  Kiska Drive Rat Dog Man is a still an A-hole.

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