The Stink Wars of 2015.
There
was another yellow spot on the lawn. The neighbor had been walking his dog
again. Always ticks me off. So I went looking. The darned thing always
leaves more than 3 lbs of kielbasa-shaped dog crap. I knew it had to be there somewhere.
It always is. The pompous bugger would never have left it on anyone else's
lawn. I found it and scooped it up and dumped it in the white plastic garbage bag
containing the sum total of the last three days 'puppy chow'; maybe 15 lbs.
The neighbor
had a pure bred dog, part Afghan hound, part St. Bernard, and part German shepherd.
The Afghan genes obviously dominated its intelligence, coloring and
general shape. It got the St. Bernard’s size, 'output volume' and
drool. The German shepherd showed through in ears, tail and Nazi
attitude. This was one ugly dog.
Heck,
this was one ugly neighbor too. His name was Hyde. We used to
joke about how Dr. Jekyll was never home. Like the dog, this guy was
a pure bred cross. I could see elements of Bella Lugosi, Peter Lorre, and Yul
Brynner in his genes. He had a Bela Lugosi face, a Peter Lorry snivel and
a Yul Brynner strut.
He
loved to brag about his 'house-trained' dog. Heck yeah, house trained is right!
He had trained the dog to go to my house. He would open the door. The dog
would sniff the air, come out the door, take the steps 2 at a time, bound
across the lawn, jump the hedge with about 2 ft to spare, and do an inspection
tour of my lawn before it chose a spot to leave its mark on the earth. To
add insult to injury the dog would turn its back on the pile and kick up clods
of my fresh mowed sod with his back feet in a useless attempt to cover his
tracks.
My
lawn was in serious need of saving.
I
decided defensive tactics were in order. My brother-in-law is a know-it-all.
Just ask my mother-in-law or my wife. He knows everything. He said just throw
the dog crap back on the neighbors own lawn. I tried that. I found a key
scratch all down the side of my new Volvo the next morning. I kinda knew
what that message was saying. It spelled out "Don’t mess with me." in nice big
scratchy letters. I was mad and in a mood to be much more destructive but
my natural cowardice took precedence, for now.
My
brother-in-law was enraged. He figured I should walk up to the neighbor’s door,
ring his doorbell, and punch his lights out. I thought it was a great
idea but since I was going to be away that day I asked my brother-in-law if he
would do it for me. He didn’t even pause when he said "Maybe it’s not such
a great idea." My mother-in-law agreed with him. She had agreed with him
when he first suggested the 'punch his lights out' approach too. My
brother-in-law then suggested 'pepper'. Okay, that sounded better than the
'lights out' scheme. So the very next day I bought 3 large (the giant lifetime
supply type) cans of Malkin's Black Pepper. Somehow I didn’t think bell
peppers or even Jalapenos would do.) (Did you know that during the middle
ages black pepper was more valuable than gold? Now too!!) I spread it all
over the lawn, side to side and corner to corner... I spread it thick. I’m
sure it would have worked if that freak 'sneezing' wind hadn't come up soon
after. .. People complained about it for months. How every resident
of every house for 2 blocks down the street erupted in fits of uncontrollable
sneezing. Cats ran away. And didn’t come back. The fat lady next door had
to be hospitalized, but she lost 20 pounds in a week long sneezing fit. Two
older gentlemen also had to be hospitalized after a fight that broke out when
one of them sneezed the poker pot off the table. When I heard some of the
serious complaints people had about the mysterious storm, I didn’t have the
heart to complain about my measly loss of 3 Kg. of black pepper.
Then
one day when my brother in law and I were out watching the kids play soccer he
brought out a grocery bag and we lazed back in our lawn chairs with two kinds
of cheese, some pepperoni and some crackers. It was a great
impromptu lunch. The real thing he gave me that afternoon however, was later at
home. When we got back to the house with our respective sons, soccer sweat and
muddy boots, he complained to my wife, (his sister), that he had eaten enough
cheese to wreck 3 years worth of Metamucil. The light in the attic suddenly
shone bright. I had an idea. Cheese worked like a plug. I know exactly where a
plug like that could be useful. That night I bought 3 kilos of mild
Cheddar.
The
dog didn’t like cheddar. It ignored the cheddar.
This
was strange for me. I remembered when I
was a kid, my dog, loved cheese. My Norwegian relatives sent us some Norwegian “Gamel
Ost” one year. (“Gamel Ost” translates rather innocently to 'Old Cheese')
This translation doesn’t carry with it the mortal fear children in Norway have
for this dark brown cheese with the strong odor and bite like a rabid
snake. We have boogey men. They have “Gamel Ost”. When the parcel
delivery guy arrived with a package from my mothers Norwegian cousins, my dog
barked and wagged its tail with obvious excitement. And the package had been
triple wrapped in cellophane and sprayed with 'Evening in Paris' eau de toilette. As we unwrapped
it layer by layer, the poor mongrel Border collie had gotten
increasingly wild. When we opened the top of the box we got the full force
of a smell enhanced by a month-long unrefrigerated trip across the North Atlantic. The sweet concentrated odor of sweat
socks and sewer treatment plants wafted past our nostrils summoning tears of
sentimental joy. My father said "What the Hell… "(He never
swore.) And tossed the whole package including two beautiful Norwegian Sweaters as
far as he could out the back door toward the alley. The dog was in full
stride when it went between his legs and jumped a full 10 feet from the back steps.
The cardboard packaging was ripped to shreds by the time I got to the door to
watch. “Lady” was rolling deliciously in the brown and green ‘eau de Toilette
de Chien” (translate that ‘Canine Evening in Paris’). That was the
year the Skunks fled the town and the porcupines all lost their quills. Since
that week (that seemed like a year) I have known that dogs love cheese. And the
greater the smell the greater the desire. But I digress. Suffice it
to say, I needed more smell.
The
next day I went to the German Grocery Store. I had seen Special Scandinavian
cheeses there once before. I was in luck they still had the same package
of “Gamel Ost”. (I remember the date was from 3 years previous to the first
visit.)... .. This “Gamle Ost” was OLD!! … And it still had its
special sale price. . Much cheaper than the pepper. But it was only
about 500 grams. I needed more. I decided I would have to mix it with the
cheddar. So I went to the army surplus store for a gas mask.
Two
trial asphyxiations and three baths in salt water later, the mixed cheese
casserole (the added oatmeal was the piece of resistance) was done. It was on
the newly fenced off lawn. The paint was blistering on that side of the
house when the neighbor let his dog out. In a split second it was rolling in
the cheese. In spite of the wider spread of the smell, the blistering paint and
the pack of hungry dogs coming up the street, I smiled. I watched when the
greedy monstrosity gulped down all 5 and a half kilos of thick “eau de Paris”
soufflé.
We
didn’t get much sleep that night. Cause the dog spent the night in the
neighbor's back yard howling its head off. I got up and marinated
two kilo of ground beef in Castor oil! I also added all four bottles of
Cod Liver Oil capsules collected by my Norwegian mother in Walmart’s big
anniversary ‘vitamin – price blow out’ .. 5 years ago. I let the whole
slimy mess ‘age’ for 5 or 10 minutes. It was about 6 AM when I tossed the very
oily raw hamburger over the back fence. The dog quieted down for a bit. About
an hour later I heard the neighbor swearing up a storm as he entered the back
yard sporting a snazzy new gas mask. (More expensive than the one I bought) He
used his electric hair clippers to shear the beast before using plenty of soap
and water to excise the dog perfume. I was surprised how quietly the dog
stood. I watch quietly well behind the screen door on my side of the back
fence. The pleasant smell of talcum powder and Lifebuoy soap mixed with the
smell of burning hair and roasting cheese exuded an ambivalent ambiance. After vomiting 3 times, I sealed the back door and nailed it
shut. I watched from the side window, waiting for the inevitable.
My
waiting was in vain. The man didn’t complain about any dog crap so I assumed
that the cheese was not going to surrender to the hamburger easily. .. Nothing
had happened. Finally after the sun had been up long enough to dry the dog
off, Hyde let the moaning dog into the house. I could see that he
had sheered the dog like a sheep. … It was moving a bit more sluggishly but
Hyde gave no complaints. So, obviously, the dog smelled better and hadn't
changed the atmosphere… yet.
Pondering
the uneventful clean up process, I was suddenly STRUCK WITH TERROR!!!!
Any minute now that dog was going to scratch at the front door to be let out to
do its thing, IN MY FRONT YARD!!!! .. Crap and double crap.
What could I do?
I
panicked. We were all going to die! I only had one gas mask. We had to
move fast. I mean really move! Pack up our belongings. Armageddon
was here. It was time for the Exodus. A smell worse than fire and brimstone
with sulfur flavoring would soon permeate the yard. No one would buy our
house. Visions of Chernobyl!
The
need to defend my castle came next. How could I meet the invader at the
hedgerow? Where were my Tiger Tanks? Did we have any bear spray left over from
holidays? Maybe I could hold off the beast. A sword. A cross bow? Anything??? And
then it came to me. Pepper. Maybe it would
work after all. .. I raced to the kitchen… and raided the spice cupboard until
I found a small half full spice bottle of black pepper bottle. It would
have to do. I was at war.
I
raced from the house and bounded over the intervening hedge. .. Almost tripping
as I caught my foot on the branches, I landed on one foot and kept going as I
stooped running under his picture window to his front step. I quickly
dumped the half bottle of black pepper in a pile on the ‘Welcome’ mat. I
turned and headed for the hedge, stooping under the picture window and doing a
swan dive over the top. Somersaulting to my feet and looking for my garden
shovel to fend the beast off.
The
shovel was by the flower bed beside the house. I scurried back just in time to
hear the neighbors front door opening. I braced for the onslaught. The
dog or I would be dead! Looking through a small gap in the hedge I watched as
the dog stuck its head out the door. It stopped and sniffed. It then
lowered its head and got a good whiff of the strange material it smelled.
And it sneezed. And did it sneeze!!!! It backed into the house in panic. ..The
screen door slammed shut but the inside door was still open as I heard it heave
and belch in great lung crushing sneezes. Gut squeezing sneezes. Sphincter
loosening sneezes. Great brown pneumatic shooting sneezes. I heard chaos.
Hyde was swearing. I heard a dog yelping between sneezes as it ran over,
behind, and under furniture to avoid its angry master. I heard a continued
sneezing combined with the crashing sound as furniture seemed to come alive it
a mad dash to get out of the way. A lamp crashed. Through the window I saw Hyde
slip and fall. Visions of Chernobyl
reentered my head! I smiled.
Epilogue.
Hyde
moved out. I heard the dog was given to a Newfoundland Elk Rancher. His house
was up for sale for over 6 months but it finally sold. The new neighbor
was an opportunist who bought it as a fixer upper to be flipped. He did major
renovations to get rid of the ambiance of the former resident. He finally sold
for a loss when the market fell. The older couple who finally got the house
more than a year later, are great neighbors. They have two yappy little Maltese
dogs and a kitty litter box.
