the dog catcher, cassidy, and i. and bear.

so, it's been a very eventful day. and, you know, everything just can't go smoothly. i just had to share cass' and mine's experience with the dog catcher. yep. the dog catcher.

this morning, i head over to pick up the paper for the programs from scott and viv's. cassidy was there alone, so she decided to head to the printer's with me. we walk out of the house, get to the truck and realize the paper is inside. so, we walk back in, get the paper and try to leave. bear decided at that very moment to snake by our legs and run out the door. well, when bear does that and the gate is open... he's gone. we see him directly in front of the neighbor's house and are on our way to go call him in, when the animal control truck pulls up. at this point, we have no idea why he's even in the neighborhood. but, i'll get to that in a minute. so, jerk-face dog catcher says to me (because i'm closest to him) is this the same dog we picked up a couple weeks ago? (let me just say, that yes, bear did get picked up and was put in "jail" for the night until vivian drove downtown to rescue him) anyway -- i stall because i am not about to admit that. finally, i say i don't know. he very rudely says "you don't know if you own dog got picked up?" by this point, i'd had enough of his rudeness, so i said back in the same tone "i don't live here." cassidy tells him she does. she says "can we go get bear now?" he says "if you don't, i will." cass says "well, you're blocking the driveway." he doesn't understand the problem. so she says, "bear runs faster than i can, we need to take our truck." so, he asks for her drivers license and says he'll "wait for us." very sweet of him, hm? well, by this point, we have no freakin' clue where bear has gone. if the jerk hadn't grilled us we could have had bear back by then. 10 minutes of searching later, we found bear. we pull into the driveway, make a big show of shutting the gate, putting bear in the house, climbing in the truck again, open the gate, and pull out. then he grills us about the rabies tag, or rather lack of, on bear. which is why he is there. he was coming out to check up on that today and just happened to arrive when bear darted out. impeccable timing. then, he drags meshack into the ordeal. poor meshack is laying peacefully on the porch. but, he doesn't have a collar on, so jerk-face has to ask about him. he wants proof of rabies papers on the dogs. well, of course, cassidy has no clue where those are and says as much. he finally relents and says he's writing her a warning, not a citation since her "parents should have taken care of it." such a thoughtful guy, he is. he sits in his truck for what seems like 5 minutes to write his little "warning." gets back out and "explains" the warning to us. he wants to know "how do you spell meshack? m... e...?" cass says "whatever, it doesn't matter." he didn't like that much. good thing i didn't say what i wanted to -- "you know meshack? like in the Bible? meschack, shadrack, and abednego?" then he goes into "why" she is getting the warning, because "when we got home, our dog ran off." WHAT?! i'd had it at this point -- so i say "we hadn't left yet! we opened the gate so that we could leave! and he was right in front of the neighbor's yard! we would have had him back in if you hadn't blocked the driveway!" he looks at me and says "if you don't stop right now, i'm going to write you a ticket." WHAT?!?! the DOG CATCHER is going to write me a TICKET?! he can do that?! i literally bit my lip so as not to say the words i wanted to -- "go ahead, make it legible though, because i want to frame this one!" he finished his little bit, cass signed, and we got in the truck. and preceded to die laughing. if he only knew how much he's been mocked this evening. oh and he was parked behind me so i couldn't pull my truck out and i am convinced he would have sat there longer if a car hadn't needed to get by. so he inched forward and blocked 3/4 of the road so that i had to drive in the grass to get around him. he also checked out my plates as he pulled past me. what a loser! i'm sorry he can't get a real job, but it certainly was no reason to start the whole exchange with complete rudeness and accusations.

so that began our morning. and really i could go on, because that wasn't the only issue in this crazy day... but i just really had to share my dog catcher story. anyway, it's been a long day and tomorrow is going to be just as long. so i'm headed to bed!