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I Don’t Like Dogs
When I was a wee young thing doing wee young things such as riding my awesome Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to four tonnes) in the cul-de-sac in which I was brought up, there happened one day an incident that scarred me mentally.
The cul-de-sac wasn’t in a great neighbourhood and many of our neighbours could be classed as dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scum with dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scummy kids. The mental scarring (the story behind which I’m about to impart in a moment) may have coloured my memory somewhat but – I don’t know – the pictures seem pretty accurate. Some of these swine lived – it seemed – fifty to a house and considered the small lawn in front of their abode to be the perfect place for naked, shit-stained babies to crawl among the rusting shopping trollies, twisted plastic detritus, and collected brickwork from classic walls of yesteryear. And every extended family owned a dog; one of those ones that runs a lot, slathers more, and barks at everything.
On the day of my mental scarring I was riding my awesome Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to seven tonnes) in the quiet (traffic-wise) yet noisy (kids ‘n’ canines-wise) cul-de-sac. Of course it wasn’t really a Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to eleven tonnes) but rather an interplanetary attack craft with atmospheric insertion and combat capabilities. The handle grip that turned once four hundreds lbs/ft of torque was applied and shifted up and down the gears doubled as a weapon selection panel. An advanced aiming-with-the-front-wheel system was used for targeting. Sound effects by yours truly.
Those cars parked on the left? Pirates running stolen cargo out of the Jovian system. The lamp-post outside number 13? One of the new laser sentry posts with the incredible computer-controlled firing guidance technology installed by the ginger-bearded Sinclair Corporation.
I’d taken some damage – ran over a mine disguised as a lump of flint – but the Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to fourteen tonnes) interplanetary attack craft with atmospheric insertion and combat capabilities was a tough little fighter. The pirates were streaking through the atmosphere in flames, the sentry posts were mangled and scorched lumps of metal, the day was mine.
When you’re as good as I was you make enemies. In this case dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scummy kid enemies with dogs that run a lot, slather more, and bark at everything. As it turned out the dogs also obeyed the command of "attack him!" shouted out by their cruel and filthy owners. I don’t know why they did it – they may have been working with the pirates or maybe they had some brain infection caught off rusting shopping trollies – but I do know that the dogs attacked me.
I wasn’t bitten but I did fall. At the time I wished I’d fallen towards the four-legged fuckers and landed on them as my awesome Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to eighteen tonnes) was built from some form of super-dense material that could only be mined from within neutron stars. As it was I was just about able to run in terror alongside my former interplanetary attack craft with atmospheric insertion and combat capabilities while dogs and children’s laughter pursued me down the cul-de-sac.
That’s why I don’t like dogs. I also don’t like dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scum but I thought I’d go for a shorter, snappier title for this post.
I feel as though i just watched a coming of age movie staring 80s kid actors with converse trainers and striped tops
Yes, I insist that one of the multitude of Coreys must play me while my best friend at the time will be a young Anthony Michael Hall. Directed by John Hughes.
I know exactly what you mean Mark. I’ve grown to like dogs now that I’m a lot bigger than them and quietly confident that unless they’re of the killer rabid man-eater variety I could probably make one think twice about attacking me. But, as a puny young boy, barely twice the height of a Labrador, I had a paper round. It wasn’t a proper paper round, where I got paid proper money – it was a lousy job delivering free papers to people that really weren’t interested in getting them, and I got paid a few pence for lumping several tonnes of waste paper around the local neighbourhood.
Anyway, one fine day a rather nasty black mutt that always used to hammer at the garden gate when I delivered a paper to his house, managed to clear the 6 foot gate in a frothing fit of rage that I had dared to walk up his drive, and proceeded to attack me. Fortunately I was quick enough to swing my rucksack full of papers in front of me and used it as a defensive shield whilst the dog proceeded to tear and bite at the bag in an effort to reach me. I am slightly ashamed to admit that by this stage I was shrieking like a girl because I thought I was going to be savaged and eaten (before you mock me, remember I was just a puny boy back then).
The thing that really annoys me (even now, all these years later), is the owner came out of the house, and despite witnessing her evil hell-hound ripping the belly out of my rucksack, just said “Oh don’t worry, he won’t hurt you.”, before calling it off – words I barely heard above my unmanly screams.