Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods

How you been doin’? Here’s a quick rundown of the things I’ve done today:

1. Sat back, obeyed the rules and did nothing as Mrs. G and Little E fished in the mon & son fishing tournament at Carol Ann Cross Park. No fish were caught by this family on this day. Man, I wanted to jump in there and help… but the rules specifically forbade it. I just had to sit back and shut up. Now I’m jonesing to go fish rainbow trout on the White River. Just me, a boat, a rod, a reel, some bait, some lures, a hat big enough to keep the sun out of my eyes, some tunes, absolutely no cell phone signal whatsoever, no wi-fi, no nothing. If you don’t hear from me in a few days, I’m probably sleeping with the fishes. In a good way.
2. Went to the Fort Smith Public Library for the used book sale and, just as we pulled into the parking lot, saw a wheelchair-bound woman zip down the access ramp, way too fast, and took a tumble out of her wheelchair when she hit the curb instead of the ramp across from her. She landed in the grassy divider and not concrete, which is a good thing, but that scared the hell out of me. Bet it didn’t do her any favors either. Me, a mail carrier and one of the library employees tried to help her up, but her daughter showed up in a panic and told us that either the fire department or EMS has to help her with that; we would’ve just injured her worse.
3. As if that wasn’t enough to draw a crowd, among the crowd were two big, friendly stray pit bulls roaming around in front of the library. I stopped and petted them for a bit until they moved on, mainly to keep them from freaking folks out. Since Xena and Gabby were crashed when we all left at the crack of dawn, these two were the friendliest dogs I saw all morning. They had very obvious dogfighting injuries, and yet they were all over me, stinky-breath dog kisses and all.

   Pit bulls aren’t bad dogs. Some pit bull owners, on the other hand, like whoever’s obviously keeping two injured fighting dogs around and letting mange eat them alive, are real pieces of shit. If not for the likely conflict of personalities with the existing canine security staff at my place, I might’ve taken them home. Great dogs. Didn’t ask for whatever’s happened to them. I couldn’t get them to stay long enough for animal control to show up. Good luck, pups. I want to find your ex-owner and keep him from ever breeding again (whether you read that to mean breeding dogs to fight or breeding more people like himself, you didn’t land too far from the truth). But I’ll settle for you two love-starved mutts finding a loving home.

   Sadly, the BS myth about pit bulls being four-legged killing machines across the board will probably prevent this from happening.

4. Got soaked in pit bull slobber right before walking in for the library book sale. Also, next stop after the book sale was my niece’s birthday party at Fuji Steakhouse. Woohoo! Uncle Earl showed up smelling like pit bull slobber! Happy birthday! 😆

Little E got a book about doggies at the book sale; I was sorely tempted by the big box of old Star Trek novels, but I passed. Perused the LPs and tapes to see if there were any out-of-print, not-released-on-anything-but-vinyl movie soundtracks (library and estate sales are awesome for finds like that). No dice, or someone got there before me. (You know, the one other soundtrack nut who lives in this area, if indeed there is one other.)

Next week is the “mostly non-fiction sale.” As the former governor of California once said, “I’ll be back.” Hangin’ with my dawgs, no doubt.… Read more