Jennie Smash

You know, every so often I start to think about someday having a kid or at least getting a dog, and then immediately afterward, something happens that makes me realize that I am just not at all well enough for either.

For instance, this evening my friends Isaac and Cathy and Sara and I took her pooch for a walk. Sara’s dog is awesome. His name is Jake, he’s a Shiba Inu, looks like a small docile bear, and never barks. His one problem is that he really doesn’t like other dogs. He kind of wants to kill them. Because Sara loves her dog and doesn’t want to get sued, and also because it’s the law in Boston, she therefore walks him on a leash. Very smart, right?

Well, here’s the problem: Many of the stupid hippies who populate Jamaica Plain do not feel that their dogs should be encumbered by silly little things like leashes. They have similarly lax ideas about child rearing, but that’s another entry for another time. This evening, we’re concentrating on the dog problem, or more specifically, on the owner problem, because this particular situation was definitely a case of Stupid Owner.

Let me sketch this woman out for you. Fortyish, wearing some kind of furry Peruvian sweater. Hair sensibly coiffed in what appeared to be a wiffle. Long feathery substitute art teacher earrings. One dog, of indeterminate breed. One child, who is clearly doomed.

Peruvian Sweater and child were walking a block behind us. Their mutt, sans leash, was dancing around poor Jake, snapping and barking and generally inciting riot.

“Is this your dog?” Sara called back to Peruvian Sweater.

“Oh, yes, that’s him!”

“Well, you might want to come get him,” she said, yanking on Jake’s leash while he tried to go for the mutt’s jugular. “My dog isn’t friendly. Just FYI.”

Peru ambled over, very slowly, making dumbass cooing sounds, like that would help. After a few feeble grabs, she managed to get ahold of what I’m sure was a 100% hemp collar, and haul her dog out of Jake’s personal space.

“This is actually why you’re supposed to have your dog on a leash,” I told her.

She made irritated noises. “You’re not very friendly! In fact, you’re just as unfriendly as this dog!”

You know in the Popeye cartoons, when Bluto saw red? Yeah, that’s what happened right then. “Oh, I’m actually a lot less friendly than this dog, believe me.”

“I can see that! I can see that!” Ushering the kid and the dog away, she called back over her shoulder. “You need a muzzle!”

“Oh, yeah?” I said.

“Jen, she’s with a kid–” Cathy cautioned.

“–Well you need to be spayed.”

Keens of Peruvian sweater-clad indignation bounced over the snow as she tried in vain to block her kid’s ears and hold the dog collar. And no one was really speaking to me on the way home.

But I’m here to tell you: That kid was ruined anyway. Her Mom is exactly the sort of person who pickets unjust corporations on the corner and then goes right into the nearest Starbucks and berates the baristas. I have absolutely no use for such people. And I’m taking them down, one unfriendly act at a time.