Stop the World? Yea, verily…

As I was saying the other day: Stop the World! 😀

Mercifully, this morning the world does seem to have come to a stop. When I woke up, I thought TODAY I HAVE TO TAKE THE CAR TO GET THE REAR BUMPER REPLACED and ooooh lhudly sing goddam I’ve gotta be there by 7:30 and I have NO idea where the body shop is!

Hell and damnation, what a way to greet the accursed day!

Even worse, I’d say, than yesterday, which was quite the little winner.

Along about mid-day, it was down to the gourmet grocer’s. Come prancing out with my purchases. Toss them in the back of the vehicle. Jump in. Start the engine. Can’t see traffic coming on either side, because much larger critters are parked to the left of me and parked to the right of me. E-a-a-s-e out into the lane and

WHAM!!!!!!!!

Some sunovabitch runs into me.

It’s my fault, of course. Because he had the wrong of way, being in the traffic lane and not in a parking spot.

We call a cop to report the dust-up. Cop refuses to write me a ticket, because — says he — we’re on private property.

{can you imagine???}

Welp. Things brightened up a little when I looked at the computer and realized today is Saturday, not Monday. This means I won’t have to spend several hours twiddling my thumbs in the body shop’s waiting room today, anyhow. But more to the point, it means I have all of today and all of tomorrow to drive into glummest northwest Phoenix to locate the place. And that means I won’t have to flail around in Monday’s morning rush hour searching for it.

It also meant that Ruby and I could go for our morning doggy-walk, uninterrupted.

So along about 6 a.m., it was out the door, dragged by a 35-pound beast.

Ruby l-o-o-o-o-ves the park. Ohhh, how she loves that damn park! So whenever we go out for a doggy-walk, she invariably drags me in that direction.

Today I decided to indulge her: why not?

Then again…why?

See, the problem with the park — well, one of its problems — is that at this hour the place is overrun with dogs.

See that big sign at the entrance? The one that reads

DOGS MUST BE ON LEASH

???

You’d be surprised how many of your fellow citizens can’t read. Any time you go over there — particularly during the Doggy Parade hours — the damn place is overrun with dogs racing back and forth off-lead.

A corgi, though to the naked eye a cute little teddy-bear of a dog, is not a teddy-bear. It’s a short German shepherd.

And, like Anna the GerShep before her, Ruby wants little more from life than the opportunity to clear the earth of other dogs.

So if you come bounding up to me with your own teddy-bear on a leash, Ruby is gonna go after it. And if your effing dawg is running around off-lead, then I am going to get dragged into a dog fight.

This is why I try to avoid that damn park as much as possible.

But not today. Nothing would do but what we had to charge over to the park on this beautiful, cool morning with high clouds prancing in the morning breeze.

First off, a Creep spots me. And he is a creepy one.

See…when you’re born female, you learn to avoid certain types of men. And by the time you’re about 20, you’ve learned to recognize those types on sight, from a considerable distance.

He starts to follow us.

I catch up with a couple of older men and ask if I can walk with them. They clearly think I’m crazy but say OK.

Natcherly, we just get going when Ruby stops to dump on the grass.

So much for that strategy.

The two guys having gone on their way, I decide Discretion Is the Better Part, and we head out of the park, homeward-bound.

My cookies are frosted.

Seriously: God DAMN it!!!!!!! You can’t even go for a walk in the neighborhood park — for which you pay with your taxes — without harassment.

It does look like it’s going to rain pretty quick, even though Wunderground emotes to the contrary. They predict just 2 percent chance of precip today, 5 percent tomorrow.

Oh well.

This will mean that later today I can drive up to the alleged location of the auto body shop (and drive, and drive, and drive…it’s halfway to freakin’ Ahwatukee!), which will help a great deal tomorrow, since I have to be there at 7:30 in the morning. Right in the middle of the effin’ rush hour!

Unless forced to do otherwise, I stay off the roads here during the rush hour. Arizona drivers make California drivers look stodgy. You take your life in your hands every time you get behind a steering wheel here…but your chances of meeting oblivion go way up during the rush hours.

Especially when you’re pretty vague about where you’re going…

Oh well. It’s long past breakfast time. The human is starved. And so…awaaayyyyy!