As some of you know, in an effort to render myself into a healthier (and slightly smaller) Cynic, I have taken to walking home in the afternoons as the option presents itself. This means that 4-5 days a week, I take the 1.5 mile route home by foot, making a couple of small detours to chat with friends of mine who work at establishments along my route home.
At one point in particular, the shortest route home would have me walking right alongside a busy stretch of the loop, so like a clever lad, I walk up the parallel residential street that sits about 20 feet from the loop and then cut across the lot of the appliance store at the end of the road. This has been a rather productive endeavor as the street is all but vacant and it gives me a nice chance to wander through suburbia and admire all of the wonderful homes that the white trash residents have allowed to go to pot. Yeah... so it's not the nicest neighborhood, but it keeps me out of traffic.
Earlier this evening, as I was taking my daily walk through hickdom, I noted several dogs barking loudly from one of the hicks' front yards. This is not atypical in and of itself, though I noted that the dogs were out front instead of being fenced in around back of the house and closer inspection revealed that they were not chained up. Now, being a rather open-minded fellow, I figured the dogs were trained to stay in the front yard, bark menacingly and let travellers go along with their business. Suffice it to say that I was a bit taken aback when all three dogs took to the street and moved to within 10 feet of me, barking at me. Feeling in my pocket, I reached for my knife and attempted to walk a little bit faster as I noticed that the dogs were attempting to surround me.
Working back to some of the random knowledge I'd acquired on the way, I remembered that dogs attempt to surround their prey in order to take it down. Not one to be taken down, I began making lunges at the dogs in order to keep them all on one side of me, preparing to deal with the first one to charge. As those who know me will note, when truly angry, I have somewhat of a frightening presence and, believe me, these dogs were upsetting me. It was about at this point that the stupid inbred owners of these dogs came out of their house and noticed that their dogs were menacing me. As they began calling for the dogs, one of them attempted to charge and came up short of a kick that probably would have broken a bone or two. At this point the inbreds began shouting that I needn't kick the dogs, these were good dogs and wouldn't bite anyone. Right after this they managed to call off the dogs and I glared at them and walked off, thankful that I hadn't had to deal with the probable confrontation that would have resulted, had they noticed the knife that I was preparing to use on at least one of those mongrels.
Muttering to myself and thinking pleasant thoughts about calling animal control, I resumed my stroll, giving my friend Tim a call to recount my suffering at the hands of stupid hicks. My street crossings were thankfully without incident, and I proceeded to the mall, where my friends at Software Etcetera were holding my $10 Happy Hacker keyboard that they'd just gotten in (Logitech knock-off, not the real deal... :-( )
Wandering in, I noted that the store seemed packed with people, most of whom had come in search of a PS3 reservation, all of which had been sold hours before. As I stood around chatting with the guys who work there, a customer came up and sat a stack of games on the table, asking how much he could get for them. The response was $19 in store credit with a special that they're currently running or $8 cash. After some hemming and hawing, the customer decided that he wanted cash.
Now, some of you know, I'm not too easy on idiots, nor am I particularly reticent in pointing their idiocies out to them. True to form, I told this guy that $19 was a much better deal than $8... to which he replied that Software Etc. didn't sell cigarettes and he needed smokes. Yeah... because an stupid premise makes an idiotic decision viable, right?
Deciding that this was a lost soul, I began channeling P.T. Barnum. "You want $10 for those games?" I asked, whipping out a crisp Alexander Hamilton. "Sure," he said, handing me the games. Well, I've already got some stuff on reserve at Software Etc. and I wanted to buy my keyboard, so I handed them the games, they handed me my keyboard, and they transferred $9 to my reserves. Yes, that's right, I made $9 just for being able to do math and not having a nicotine addiction.
Now, if I can only get those dogs taken to the pound or at least have the rednecks fined, it will have been a very productive walk home.