Let me take you back to late summer. September to be exact.
We had lived in Fayetteville for about a month and a half, and I'd successfully navigated all of my favorite running haunts. And I loved every minute of it!! Skull creek, Mud creek, side streets, Lake Fayetteville, Dickson and Downtown, around campus, Mount Sequoyah…you name it, I'd run it and had broken some toes in the process (OK, one toe…left pinky).
On to the point of my story.
I was running along bopping out to Fresh Prince of Bel Air noticing the hot and cooler patches of air I was passing through and NOT the painful toe, the large dog following behind an oddly friendly runner-man who waved while trudging up a crazy hill at a fast pace, the pinky toenail that was annoyingly digging in to my 4th toe on the right foot, and the dead end street sign that alerted me that I was about to have to trek back up that crazy hill. You get the pic. I was aware of my surroundings. Man, I was loving this run!! Plus I was keeping a decent pace (thank you, downhill), even with my broken toe!
Then it happened. Never have I ever been so afraid in all of my running life. I'm serious dudes, like even when I got caught out in a lightning storm at Bona Dea Trail in Russ Vegas and ditched my mom or that one time I was almost abducted in downtown Siloam by a man in an old gray Pathfinder, I was shitzu-poodle my pants scared.
There it was. The meanest dog I'd ever seen. Bristled up and staring at me as I turned around at the dead end. Maybe I alarmed him out with my fancy run-dance moves and singing? Maybe I looked tastier than the man he was running behind earlier? Who knows. It was a stand-off. I didn't make eye contact. I tried to discretely slide around him by walking in the ditch. Then he started growling. And licking his fangs. Yes, that dog had fangs. FANGS!! (OK, so maybe I imagined that part). Yeah, buddy. I was going down.
I tried to back away slowly, but he started walking toward me, all growly and bristly. I was about to be an after-school snack for a hideous pit-bull-mutt!! I'm pretty sure he would've taken off an entire butt-cheek with one big chomp. Against everything I'd ever heard about what you should do if you're attacked by an animal, I threw all caution to the wind, turned my back on Fido, and ran for my life!!
I sprinted up the nearest driveway like my feet were on fire. Broken toe? What broken toe? I might've PRed at an uphill 100-meter dash, I was moving so fast. I pounded on the door. No answer. There were cars in the drive and the garage was up…I knew they were in there!! My life was hanging in the balance here. How could they not answer?!? So what if I looked like a half-crazed sweaty mess limping up their entry path: my eyes were wild, I was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf, and I may or may not have been talking to myself, I can't be sure.
My heart was racing (I had that crazy heart-beat arrhythmia junk going on from my wonderful autonomic nervous system pumping massive amounts of adrenaline through my body so I could fight or flight, and flight I did because this was DANGER). I needed in!! That dog was circling the mailbox at the end of the drive. He caught my scent! Or maybe he just watched me run up the driveway. So I beat their door down again. And I'm talking beat-down-the-door-because-I'm-about-to-be-murdered knocks, not Girl-Scout-would-you-like-to-buy-some-cookies knocks. At a complete stranger's house. And……….crickets. Nothing. Not. One. Single. Thing. Oh geez. What now?? The bell!! There was no sign that said, "Bell Out of Order, Please Knock." So I rang. Repeatedly. Surely my persistence would get their attention and they would let me in (or maybe call the cops). Still, nothing.
By now the big pit bull thing had spotted me and was barking furiously in my direction, and I was about to LOSE IT…or maybe I already had, depending on who you ask. I had to get help. I had my phone! Yes. So who do I call??? Not Ghostbusters. I ain't afraid of no ghosts, but I'm terrified of scary dogs. That's for sure.
I called Matthew. And down the crazy hill he came…flying. In his little blue Subaru station wagon (Roo, as I fondly call her), to my rescue. Without his shoes on. He left the house so quickly he didn't even put them on.
Shamefully, I admit, since the home-owners had never answered, I'd become a shrubbery-peeper (but, only to watch for my hero and explain directions for the third time…I clearly didn't marry him for his directional sense), as I'd attempted to avoid the gnarly teeth of the assailant dog. At last, Matty Poo rescued me.
PS. I'm not sure when or how it happened, but by the time Matthew arrived, the dog had lain down in the middle of the road at the end of the drive (blocking my way out of the shrub) and had fallen asleep.
