The day the Baby was almost eaten

It was a beautiful June morning so I decide to take 6-month-old Sam for a walk. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the flowers are delightfully bee-infested. We take our normal turn down the "nice street." You know, the street we live close to but can't afford to actually live on and I feel a little guilty every time I cart my dirty children past their gracious homes? Right, so, anyway, we're heading down the nice street. And there I am, minding my own business when, from up ahead of us, I hear a growl. I pause mid-stride, but I see an "Invisible Fence" signs so I keep going, albeit at a slightly more reluctant pace.



Invisible Fences make me uncomfortable. Like, I get the idea, but you have to understand that it is not an actual BARRIER. It is a deterrent, but if my face looks like a tempting enough treat, it seems to me that that is suddenly just being weighed in balance ("Getting a shock . . . eating a face . . . getting a shock . . . eating a face . . . decisions, decisions) as opposed to, "Oh, I'd totally eat that girl's face except there is this wall so I guess I'll just have to forget that." I'm not a gambler, people.


As we get closer the barking starts and grows rapidly more frantic. From behind a large bush I can see a dark shape, roughly the size of, oh, I don't know, let's say a cow? And this shape is quivering with longing. But not with a longing to cuddle the way my husband often does. Suddenly, the dog breaks and races towards us full speed and my knees buckle a little. The dog screeches to a halt approximately 8 inches away from us, an enraged salivating beast separated from us by nothing but air and the promise that the shock setting is dialed up to "cripple."


But here's the weird thing, the thing I notice while the world has gone into slow-mo. The dog is wearing a t-shirt that says "Babies Makes Good Snackies." It was like seeing that McCain/Palin bumper sticker on your co-worker's car. You thought she was probably a republican, but you are now for sure not going out to drinks with her. I was pretty sure that dog wanted to eat the baby, but there it is, written straight out on his cotton/poly blended shirt. Who even makes shirts like that? What an awful thing to say.





So I grabbed a log and whacked the dog in its head and ran away. Except without the log and the whacking. But I sure did hustle that stroller along.