I'm home alone with the dogs. Rufus, Friday and Loki have been excellent company for the weekend, but I'm ready to go back to Hoboken. It's my last night, my bags are all packed, laundry folded, electronics tucked away and ready to get carried to work tomorrow. I've just stepped out of the shower. I hear some noise downstairs. Earlier in the day there was a doggie stand off over who got to nap in which dog bed. I shrug it off. I towel off my hair and slip on my robe. Now the dogs are going crazy. Not fun excited playful dog noises, but actual crazy dog sounds. Like, I'm going to murder the mailman and chew on his knee bones type of barking. I run into my bedroom and start to search frantically for my phone. I can't find it. I'm up to my elbows in my purse feeling for it, but my heart is beating so fast I can hardly think. I know I put it in here... I'm going to die, I think. Whoever is trying to kill me is going to succeed because I was too stupid to keep my phone with me. "I put my damn phone in the bottom of my damn purse every damn day and can't find it." I am mumbling. (and many more expletives). I look around the room hoping to see my phone or something that I could use as a weapon. All I see is my computer and lamp. I've never heard a survival story involving a computer and lamp. I wonder if I could make an emergency call from a macbook air. I wonder if I could bludgeon someone with a lamp. I don't I could get close enough before they shoot me, I think. I wonder if I should jump out the window.
The barking continues. I can hear the force of a 120 lb black lab running back and forth from one side of the doorway to another, the two little ones yapping and growling at his heels, right behind him. I swear I can feel the floor shaking. I hear a loud thump. Friday barks so loud that I can't tell if I'm more afraid of him or whoever is trying to kill me. It's so scary I think whoever he is barking at better run because if they come through that door he is going to do something way worse than the mailman.
As I stand paralyzed waiting for what happens next, I am replaying in my head every crime scene I've ever seen in a movie or on TV. Girl tries to run away and is pulled back by her ankles to her certain death. Girl runs down stairs to see who's there and a dark gloved hand slips around the doorway over her mouth. Girl is kidnapped by a group of masked murders who desperately need the help of an inexperienced medical malpractice attorney. Girl relies on three dogs, a computer, and lamp to defend herself, dies a horrible certain death. Dogs are rewarded with her knee bones.
I begin to picture the headlines on the local news, and I realize it will probably read "woman" and not "girl". After all, I will be turning 27 soon. I have a career, student loans, and an apartment. I think I qualify as a woman, and this makes it somehow worse. Like a grown woman was too stupid to call 911. Grown woman dies while her right hand languished in her purse looking for obnoxiously large iPhone 6. Grown woman fails to recognize she is not safe being alone in house because she constantly treats dogs like humans and assumes they can protect her.
Friday's bark gets louder and brings me out of my reverie in the midst of panic. I hear another thump. I can't help but scream, and the words that come out of my mouth are, "who's there?!?" I realize I've just lost any chance I had at hiding and I certainly didn't sound intimidating. I look at the lamp as my only means of self-defense. I again consider jumping out the window.
Just then I hear a grunt and an exacerbated "it's me!" Friday stops barking. In fact, I can hear his tail wagging so hard that its hitting the walls. "You locked two out of three doors." a deep male voice says, without approval. I grimace. I could be dead.
I walk down the stairs and see Friday wiggling and wagging to see his dad. "I almost called the police on you!" I yelled. He yells back, "And, why didn't you?" "Because," I say, "I planned on coming down here and bludgeoning you with a lamp." He laughs deeply, "that's a terrible idea." he says. I know. I know. If only he knew what went through my head. He gives me a big hug.
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