Captain Has the Last Laugh

There’s this dog that lives behind us. Its name is Captain, and I know this because his owner shouts, “Captain! Be quiet!” most nights around 7:30.

7:30 is Captain’s preferred time for barking. He barks for Australia at 7:30, and I can hear him from every corner of our apartment. Once I looked through the window and saw him in his tiny yard, a small black Pomeranian, fur vibrating with each high-pitched yip.

Dining room
I thought it best not to photograph someone else’s yard, but this is the window in question.

Captain’s primary goal is to get into his house. He has a doggie door, but I presume that his people lock it when they’re away. That’s fair. From what I know of Captain, he seems like the kind of dog that would eat your shoes and shred toilet paper all over the house the second the lock clicked shut. Then he’d probably leave a squishy turd under the table for you to find later.

But they appear to lock him out when they’re home, too, which makes him my problem. And there are only so many nights I can sustain a barking dog without losing my cool.

So a few days ago, Captain was doing his thing.

“YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP.”

We had just finished dinner and were trying to watch a How I Met Your Mother rerun, but Captain had other ideas.

“YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP. YIP.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. The words were out of my mouth before I knew they had even been formed.

“CAPTAIN. SHUT UP!”

Now, if I can hear Captain, Captain can hear me. But what I’d forgotten was that Captain’s owner could probably hear me, too. Especially because I’d said the words at a rather high volume.

I’d also forgotten to close the blinds. Their window is directly opposite ours, and seconds after my futile shouting attempt, their lights flicked on.

“Captain! Be quiet!”

But the woman wasn’t looking at Captain. She was looking directly into our apartment. At me.

I looked into her owly eyes and panicked. I leaped sideways and flattened myself against the wall next to the TV. Then I slunk like a ninja around the corner, entered the kitchen, and reached over the counter to close the blinds.

Slick, I thought.

Jared sighed.

“That’s what you get,” he said. “For shouting at other people’s dogs.”

Captain continued to bark.

Pomeranian
*Not the real Captain. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

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2 Comments

  1. I love the description of your ninja roll. That’s exactly what I’d have done too. For the record, our cockroach friend met a sticky end this afternoon. After hours of me checking up on him as he napped on the couch, my flatmate flattened him with a flip flop. May he rest in peace…

    1. And that is the best method for getting rid of them – get someone else to do it. Hope he didn’t have friends, but you’ll soon find out 🙁

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