I spend a lot of time between classes sitting cross-legged on the floor here in Linthicum. Even now, my last class of the day is out, I’m sitting here because the other option is to get stalked through the parking garage for my spot, and then spend twenty minutes waiting for the bottlenecks at the campus exits to drain through.

Fuckadat.

Anyway, I’m on the basement floor, opposite the vending machines, and there’s a dude buying a chocolate bar who has a combo rat-tail/mullett, and don’t I wish I had a camera on my cell phone so I could post this digusting image on my blog? Yes. Yes, I do.

***

Someone came up to me and asked me what I was doing. “I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor typing on my computer.” They looked flumoxed (is that a real word? I’m not sure) and walked away. If she’d been cute — for that matter, if she’d been a she — I might’ve told her I was trying to look up her skirt, but since it was a he and he was wearing jeans, I didn’t.

Last week, Gary’s older dog went missing. His kids left the gate open and the dog got out of the backyard, so Gary grabbed his flashlight and his son and they went out looking for the older animal. They couldn’t find the dog.

The next morning, Gary’s neighbor — a vet — called. He’d found the dog — shot — on his front yard. The animal was at the vet’s office, and Gary signed the paperwork to have it put down (although they held-off to see how the dog was doing). His kids were, as you might imagine — they’re eight and five, if memory serves — very upset.

Gary was a little pissed, too.

The best anyone can figure it, the dog got loose, was running around, got shot, and somehow knew to get himself to the vet’s house — he might not have known it was the vet’s house, but apparently he’d been over there before when Gary took him out to walk.

He has some suspects — one of his neighbors shoots foxes, and Gary’s wife shaves the dog (to keep it cool), and when shaved the dog looks like a big fox. When he confronted this neighbor, the man didn’t admit to shooting the dog, but didn’t seem surprised, either.

Gary also suspects the crazy meth-making Greeks who rent a shack up the road, but is a little nervous to go speaking to them without a large armed backup (”A Marine Expeditionary Unit should do…”).

The night after this happened, Gary went out into his yard — he lives up near Parkton/Monkton — and lit up some fireworks. “Big mothers,” he said. “They sound like mortars.”

The next day, Gary spoke to one of his neighbors: “Man! I thought we were being invaded! I grabbed my 1911, and a case of beer, and sat by the front door and waited for those fuckers to come get me!”

To which Gary had to admit, “No, sorry man, just me …”