kagablog

So this morning just after I did my little ritual of thanks for the day in the riverbed I see this guy approaching me and my dog with his daughter and his two dogs, one of which is a fucken huge husky. It’s a really stupdendous animal that I greet each dawn as I walk past it but it doesn’t appear at all grateful for all that acknowledgement and sinks down on its haunches, preparing to attack my staffie bitch, who is really the sweetest old mutha and wouldn’t hurt a fly unless its getting more attention than her, cause that’s just the way staffies are. Last time this dude and his overfurred beast encountered us on the path next to the Braamfontein spruit just outside ‘Pawkhurst’ as my bassist friend calls it his dog attacked mine, but for some reason on this sunny and slightly warmer than winter morning I don’t take any evasive manoovers. I don’t know why, although I am not sure what I could have done, wrapped my arms around the dog? Perhaps I’m just too trusting that I am a nice guy and if I do nice things the universe will be nice back to me. I’m learning it’s not always. Going to be nice to me. The husky comes out of its killer crouch and runs full tilt at my cringing staffie who is desperately trying to hug the ground and say in dog language that she represents like, fuckall threat. The husky almost wipes out one of those extremely brightly dressed latex apparations that slither past in great numbers on Sunday mornings hogging the path and exchanging business ideas at top vollies called cyclists. Hits into my dog, takes a fat dog bite. His owner does fuckall, like this is normal Sunday morning stuff. I’m outraged, on my moral high horse, shouting at him to check out the gaping wound left in my dog’s neck, which is fortunately a staffie neck and could probably survive a great white bite or at least a crocodile but he says that he’s seen many wounds like this and it won’t need stitches. I’m saying that if it gets infected then he will have to pay but he’s wondering off with his little girl and his dogs and doesn’t seem overly concerned.
So I check out the wound again and it’s almost an inch long and a centimeter or two wide and doesn’t look like its going to heal without stitches. And I’m at this stage really fucken gatvol (the Afrikaans term for fed up, meaning literally “hole-full”) of being abused by assholes and criminals who just walk over me and my little world and my friends, loved ones and pets. I know where this dude lives so I go and wait for him to return. While I wait, which takes over half an hour, I meditate by the river, saying over and over to myself that I won’t get angry, but I won’t take this lying down. Eventually he returns, this time with his dog on a leash, examines the wound and repeats that it’s not serious and won’t need any attention and he won’t pay for any vet bills and that I’m just over-reacting. No apologies or anything like that. He just dismisses my indignity. I accuse him of not taking responsibility for his dog’s actions but fuckface is by this time returning to his house, and when I tell him he will receive a letter from my lawyer he remarks in leaving that I won’t be able to afford one.
Actually, he’s right on this one. When I phone my lawyer conneco he tells me that I only have a 50/50 chance of winning this case, because my dog wasn’t on a lead either. He charges 12 grand a day so the old saying that the law protects only the rich is once again proved. Karma will have to deal with the mannerless man. Fantasies of smashing his windscreen or breaking off the husky’s teeth of course cross my mind as I try to swallow my anger down but of course I am too well bought up to do anything like that which is why I am not made for this city of gold that I have lived in for 20 years and which seems to run afoul of me like far too often these days. I realize when recounting this story to my colleagues at work that my tales of doom are emerging with such frequency that their mouths turn up a little at the corners with something approaching pity and they’re probably thinking that I attract shit to myself because my life is so boring that I need drama to survive. I’m hoping that the blogspot readers don’t think the same thing.
Bad news is good news for newspapers. Which is where I work. For now.