Surviving Through Lunacy

I was walking my dog through some wooded trails near my house and got pretty far into the woods when I passed a man. I’d been deep in thought, probably thinking about the cookies I’d made and how good they were and how I wished I had stuck a few in my pocket. I wasn’t thinking about being alone out there with a 9-pound dog that would feel like a mosquito if she chomped down on an attacker.

The guy gave me the creeps. Hair started rising on my arms, and I was getting that prickly feeling on the back of my neck. I nonchalantly quickened my pace while I thought about worse case scenarios. He could at that very second be turning around and following me. He’d keep his pace faster than mine so he’d close the gap between us. It was a cold, cloudy, ugly, miserable day and we were probably the only souls in that million-acre park with nothing but quiet trees to hear my screams.

I was getting frantic. I couldn’t outrun him, or outfight him. My best hope was to do something to make myself unappealing to him, but what? And then I came up with a brilliant plan. I started talking out loud to the dog.

“I can’t believe I got cooties,” I said loudly, as if the dog was deaf. “I itch all over.” I started scratching exaggeratedly all over my head “This is the most stubborn case I’ve ever had. They’re everywhere.”

I started scratching my arms and back. “I sure hope you don’t get the cooties from me. They’re highly contagious. You think fleas are bad, they’re nothing compared to these cooties. They get in your hair and all over your bedding. They’re almost impossible to get rid of.” Then I shouted in exasperation, “Oh I HATE these cooties.”

I got the idea for the cooties because when I’m walking in grassy areas where snakes can be lurking. I talk out loud and kindof stomp my feet.

“Listen here, snakes,” I say. “I’m a big, mean, snake-stomping machine and you had better crawl out of my path unless you want your eyeballs to squirt out of your head like popcorn in a hot frying pan. You better get on down the road and don’t look back or I’ll flatten you and make you into a snakeskin belt. You better take your rattling behind on out of here or I’ll twist it off and give it to a baby for a play pretty. You better…” and so on.

I jabbered about the cooties for about fifteen more minutes, scratching like an orangutan in a silly movie, not daring to look back or slow down. Finally I came up to the road. Only then did I look back and see an absolutely empty path.

“We scared him away,” I told my dog. She looked up at me and said, “I’ve been itching like crazy this whole time. You better NOT have given me the cooties or I will rain down an unholy terror of barfing and diarrhea that will blanket the house an inch deep.”

She may be little, but I don’t doubt that she could do it. I had a lot of explaining to do on the way back to my house.

Yes the neighbors may think I’m crazy, but I’m still alive after that close call today. I might be crazy, but crazy like a fox. No?