I need to vent a bit today about a situation that I just can’t keep quiet on anymore.

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Before you call PETA and CPS, let me explain.

We live in a pretty kid and pet friendly neighborhood. What I mean is, there are usually some kids and some pets running around during the afternoon on any given day.  It’s nice to have a small town America/ Norman Rockwell vibe going on, especially as the weather warms up, the windows open up and we spend more and more time outside.

Of course, all these four legged friends and little persons toddling about isn’t without it’s drawbacks.  Let me give you two examples as to why the next there’s a distinct possibility that I will be featured on the local news network for flippin’ out.

So, I leave to get the kids from school every day at about 2:30.  I give myself ample to time to get where I”m going, so I’m never flying through the neighborhood, trying to strategically catch lights so I can be screeching up to the school yard as the bell rings.  If anything, I’m usually early to the carpool queue, flipping through a magazine while I wait for Mo-dizzle to come on out.

Around the time I’m leaving for this run, the local public school bus has deposited a handful of kiddos at the bottom of the street at what I’m guessing is the designated bus drop off.  There are a few Scout toting, Lululemon-clad moms milling about with a handful of Teva wearing, Tervis tumbler carrying dads.  Our street merges with another street to form a juncture that looks like the intersection where the two branches of a capital “Y” meet.  There is a stop sign at the bottom of the merge (or base of the Y if you will), at which point you can turn onto the main road. And there are low shoulders in our neighborhood, which means, where there should be a sidewalk, there’s a ditch.

As you turn from our street onto the main road, there’s a small footbridge you must drive over that spans a sizable creek bed.  The Lulu’s and the Teva’s let their little kiddos play in this creek.  Evidently West Nile virus hasn’t made it into the neighborhood association newsletter, but whatevs.  Sometimes, the kiddos venture up the banks of the creek and join their folks, milling about in the road.  Sometimes, a Lulu or a Teva can’t be bothered with actually getting out of the car to collect Little Hopeful, so they roll up the street at about 7 mph with the kids following behind like some kind of perverse Wagons Ho!/ Oregon Trail for the 2000’s.

I’m coming around the bend, headed towards this little passel of people.  Right at the juncture of the Y, there’s a Lulu in her [insert favorite make and model] Swagger Wagon, hanging out the window talking to another Lulu in her Swagger Wagon while their kids mill about in between the two cars, picking noses, chasing bugs, and tying one another up with the leashes that should be attached to the various designer puppies that have been trotted out for pick-up.  Yeah, let me paint that picture for you — dog leashes are on the kids, dogs are running loose.

I’m not late for my carpool run, but I am trying to keep to a schedule.  So, I wait a respectable amount of time on the fringe of this pow-wow and I know that they can see me.  I’m in a big ol’ SUV!  They both begin to roll at an infinitesimal pace in their respective directions.  At the first notice of the wheels beginning to turn, the kids and the dogs freak out and scatter, like someone threw a bar of soap in their midst and threatened them with a scrubbing of a lifetime.

And of course, the kids and the dogs head right. for. my. car.  I mean, bee-lining it at top speed. I’ve got my foot on the brake, and I’m about to put the car in park to just wait it out, but somehow, like a herd of stampeding stallions, the whole pack veer off the left and into someone’s yard.  The entire pack, except for one ol’ golden labra-doodle looking dog that’s just shufflin’ to the left, shufflin’ to the right all over the street.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that there’s a little more than gravy going into that Gravy Train dog food.

The Lulu in the Swagger Wagon facing me is hanging out the window, hollering at the kids to stay in the yard, while snapping her fingers at Fido to try to wrangle him over to the car.  I’ve pulled as far to the right as I can without sliding into the ditch.  The dog is weaving back and forth between the cars and then makes a break for it once it spies the children.  Slowly, I ease up off the break to try and roll past, when one of the kids starts shrieking like a banshee, sending the dog careening back into the street.  Even though I’m doing about 2 mph, I stomp on the brake so hard, I’m practically standing up straight in the front seat.  I don’t need a canine catastrophe on my conscience.  Plus, there are too many witnesses.

Finally, once of the middle school kids in the group materializes (thanks for showing up),  grabs the dog, throws me a wave and herds all two and four legged creatures up to someone’s house.  Lulu, waves and mouths a “Sorry!” at me as she wheels past into her drive way — TWO HOUSES UP FROM THE BUS STOP!!  I’m sorry for yelling, but really? You drove to the bus stop? Okay, sure she may have been on her way from somewhere else, but at that point, I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was thinking, “If I had hit that dog, they’d have run us out of town on a rail.”

Which brings me to my second little tirade about the freedom with which people let their loved ones wander around.

There’s this guy who lives somewhere in our neighborhood who own two black labs.  The dogs remind me of Old Dan and Little Ann from “Where the Red Fern Grows“. Whenever I see them out, they are always together. Not together in the sense that “Hey, there go two dogs,” but in the sense that these two dogs have a close relationship. They are always side by side, always looking like they’re checking to make sure the other is close by.  And they are always without a leash.

The owner walks around our street (we live on a hilly circle), checking his cell phone or slurping his coffee, while Old Dan and Little Ann sniff every blade of grass between and whizz on every patch of moss.  So, like I said, we live on a hilly circle, and you have to take it easy going around the curves because of the soft shoulders and decreased visibility.  On my way home from drop-off, the two dogs are usually working their way around the bend, darting between yards, dipping into the street and back again.  When the owner hears or see me coming up the road, he might slap his thigh to get the dogs’ attention and bring them closer to him, but it’s a half-hearted, one handed action; the other hand is furiously texting (I guess) or bringing his coffee up to this mouth.  The dogs are like, “Deedle-lee-deet-deet-dee!” moseying on over, if at all.

The other day, I was pulling closer to my house when I spied the owner, Old Dan and Little Ann up ahead of me.  The three of them were walking in the same direction that I was driving.  I slowed considerably, but I was pretty sure they could hear the engine. I didn’t want to tap the horn and risk some kind of kerfluffle in the street.  Sure enough, when the owner sensed me behind him, he turned and waved, and then directed the dogs up to the nearest driveway so that I could pass.

But guess whose driveway it was?

Yep.  So, I’m sitting in the car, with my blinker on and this guy is standing in my driveway while his dogs are picking out prime toileting spots in my yard.  DH has been putting in serious yardwork over the past few week-ends and I wasn’t about to let it get be-fouled by some doggie doo-doo.  So, I’m keeping one eye of Old Dan and Little Ann while gesturing to the owner that I’m trying to turn.  This yahoo has the nerve to heave a sigh at me — seriously, shoulders up and down while his eyes reached his hairline —  before calling the dogs to him.  Blessedly, the dogs just give the grass a little watering.  If they’re drop a load, I’d have been out of that car like a jack-in-the-box.

Anyway, the guy and his dogs ambled on down the driveway and back into the street to resume their walk or rather aimless wandering over hill and dale.

I like dogs, really, I do.  I like kids, for the most part.  I don’t want to be party to anything that causes harm to either.  I’m doing my part by being a conscientious driver.  Parents and pet owners, meet me half-way. Can you keep a leash (real or figurative) on the ones you love?

I’m sure Scout has some coordinating leash and bag combos that’ll do the trick.