Gentriconfrontation (racist style) and a warning.

I'm going to relate an incident that happened to me and my lady friend last friday. I'm going to try to do so with as little anger distortion as possible. I'll tell the whole story to allow for all possible interpretations. This post is rated pg-17 for strong language.

I'll set the scene first. I went on a trip on August 9th. While I was gone, my special lady left to visit her mother in Singapore; I returned on the 16th but my lady friend didn't get back until last Friday. That's three weeks without, so we were pretty much wrapped up in each other when we took her dog for a walk around 9.30.

As we were coming down Bergen, about to cross Carlton in the Vanderbilt direction, my lady friend points out the house across the street. It's the one with steps leading up, right on the corner, with the ceramic dalmatian in the window. For those of you who walk this patch of turf often, it's the house with the martian-invasion-of-easter-island mural on the Bergen street side, where the sidewalk narrows for the plots of plants on the street.

My girlfriend, before we cross, mentions that she always has trouble here because the owner(s) have a little shhtzu that always gives her dog trouble when they pass. It so happened that the dog (and owner) were outside; the dog came barelling down the stairs, stopped halfway and started to bark and growl. As we began to pass the side of the house, I said (perhaps more loudly than I should have, but I didn't think anything of it), "Yeah, that dog is evil."

We stopped by the last plot of plants to let our dog sniff around for a minute. She climbed onto the little mound and just nosed around in the plants for a minute. We'd passed by the same spot earlier, and I had actually pulled the dog out of there because I didn't think it was right for her to poop in what was obviously a tended little plot. I guess on the way back I wasn't paying as much attention though, because, while our dog didn't do numbers one or two, she did stand there for a few minutes.

All of a sudden, out of the blue, this tiny gray haired woman comes storming around the corner, I assume from the house with the Shihtzu. "Hey! Hey! Get your fucking dog out of there!", she's screaming at us. My special lady pulls the dog out and I apologize, but she's having none of it. She's walking towards us-- quite aggresively at this point-- and stops only when she's about three feet from my girl.

What followed was a five minute string of profanity and threat that I couldn't hope to reproduce if I wanted. Highlights include:

-- "I see you fucking people all the time. Where do you live, so I can come and shit in your house?!?"

-- "Who are you people? Who are you? Get off our fucking block, you yups!"

-- "I'll piss in your face!"

-- "I'll kill your dog. Next time I see you I'm going to feed your dog poison meat." (Yes, she actually said this.)

Since our dog hadn't done any bidness in the plants, it kind of took us both by surprise. Especially because her tone and words became increasingly threaenting as we stood there with our mouths agape. I was never physically scared (I'm roughly twice this woman's size) but I could see my lady friend begin to get a little flustered. It seems that the woman actually grows things to eat in those plants, or so I surmised by her numerous references to shitting on a plate and feeding it to us as just retribution for allowing our dog in her plants.

Before I get to the worst (or, as I now prefer to view it, most absurd) part, let me say that I do see her side. You work hard on what little greenspace you can manage in the city, of course you're going to get pissed off when every terrier, dingo and hound lays cable in it. I understand, so does my special lady friend, and we make every effort to respect the property of others as well as the general decorum for dog owners in the city.

However, the woman did not have any fencing around the plots, so what did she expect? In addition, this New York freaking city. Every stray cat, every squirrel, and undoubtedly not a few drunks have availed themselves of the use of her little secret garden.

Still and all, no matter what you think of it so far, there's no excuse for what happened next. She was in the middle of her tirade, and her threats were in turn vile and violent. She even went so far as to say that she was going to "follow us home to see where [we] lived" so she could perform any number of scatalogical deviencies to us and our house. It was at this threat that I turned to my special lady and said in my most incredulous voice, "I think this is assault" that the woman turned and started back to her own house. Not before looking at my girl and snarling, "Slant eyes", though.

So the point of this post is to issue a general warning about this person. She certainly gave every impression of being a long time resident, so perhaps some of you are familiar or even friendly with her. Perhaps she's normally a lovely lady who just saw one two many dogs fertilize her plot out of season. I don't know, I don't care, because she also gave every impression of being a crazy person. And a dangerous one at that.

More specifically, for any of you who have dogs, I'd strongly advise you to keep them out of these little gardens. My guess is she's not too far removed from leaving poisoned food in them for dogs to find before their owners realize what it is.