Tag Archives: dogs

Daily Prompt: Safety First

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Share the story of a time you felt unsafe.

Jeebus, where do I begin on this one.

Let’s just say, that when I was younger, I have found myself in several not-so-pleasant situations. One of them quite serious, to the point it involved the police and somewhat of an emotional breakdown, but that’s not one that I’m prepared to share right now.

Hmmm, actually, now that I’m thinking about some of the other hair-raising situations I’ve been in, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable talking about them either… Perhaps because they’re the kind of situations that generally you wouldn’t really want other people knowing. Kind of like a secret shame that will probably go with me to the grave – well, unless I write my memoirs on my death bed, and then everything will be out in the open. And boy wouldn’t that be full of juicy details!

Allow me to tell you the story of one of the times that I went back to Redneckville during school holidays…

SO, from memory I was home at mum’s place for the Christmas break. Seeing as how it’s summer here in Australia in December, and this was 10 years ago, and the country, it was one of those times where, during the day, the temperature would peak around 44-45 degrees celsius, so yeah, it was HOT!!

Now, I think this particular evening, my best friend at the time, B-Girl, and I had gone out to catch up with a group of her friends from high-school. I knew them, but half of them were all cunts to me in high school and bullied me for several years, so I would have rather watch them fall off a balcony to their death, or at least hideous disfigurement, than spend an entire fucking evening with them.

SO on this night, B-Girl and I head out to this wine bar we used to love going to (not that I actually drink, but it was just a cool hip little venue) and we’re upstairs on the balcony with these people. I’m doing my best to ignore half of them, (whilst visualising various ways I would like to see them die or seriously injure themselves) when all of a sudden a fight breaks out. A couple of the guys had called out to a bunch of guys on the street, being the smartarses they are, and then all of a sudden 3 or 4 of these guys were up on the balcony having a confrontation.

Some of the girls were trying to diffuse the situation, but the drunken arrogant wankers weren’t having a bar of it.

Voices started being raised; guys were getting in each other’s faces; girls were failing at calming anybody down and were leaving the balcony; and whilst all this was going on, I couldn’t WAIT for the punches to start being thrown, because I knew these guys would end up getting their arses kicked… and I was going to enjoy watching every minute of it.

…sure enough, within a matter of seconds, the first punch was thrown, and all hell breaks loose.

Now, if you’ve never actually been witness to a punch on, let alone a group punch on, then it’s an surreal event. The sound of knuckles hitting cheekbones and eye sockets. The whack sound that it makes as skin slaps skin. Watching bottles go flying, chairs go flying, saliva and hair everywhere – it’s like it happens all in slow-motion, just to ensure that you are able to visually take in everything that is happening in front of you. I’m actually surprised that there wasn’t a glassing incident.

Sure enough, security come bounding up the stairs and pull the guys off each other, and take the 4 guys from outside, back downstairs for questioning, whilst a couple of security guys remain up on the balcony to confront the geniuses who just had their arses handed to them.

Sidenote: the BEST bit of the whole thing was when Dumbfuck The Ringleader turns to me, and has the nerve to say to me “oh, and what about you, fucking fag, you didn’t even step in to fucking help us at all”. After taking a moment just to process the mind-numbing ridiculousness of that statement, and who it was coming from, I looked up at Dumbfuck and calmly responded, ‘I’m sorry, but did you just say what I think you’re saying? You, the one person who made my life a living fucking hell all through high school, YOU, HONESTLY THINK THAT I WOULD DO *ANYTHING* to help you. Let me make this abundantly clear to you, I’m actually quite disappointed that you aren’t being carted away in an ambulance right now, because lets be honest, nothing would make me happier. As for what just happened, you fucking brought that on yourself. You think that you’re going to get through life being able to hang shit on people and there not be any consequences? You caused that fight. You threw the first punch. You’re the reason Druggy Long-Hair has a possibly broken nose, and you have the nerve to stand there and feel pissed off AT ME, for not coming to your defense. WHAT A FUCKING JOKE. YOU ARE A FUCKING JOKE!! If anything, if I did actually choose to be foolish enough to get involved, I would have been on their side instead, and I would have fucking glassed you right in the face, and then maybe pushed you off the balcony onto the footpath and hopefully shattered your spine, but I made the choice to not get involved. (Police arrive upstairs) and look, now the cops are here, and I’ll gladly give my statement, and making it abundantly clear that those other guys were merely defending themselves. You started this. You deserve the consequences. I hope you fucking die.’

And then I left.

I walked back downstairs and gave my statement to an officer, along with a couple of others, and then B-Girl and I left.

…and we’re not even at the scary bit yet!!

SO, after all that drama, B-Girl and I went went a couple of doors down to the servo for a late night ice-cream, and then I decided to walk B-Girl home. By this stage it was about 2 or 3am. We were walking along this road which runs parallel to the horse-racing field, and as we approached a motel, we saw a couple of dogs walking towards us. As we continued along the footpath, the dogs walked under a streetlight, and we both realised that these were big dogs… and I mean BIG DOGS. I’m not entirely sure of the breed, but it was like the size of full-grown German Shepard, but a lot more fierce and aggressive.

B-Girl and I stopped. Then the dogs stopped.

They were watching us. We were watching them. B-Girl whispered, ‘holy fuck. What are we going to do?’

‘I dunno. Maybe we should cross the street?’, I replied and we slowly walked across the road. Although the dogs were at the other end of the block, we could see them quite clearly.

The dogs crossed the street as well.

‘Oh. Holy. Shit.’, I whispered, ‘Now what the fuck do we do?‘.

‘Maybe we just turn around and walk back towards the Main Street, and they will just go somewhere else?’, suggested B-Girl.

We turned around and started walking back the way we had come, and then we heard barking. Not like a normal dog bark, but the kid of bark you really don’t want to hear at 3am, when you’re on your own and you’re not the best runner. We stopped, and held each other’s hand. ‘What do we do? B, WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO? OH MY GOD, THEY’RE GOING TO ATTACK US! WE’RE GOING TO BE FUCKING KILLED!!’. Clearly, I’d already decided this, and had given up all hope.

‘Let’s walk through the motel and lose them’, suggested B-Girl. We turned and crossed the road, and walked back towards the motel and walked through the entrance. ‘Worst case scenario, they follow us. I say we lock ourselves behind the pool fence, because they won’t be able to get in!’. Just as I said that, we saw the pool fence. A small child could easily fit through the bars of the fence, so a giant man-eating dog could definitely fit in there. We instantly scrapped that idea.

Behind the rear of the motel, the carpark opened out onto this vast area of empty land. Part of it had been turned into a kids playground, and the rest was all vacant land which ran behind the entire blocks houses. We started walking through there, and figured, we couldn’t hear any barking, the dogs must have just kept on going down the street. Right??

Wrong.

So very, very wrong.

As we’re walking through the dead dry grasses on this land, we see one of the dogs come back out on the footpath. It stopped. Barked a couple of times, and then sat there, watching us.

At that moment, the most terrifying thought was WHERE WAS THE OTHER DOG?? I couldn’t see it, and I couldn’t hear it. My mind started racing a thousand-miles and hour. The dog approached the grassed, and I picked up some big rocks and threw them at the dog. I must have hit it because it let out a yelp and walked off. Feeling somewhat relieved, we continued across this area of land, and turned left into another street.

2 blocks from B-Girls house. THANK FUCK FOR THAT. Feeling that we were home-free, we started to have a little giggle about how scared we both were… then we heard the breathing behind us.

Half a block away from us, just near the corner was one of the dogs. It began barking and then growling. Shit was about to get VERY real, VERY rapidly, and we were both trying to work out a strategy for avoiding it. Then it started walking towards us. Oh fuck. As it approached the block of land, the other dog joined him. Oh double fuck!! THEN, they started running towards us.

By this stage we both know we couldn’t outrun them. The next house we passed, we ducked into their side walkway, and ran into their backyard. At the backyard, there was a small grassy patch, a woodshed and a garage. We jumped into the woodshed, and like clockwork, the two dogs came running into the backyard. They came running right up to the screens on the woodshed, gowling and barking like crazy.

Suddenly a couple of lights in the house turn on, and the outside light turns on.

The dogs stop barking, and start at the backdoor of the house. A man walks out and picks up a shovel. He starts swinging at the dogs, who start going wild. Oh great. Now we get to witness a guy being attacked and mauled to death buy a couple of crazy dogs. Perfect end to the night.

B-Girl and I look at each other in terror and we hear this almighty WHACK!! Immediately followed by some yelping.

‘You kids alright in there?’, asked the man. ‘THey’re both gone, so you can get outta my woodshed if you please. It’s quite late, afterall!’ WE explained what happened, thanked the man and continued back on our way to B-Girls’ house. Walking along the footpath, we hear a dog barking.

Then again…

and again.

By now, we’ve decided on a very quick walk back to her place, and I’ll either just stay over or catch a taxi back to mum’s – a couple of blocks away.

Just as we approach B-Girls street, we hear something behind us. It’s getting louder and closer, and all very quickly ‘Fuck this. I’m not taking any chances. B-Girl, we need to fucking move. Let’s just fucking run!’. And run we did. I kept looking behind me as the dog started getting closer and closer, and then before I knew it, we were running towards B-Girls front door – watching the front yard like a hawk through the windows of the lounge room.

Sure enough, both dogs have found each other and they walk straight past B-Girls place.

‘Do you wanna just stay here the night, or do you wanna catch a cab?’, B-Girl queried.

‘No, I’ll just give it 10 mins and then I’ll walk home. It’s quicker and much cheaper. I’ll be fine’. Needless to say, those 10 mins became almost 30mins before I actually seriously considered walking out that front door. ‘Coast is clear’, I ploclaimed. I gave B-Girl a hug and a kiss and closed the front door behind me, and set off back to Mum’s place.

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