Innocent Bystanders

Update and WTH is wrong with people? June 10, 2016

So 5 days later my knee is still stiff, but the wound scabbed over nicely. Unfortunately it’s positioned right on the part that bends so when I do bend my knee it cracks the scab. Super. At least it’s not infected. I had an appointment with my neurosurgeon on Monday and he told me to leave it uncovered as often as possible just to get it to dry out. Obviously that’s not why I was seeing him, but I figured as long as I was there he’d give me advice on how to treat it. He also told me to keep it clean and use some triple antibiotic on it too. The usual stuff that mom used to tell me growing up.

I posted on my Facebook account about what happened that night. Apparently the owner of the pit bull knows somebody on my FB list and found out I had the audacity to complain about her letting her dog get loose. She’s one of those 20-somethings with 3,000 friends on her list. I didn’t see any of my friends on her list so I’m not sure exactly how she found out anything at all. I didn’t lie or embellish anything in my post. I was actually nicer about her than most people would be if they were bleeding on their living room floor while talking about it. She sent me a private message through FB saying she was offended that I was talking about her on FB. As if I’m some friend of hers in junior high school. It didn’t go well after that.

I explained to her that she didn’t get to be offended unless she was missing part of her knee and had been set back in her recovery by a month. I couldn’t even wear long pants for several days because the wound would stick to my trousers. When I slept I had to cover it to keep my sheets from getting blood stained, yet she was offended. She said my dog was aggressive too because when I talked to her Riley was snapping at her pit bull through the fence. You know, the pit bull that just attacked us 5 minutes earlier. Apparently she didn’t know dogs have memories that go beyond 5 minutes. Then she got down to the heart of the matter which was I said she was a bad dog owner and now “everybody in town” knows what happened. She said it only happened once and she’d lived there 3 years without incident (like that matters for some reason). Then she blamed it on her visiting mother who left the garage door open because her daughter didn’t warn her that her pit bulls could escape if the door wasn’t shut. I was trying to not get angry, which is a new thing for me, but I couldn’t help thinking she was trying to say it was my fault for walking my dog in my own neighborhood. At least the part she wasn’t blaming her mother for was my fault.

I decided to switch tactics in order to win her over with logic. We went over what happens if the police and animal control gets involved. Nothing good for the dog, and I don’t want that on my conscience, but it would be worse for her, so she’d better grow up pretty fast because our conversation was starting to head in the wrong direction. That seemed to sober her up some. Then when I mentioned having to have x-rays taken she really started back tracking, because “Surprise!”, she can’t afford to pay for my medical expenses, which meant I’d have to deal with her home owners insurance, which I suspect would frown on her 4 pit bulls. I thought she had 3, but it was actually 4, which I think is one more dog than local laws allow. I’m going to see if my insurance will cover the x-rays. I get them to check my hardware, but I don’t normally get them this soon. I just got them early to see if the screws were actually ripping out of my vertebrae. Luckily it only felt like they were ripping out.

It seemed her main issue was that people would think she was a bad dog owner because of something that happened “one” time. I explained to her that if I left one of my guns out and a visiting child picked it up and blew their brains out, wouldn’t I be a bad gun owner even though it only happened “one” time? She said that was extreme, but I think my argument is valid. Both guns and dogs can be dangerous when not handled safely and it only takes once to cause a lifetime of regret. This can’t happen again. The next time it might be someone even more physically weak than I am like a young child or an elderly person. Certainly it’s a likely scenario that the next person might not have a dog big enough to defend it’s owner. What if it’s somebody that’s carrying? That’s very common here and if I’d been carrying that day I’m afraid things would have turned out badly for her dog. For a moment I was in fear for my safety, I nearly let go of my dog’s leash to protect myself. A few years ago this would have been little more than an irritant, but today it’s a much bigger deal.

I think our conversation ended ok. I don’t know if she started to see things from my point of view or if she just realized she was talking her dog into a needle and herself into a lawsuit. I really don’t want either of those things to happen, but I also want to make sure that she knows you don’t get to be offended when you do something like this to another person. She’s probably not a terrible person. Most people get defensive when they’re called out for their mistakes, but what matters is how you respond to your mistakes.

Sorry for the ramble. I woke up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. My knee is killing me. My back is killing me. My ribs and stomach are bruised from bouncing on the sidewalk. The medication helps, but it doesn’t make it go away.