My second winter at my Pompano Beach condo in Florida has been even more enjoyable than the first, though soon my dog and I will return to Colorado for the summer.
I continue to enjoy watching (with binoculars) the golfers on the green across the little lake outside my sun room. Part of that entertaining spectacle comes from the varied and sometimes eccentric attire of the players. Some of the more elderly males seem to prefer Bermuda shorts, narrow-brimmed, feathered, straw hats, and wing-tipped black shoes with dark knee socks. No cartoonist could hope to capture the side-splitting humor of this stereotypical clothing, but more entertaining still are the occasional tantrums of golfers, who throw their clubs, or become even more enraged falling into the lake while trying to retrieve errant golf balls before disappearing among the banyans and palms in their little golf carts. Honestly, it’s better than anything on cable, with the bonus that voyeurism is absolutely free of charge.
Then there are my neighbors among whom is Molly, two doors down from me. In her late seventies, she is someone who spends most of her time watching TV soap operas and drinking prodigious amounts of wine, which rumor suggests she actually puts instead of milk on her morning corn flakes. Molly had to give up the daily gallon glass jugs of wine she had been purchasing before last fall. The sound of each empty bottle being hurled down the trash chute on our second floor sounded like a bomb going off in the steel receptacle on the first floor. Molly would often choose to dispose of those big glass jugs late at night, perhaps with the flimsy hope that the rest of us would never suspect that she was drinking enough to keep a hockey team permanently drunk. Nevertheless, more than once I peeked out my window blinds after these incidents, believing at first our complex had been invaded by terrorists, but seeing Molly instead wearing her chenille robe and weaving back to her apartment, twice leaving behind one of her pink fuzzy slippers, like some impossible, aging Cinderella on crack.
Another neighbor caught Molly discarding one of those massive jugs one night and awakening the whole building again. The neighbor’s only comment to her was, “Molly, if you ever toss one of those jugs down that chute again, I’m seriously going to hurt you.” After that, Molly bought only Franzia boxed wines, ensuring (thanks to the angry neighbor) that the rest of us in the building would get an uninterrupted night of sleep without having to phone 911 to report an alleged, lunatic bomber.
There is a neighbor in the apartment on the first floor just under mine. Mrs. Felding is a widow from Canada who, like me, lives here only during the winter. Her dog is a Boston Terrier with the nastiest disposition I have ever witnessed in a canine. Since Mrs. Felding uses a walker for her mobility, she is unable to walk her fifteen-pound dog, named Cujo (and for good reason). Cujo spits, snarls, barks and lunges at every living creature he encounters. Mrs. Felding’s son Warren, who lives elsewhere in Pompano Beach, visits daily to walk the dog at least three times, and my introduction to Warren included a menacing explanation about the terrifying Boston Terrier.
“Be sure never to come near Cujo! Only Mother and I can be around him without danger of bodily harm.”
“Thanks for the tip, jackass,” I thought. Then I asked myself what could possibly turn a household pet into such a psychotic, vicious creature that should under any normal circumstances be cuddled comfortably in a plaid, flannel dog bed surrounded by adoring family with ruddy-faced children before a blazing fire. It seems they can’t even buy any toys for Cujo, because he simply eats them, I mean completely! They have never found Warren’s bowling ball, which disappeared last year and sends my imagination reeling.
Everyone else in the building is aware of Cujo and his violent nature. Window blinds can often be seen cracking open before residents venture outside, as though they need to make sure Cujo is nowhere in sight first. At times it appears that this fifteen-pound dog is holding our building hostage and that the world’s fear of Pit Bulls is entirely misplaced, when indeed, all the Pit Bulls I’ve met have been sweet-natured, playful dogs, totally unlike the unfair and inaccurate stereotype created because a few morons have bred them for fighting. As a dog lover, I feel awful that in rare cases like that of Cujo the Boston Terrorist, the dog cannot be peacefully and lovingly approached. Cujo has made me perhaps unnecessarily wary around new dogs, for the first time in my life. In any case, maybe I can blame his unsociable behavior on a Napoleon Complex. I mean, have you ever met a mean St. Bernard or Great Dane? JB
