To Leash His Own

Je me sens un grand malaise.

I can barely write this post but for the apres-lunch Venti White Mocha Latte and the pre-dinner chocolate biscotti keeping me from the fainting couch. It's all gone to shit.

My daily walks in the park, once the cornerstone of my bonhomie, are now the cause of my malaise. Because of the fucking leash laws. Phila has to be on a leash on the paths in the park. Life is so hard for me.

There have always been leash laws in my park. But for the past, oh, nineteen years I have chosen to ignore them; to think of them as suggestions, a sort of take-it-or-leave-it casual notion, like eating a healthy diet and not taking Xanax with whiskey. And after an unhealthful lunch, a few downers and a shot of hooch, I tell you, a leash-free walk in the park is awesome. 

Hence, my previous upbeat zest for life.

But this summer, all of a sudden, the cops are giving out tickets. Real tickets. That cost five hundred real dollars. I blame this sudden marshal law atmosphere on Dick Cheney. Because, well, Dick Cheney. 

Two young police officers  approached me a few weeks ago when Phila and I were sunning ourselves on the rocks at the river.

"Did you know your dog needs to be on a leash?" One of them, aged 12, asked me. He moved his hand to his hip. Really? Like I'm gonna run for it?  I do not run. I have bad knees. And I have bras older than that police officer. I have a mole that is almost fifty years old, for fuck's sake.

So I feigned ignorance.

Having had some drama classes in junior high school, I totally nailed the part of Uninformed Law-Abiding Citizen With Dog At River.

I was, in order of appearance:

1. shocked

2. contrite

3. Obliging and - if I say so myself -

4. Adorable. I made jokes, I had Phila do her "shake hands, and then switch hands" trick, I offered them some of my lemon Luna bar and I showed just enough cleavage (mine, not Phila's) to suggest I was not above doing what it took to get out of the ticket. I made sure to not show the wrinkled part of my cleavage, lest they arrested me on the spot for, well, showing wrinkled cleavage in an upscale neighborhood whose median age is thirty-nine. 

Alas, to no avail. Maybe I should have had Phila show them her cleavage. And I could have done my "shake hands and switch" trick. They gave me a warning (I was saved by the water being county property and therefore not subject to the city leash ordinance) since three of Phila's four legs were in the river, and went on their way.

But now it's all tense and fucked up at the park. Phila and I walk with baited breath; peering around trees, moving stealthfully, listening for the approach of heavily-shod footsteps. It's like trying to distribute food and weapons for the resistance, getting past the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto. But we do it. Because liberte.

I've had to take a lot of Imodium this summer. My people tend towards nervous stomachs during heroic acts, but we do what we are called upon to do.

And, as far as I know, there is no warning about not taking Imodium with whiskey.