Sometimes, My Temper Gets The Best of Me

So, way back a long time ago, I wrote this post about how I sometimes lose my temper and act like a full on crazy person.  It happens.  Not TOO often, but often enough that I have learned to live with the general humiliation my crazy temper actions cause me.  Sometimes though, I begin to full on lose it in a situation, when, what can only be God, takes pity on his crazy, little hot-tempered Kristi and intervenes so that my overreaction is only witnessed by me and two little dogs.  Luckily for me, this is one of those times.

A couple of weeks ago, I return home from my hot, sweaty walk from the office and immediately get the two little spastic dogs ready for the afternoon bathroom walk.  I take the dogs out, they do their business, and I am soon waiting for the elevator to rescue me from the heat of the Texas summer and take me back to my apartment.  As soon as the elevator appears, I am surprised to see the person who lives below us (a new person since my stomping war, but no less volatile and aggressive) exit the elevator and walk swiftly outside.  I take the dogs up to our floor, and walk to our apartment.  Upon turning the corner to my floor I notice a small brown pile directly in the middle of our doorway.

I cautiously walk up to it.

It’s poop.

Dog poop.

NOT my dogs’ poop.

I manhandle the dogs around it (I have one certified poop eater of a dog), and go into the apartment, processing the fact that there was a pile of poop in front of my apartment door that WASN’T there just 10 minutes earlier when I left to take the dogs out.  At first, I place the blame on Chopper.  He is a swift pooper.  Maybe he somehow did it when I wasn’t looking.  After about 5 seconds, I dismiss this.  He isn’t THAT swift!  I walk pretty quickly from apartment to elevator.  He wouldn’t have had the time.   I then start piecing together my latest mystery.

Sometime, in between the ten minutes that I left the apartment and returned, a pile of dog poop appeared in front of my door.  I saw no other dog walkers.  I DID however see my crazy downstairs neighbor.

Quick facts about crazy downstairs neighbor:

1)  The people directly below Blake and I have a palace of a balcony.  Seriously, it is the same size as our bedroom.  Therefore, anything that falls off our balcony, lands on her balcony-palace.  When she first moved in, she called management on us to report that we throwing dog poop on her balcony.  Which, we weren’t THROWING, we were just allowing our dogs to go to the bathroom on the balcony, which would sometimes then blow on to her balcony-palace before we could clean it up.  Woops.  We have since changed our ways (PROMISE) and don’t even allow the dogs to go to the bathroom ON the balcony anymore.  Because of this, anytime ANYTHING dog-related lands on her balcony, she immediately blames us (throwing giant dog toys that obviously belong to a much differently sized dog onto our balcony that she thinks our tiny dogs “dropped.”)  She has gotten in screaming fights with the people above Blake and I because they one time watered their plants and water landed on her balcony-palace.  She is very protective of this balcony-palace.

2)  She one time got into a hysterical screaming fit on her balcony with her live-in boyfriend involving the following:

• The “C” word.  Yes that “C” word.
• The phrase “Your ass is grass.”
• Drinking from noon on
• Her boyfriend screaming, “LIES, LIES, LIES, LIES” at the top of his lungs.

It was a source of endless amusement for Blake and I (we still use the LIES LIES LIES line to express our dislike of something the other one of us is saying), but it did make us question the sanity of the two 35 year olds living below us.

So, with full knowledge of the above facts AND her presence in the elevator around the time of the rogue dog poop crime, I decided that it must have been her.  That someone else’s dogs must have pooped on their balcony, angered her, and she immediately blamed it on the innocent Porky and Chopper.

AND I GOT MAD!

I began pacing the apartment,  imagining knocking on her door and rehearsing all the perfectly timed and cruel things I was going to say to her when she answered.  I thought about transferring the dog poop from in front of my apartment to hers.  I thought about calling the apartment management and reporting her for placing rogue dog poop in front of my apartment.  I thought about throwing it ONTO her balcony and repeating the cycle.  With each scenario, I grew more and more angry and more and more confident that I could NOT let this slide.

Without a clear plan, I grabbed some paper towels and got ready for my imagined confrontation.  However, when I opened my apartment door, I realized that the dog poop was gone.  I looked down the hall both directions, to see if it been kicked either way, but there was no dog poop in sight.

I then realized the more likely of scenarios.  On the way out, some dog had gone to the bathroom in front of my apartment.  Their thoughtful owner had cleaned the area upon returning, while I was plotting more and more elaborate revenge on my innocent downstairs neighbor.

Could you imagine what would have happened if I had hurled it on to her balcony while she was sitting their smoking her cigarettes?  I probably wouldn’t still be sitting here to tell this story.

Thanks, God!