Dixie's Big Adventure
5/14/1
Friday, I left work early. We were supposed to hit the road by two so we could get to Doublehead by threeish.
I left work at noon, just barely finishing my volatile acids in time. I stopped by a few places on my way home and got home at a little before one. When I pulled into the driveway, I didn't see anything different.
I opened the garage and almost pulled in, but remembering that we needed to load the car, I left it in the driveway so that it would be easier to load. As I backed up some so I wasn't so close to the garage, I looked out the window and saw the little dog.
Very happy to see me, and hopping around next to the driver door, was a youthful Boston terrier.
I got out of the car and said hi to the dog and since I was on my way in the house, I picked her up and carried her in.
As soon as Aisai heard the door open, she started talking to me. I listened but mostly waited for her to come look at me holding the little guy. When Aisai walked around the table to see me in the hall, she shot up a foot and did some girly shocked noise.
I walked back into the garage with the dog.
Aisai showed up a second later and I told her that the dog was just there. We used my phone to call the number on the rabies tag and, good old city, the number was wrong. We looked up Animal Control in the phone book and I called that number.
I need to stop and point out what a polite dog this was. And she was very clean too. She was a textbook example of a Boston terrier, and a little honey.
The Animal Control person got the info from me and after I gave her the rabies tag number she said, "Well, her name is Dixie."
I looked down at Dixie and said, "Dixie! Is it you?" Dixie freaked and hopped around, happy to hear her name.
"Yes, that is definitely her name." I said. The lady also gave me the name and phone number of the owner. All I can remember now is that his name was Daniel. They weren't allowed to give out his address, which is what I could have really used since I'd be able to drop ol' Dix in the back yard.
I call Daniel up and get his answering machine. I identified myself and gave a phone number and address, told him I had his dog and that I'd try to figure out his address, and left it at that.
Aisai called her work and the person she got wasn't able to figure out how to use the reverse phone book they have there. I called my work to get someone to look it up at realpages.com, and I'm not sure if it was that I gave Bill the wrong URL or that�Oh, that it was just old Bill that couldn't figure it out. I told Aisai to stay outside and I'd go get on the internet and figure out the address of the guy from his phone number.
Once inside, I decided to look at the back of the non-Bellsouth brand phone book. It didn't have his number listed in the reverse directory. I called 555-1212 and got some odd recording telling me I was a loser. So I called 256-555-1212 and got a different recording telling me that I should just call 411. So I call 411 and it says:
What City? "Madison, Alabama"
What State? "Alabama"
What Listing? "I need the address which goes with 430-[whatever]"
The operator came on and said, "Their number is unlisted." I said, "How irritating since I have the guy's dog and his phone number and I really just want to drop his dog in his back yard."
I go outside where Aisai and Dixie are bonding. Game over, there is no way to figure out where Dix goes. So we start loading the car.
Dixie wants in the house. No, Dixie. Dixie wants in the car, but isn't used to the setup of a coupe obviously so I don't have to tell her not to hop in.
Kurt next door's cat has been noticing the evil invader for some time now. As I'm loading the car, Fiddler makes his move at the small dog.
And the dog is small, too. She's much smaller that Fiddler, a Morris-style orange tabby.
Fiddler swings and misses. Dixie decides to show Fiddler why she has a face shaped like a bulldog's and bite a hole in Fiddler's rear as Fiddler high-tails it between the houses and into the back yards.
Fiddler makes it to a storm drain much quicker than Dixie does. I've called Dixie back, since she might get damaged before she gets returned. Dixie is sorry she chased the cat and does her subservient best, crawling on her stomach with her head low for the last 10 feet back to me.
I continue loading the car and my neighbor who chains his dog in his backyard from two houses up pulls out of his driveway. His name is Jeremy. I know that from the database we have access to here.
I want to ask him if he knows who owns this dog which is helping me load my car so I wave my hand in the air, a hailing wave. He pulls out of the driveway and heads down the street toward me but doesn't seem to be slowing down.
I did the hailing wave again. He did the backhanded "forget you" brush-off gesture. Jeremy disses me and goes on.
Aisai and I finish packing the car and it's around 1:30 at this point. I need to call Daniel again.
"Hi, Dan. This is [my name, address and phone]. I'm leaving town and as of 1:33 pm, Dixie is standing in my front yard. I'm just going to leave her and I hope she finds her way home. Bye."
So we left Dixie.
At Doublehead, I told both the Cartoon's Turtle story, the spark plug wire story, and the Dixie story. I did the sheared bearing spindle story only once.
When we got back on Saturday night, there was a message from Daniel. He thanked us and said he guessed that we found his place and dropped the dog off since it was on his neighbor's porch when he got home.
How he got that idea, I do not know.
Right, I couldn't figure out his address so I dropped Dixie off on his neighbor's porch.