OW.

So this afternoon I went walking, as I am wont to do. I walked until I hit the dead end of the main drag around here (it certainly screams “Middle of Nowhere” when the main drag dead ends, haha), then went down a different road for about five miles before turning around to get back home. On the way back, walking on the opposite side of the road, I came across a two-foot-long skinny metal rod thingy that had a hooked end. Me being me, I picked it up and started playing with it and decided to take it home with me.

On my way back I turned back onto the main drag near its dead end. A lot of people (like 90% of them) keep dogs around here, and the vast majority of them spaz out and bark at passers-by from within their fenced yards. So imagine my surprise when I catch a loose dog out of the corner of my eye as it jaunts up to me, curious as to why I was walking down the street.

It seemed friendly enough and was wagging its tail, so I said “hello, doggie!” as I continued walking by. It then proceeded to flip out. All of a sudden it started growling and barking and getting real aggressive. It didn’t do anything to me at first, so I kept walking (albeit a bit more cautiously), hoping that it would return to its yard. Then it grabbed my ankle, shaking and pulling, trying to take me down. Which it would have done had I been any smaller or the dog any bigger.

Seriously, it was ready to critically injure me.

So I yank my ankle free and turn around, holding the metal rod out (finally remembering I had it) as menacingly as possible, trying to just get the dog to back down. As slowly as I was backing up to get out of its territory (wherever he deemed that to be; he had followed me already past the property to which I thought he belonged), the dog was still flipping out, lurching at me, growling, barking, ready to bite me again. The only thing that was staving him off was my swinging of the metal rod. I don’t know what would have happened had I not picked that up and carried it with me.

And of course there was no traffic on the road and no one was out in their yards, so there would be no witnesses had that dog decided to take me down. As it was, we had a good 10 minutes of me trying to scare it off with the rod and it aggressively pursuing me as best it could with a metal rod swinging in front of its face.

Not a fun time.

Luckily there were no bite marks or anything; he tore the bottom of my pants up pretty good, but that’s about it. It hurts to walk right now, but I don’t think it’ll hurt much tomorrow.

Exciting times in Arizona, am I right?