The Dog Lady

This is Ollbeek's winning entry in the Make Mrs Duck Laugh competition. His website can be found at http://revolicktion.blogspot.com Enjoy. I did.

The age of fifteen was a very important one for me. I was nearly allowed to buy cigarettes without breaking the law, I had my first ‘proper’ girlfriend and I moved house for the first time in my life. Being fifteen, I didn’t know much about the house moving lark, but luckily my mum was in control of that so I only had minimal stress from the whole operation.

We moved into a quaint end terrace in a (semi) desirable area of my home town, Whitefield. With my two brothers having recently left home to go to university, I had first choice in bedrooms, and being a fifteen year old rebellious type I chose to set up shop in the cellar. Although it had no windows it was extremely comfortable and was big enough for a double bed. Bear in mind I had my first ‘proper’ girlfriend at this stage and so had high hopes for this bed.

After the excitement of the move I was straight to sleep on my first night. It was absolutely pitch black in that cellar, an unforseen bonus of having no windows, and I slept like… well, like a knackered fifteen year old in a pitch black room on a questionably comfortable, but very large, bed.

I wasn’t sure if I was having a nightmare or what, but suddenly I was wide awake. I couldn’t tell what time of day or night it was but, as I was convinced the end of the world was nigh, it didn’t really matter. Coming from somewhere was a noise that could only be described as a jackal being raped by the Hound of the Baskervilles whilst running repeatedly up and down a flight of stairs. I fell up my concrete staircase and burst through my door to be greeted by my mum’s horrified face. Horrified as I’m not a pretty sight first thing in the morning but also because she was hearing the same thing I was.

After much deliberation and investigation all became clear. Our new neighbour, Lynda, was something of a dog lover, and worked shifts in a nursing home. This explained why we were only allowed to view the house at certain times before buying and possibly why the devious gits that lived there before us had wanted out. Lynda had eleven dogs at this stage. All were mongrels and all did stink. However, having just moved there we couldn’t do much about it so we lived with it.

For two years we lived with it and by now I was seventeen. In those two years certain things came to light concerning Lynda and, it has to be said, just how mad she was. Every morning breakfast would be cooked for the dogs (or her ‘children’ as she referred to them). Eggs and bacon usually, slopped onto the kitchen floor. Whilst working her shifts at the nursing home, Lynda would lock up her dogs for twelve hours in her two up two down terrace. As dogs do they would relieve themselves when and where they felt like it. Lynda would then return home and go ballistic shouting things such as, ‘What have you done you filthy bastards?’ Well, they’d done what dogs do. Lynda’s dogs had also been given disturbingly human names, such as Barney, Philip, Lewis etc. Perhaps the most disturbing fact of all was that none of the bitches in her pack had been spade. So by now she had twenty of these inbred hell hounds running amuck in her stinking hovel of a home. Oh yes, the smell. I haven’t mentioned the smell have I? The thin walls that allowed us to glean all this information also let us know what Lynda’s house must smell like. Less than pleasant as I am sure you can imagine.

Despite the dogs, things were looking up. My mum was going on holiday for two weeks and leaving me to house sit. Imagine my joy, seventeen and a pad of my own for a fortnight. My best mate, James, decided this was too good an opportunity to miss and promptly moved in. We didn’t have parties every night and the music wasn’t on that loud all the time. So I don’t know what it was but Lynda seemed to have taken a certain dislike to us, often beating the walls and shouting nonsense through them, such as, ‘I’ll tell your mother you’re smoking those drugs of ecstasy!’

James and I decided we’d had enough of her and her dogs. So we took action, as any self respecting, mischievous seventeen year olds would. The first stop was the butchers and the second the chemist. Lynda was on day shifts, which was fortunate, and so when she was gone for the day, my friend and I posted five premium scotch beef steaks, laced with laxatives, through her door. Twenty dogs, all with the screaming ad dabs, locked up for twelve hours; imagine the mess.

That night we knew it had had the desired effect. She went mental; absolutely, undeniably crazy. ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? YOU FUCKING BASTARDS! AAAAARGH!’ At which point she broke down. I must say I felt a pang of guilt for a second but then she pulled herself together and seemed to be preparing to clean the place. Only Lynda’s idea of cleaning was as twisted as her idea of ‘children’. From what we could hear it sounded like she was filling a bath. But then the sound of sluicing water told us she had filled a tin bath and just chucked it on the floor. What a way to clean your house.

Despite our previous and momentary guilt, James and I felt our mission had been accomplished. Surely now she would get rid of at least some of the inbred mutts. But one must never assume and we were not dealing with a rational being here. The dogs stayed, and after our little prank, the stench increased exponentially.

When my mum returned from holiday she too must have felt it was time to do something. The environmental health were called in. After a preliminary investigation they decided Lynda’s house was a) the worst case they’d had in a private residence and b) rotting from the inside out. They proposed to gut it and give it a full new interior. Lynda, mentally challenged as she is, had failed to buy any house insurance. As a result, hard earned tax payers’ cash was used in the form of a council grant to give her a brand spanking new house, including double glazing!?. In a few years she’ll probably get another free refurb as she now has twenty five dogs. I realise it’s not the dogs’ fault but still, I can’t help thinking that perhaps my mate and I should have used poison instead of poo powder.

Woo! Yay! Houpla! and indeed Panowie!

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