Tucked away in the quaint and unobtrusive suburbs of Washington, D.C., a pleasant neighborhood has become embroiled in a fierce conflict. Actually, it's less of a even-sided battle than an unjustly imposed terror, a rapacious scourge worthy of the Cossacks and the Barbarian hordes and even the uncompromisingly cruel Wayans Brothers (pogroms and pillaging are one thing, but did you see "Little Man?").
The source of this horrific menace? A vile monster, sadistic and hate-filled, draped with flowing, flea-infested blond locks and constantly covered in mud and grime and filth.
I know what you're thinking, but this isn't Anne Coulter. The offender is a heathenous hound, a God-loathing golden lab. And although Coulter and the yellow Labrador retriever in question might differ in sex (this mutt is no bitch) and species (although that's debatable), the similarities between the pundit and the pooch are strikingly eerie.
Both stand tall, with gothically elongated mugs, pronounced snouts and prominent, fuzz-covered chins. Full of raging contempt, both dispense the kind of sound-polluting noise you might expect only in an ultra-conservative rant or on Animal Planet, with the dog's voracious growls and barks being only slightly less intelligible than Coulter's. Both are questionably housebroken and relegated to dilapidated, fenced-in properties for fear of escape into the general population. Both have been known to use bigoted speech in their slanderous and baseless attacks against the left (in all fairness to the animal, while Coulter is on record, I have yet to translate possessed dog talk, so I can only imagine the horrid comments coming out of the beast's mouth. Also, I fashion it as more a libertarian or anarchist than a part of the moral majority). With such parallels in behavior and appearance, the two might as well be related.
But while Coulter is a comic-like character, a near figment of the imagination almost too exaggerated to exist in anything but dark, storm-bringing cumulonimbus clouds and political gossip pages, this beast of Bethesda is frighteningly tangible, all too real to be ignored.
There has already been bloodshed and casualties because of this sociopathic canine. Back in August, after returning from a summer spent working in New York City, I quickly came to know the seriousness and ferocity of the beast, when after getting out of its confines it viciously attacked Napoleon, my noble and proud German Shepard mix, on two separate occasions. One of these confrontations led to emergency surgery for poor Napoleon, to sew shut a gaping, one-inch hole in his side (the result of the beast's steely jaws).
After successfully confronting the owner (a hulking patriarch of a family teeming with children all basically the same age that moved into a decrepit house down the street while I was gone and instantly garnered the scorn of the community for their ghastly inadequate attempts at renovation) about the veterinarian bills and the need to control his animal, he audaciously asked if I knew anyone interested in purchasing a good, well-bred dog with all papers intact. Amazingly, I haven't found any takers, so after six months the monster remains.
Not only does the beast haunt my dreams, the echoes of its toxic rancor reverberate around the block everyday when I take Napoleon on his walks. Sometimes our initial approach will go unnoticed, yet on our return, without fail, the shaggy brute is waiting for us, perched on a log with nose pointing and sniffing through the metal fence added to prevent it from leaping out, ears just barely visible above the adjoining stone wall. His paws are grasping and clanging the metal bars of the fence like an unruly and unfed death-row inmate with nothing to lose.
When not spotted by the beast's cold, soulless eyes, our location is inevitably given up by its accomplice, a ratty and cavorting black Dachshund that might be less dangerous, but is no less obnoxious and infuriating. Once our presence is acknowledged, the unlikely team of Satan spawn harangue and harass good-hearted Napoleon to no end, riling up the elderly statesman with their vehement lies, character attacks and threats of bodily harm. And the wretched animals are constantly left out in the yard, only finding shelter in a crawl space under the house. They're omnipresent and unavoidable.
But like John Edwards hopefully will do, I'm fighting back. Both the canine and Coulter might brandish venomous, saliva-frothing fangs, but my chompers ain't so dull themselves.
A famous publisher once said, "If a dog bites a man, that's not news, but if a man bites a dog, that is news." If so, I'm holding my press conference tomorrow.
