Mechanical aptitude and a close call

I returned home from an obligatory shopping trip yesterday afternoon to find Ron's tired fingers bruised and bleeding in his near futile attempt to put the coil spring back into the plastic circle thingy (that's the technical term for it) on our busted lawn mower. The day before, I had pulled the cord to start the motor and it ripped completely away. So yesterday we disassembled it, took a look and thought we could fix it. We always think we can fix stuff. Or at least Ron always thinks we can fix stuff. While it sat in pieces awaiting our attention, the coil spring, neatly tucked into the circle thingy, which is also the pully, leapt out, thwacked and clanged to the ground. The end that catches against a small, metal prong designed to keep it there had snapping off, freeing the spring from its confines. So when I arrived home, Ron had spent the better part of two hours trying to rewind it tight and cram it back in. Tough work with stubborn, thick, flat elastic metal that doesn't want to be rewound. The poor man's eyes had blurred. Half an hour later, however, he'd done it. Ta da! Ah, but now what? Which way to bend the end in the center of the coil to get it to again catch on the metal prong? The direction the pully would travel when tugged into action by the cord mattered. Which way would it turn?

"I think we should bend it this way," he said. I looked closely.

"Nope," I say. "This way. We bend it this way. I tried to explain why.

"I'm not seeing that," he said. This may sound like disagreement but I assure you, it was not. Over the years, Ron has learned and come to accept that I have a knack for these things. I see things, not dead people, but the way things work. I'm not always right, but I often am. So he agreed to try it my way and... Voila! We were feeling pretty smug as the engine roared to life, him for his tenacity and patience with getting the coil spring in place and me for my mechanical inclination.

Doc and I strode up the road on our walk today, happily cruising and sniffing (I was cruising, he was sniffing) when, from out of nowhere, an angry dog, teeth bared and dripping, ripped toward us. It circled snapping hard, trying to bite the backs of Doc's legs. I shouted and kicked at the offending beast.

"Here Laser. Laser!" A voice yelled. The owner. She was right there in her own driveway.

I launched a barrage of expletives. I can be profane when I'm pissed. Or scared. Or both.

You might expect, when a vicious animal charges after someone with full intent to rip flesh from bones, that the owner of said beast would be alarmed over such an incident, take some hasty action, feel remorse, maybe say something like, "Oh gee, I'm so sorry," as she holds the crazed canine back with all her might to keep it from attaching you. You might think that, but if you did, in this case, you'd be wrong. She just stood there.

"He's just a puppy," she said.

"Pretty mean for a puppy," I said. In my experience, puppies, like children, are not born mean. Dogs become mean when encouraged to be so, or after they have been antagonized and ill-treated by humans. This was a pit bull "puppy," maybe eight months old and close to 40 pounds of solid, angry muscle coming right at my larger, but much older, now-a-lover-not-a-fighter dog. The woman was young too, though not a kid and able-bodied. The dog was close enough to her that had she chosen to move her lazy ass with the slightest sense of urgency, she could have grabbed him by the collar and drug his snarling ass away. Instead, she just stood there and called to him. He ignored her. I lunged at him, shouted, kicked and finally spooked him back toward her, until finally she made a move to nab him and he ran the other direction, which allowed us to get far enough away that he stopped following.

Thankfully, the remainder of our walk was peaceful. Whew. I don't like that neighbor.

A hui hou. Malama pono. Aloha.