4/28/2011 - a vortex of sound and fury. . .

As I ate my breakfast this morning, Sam told me the best story, a victorious saga that began with: "Grr faced down his nemesis today."

I mean, really, don't you just love it already?  Seven AM, and I had already missed a showdown.

Apparently, Sam had taken Grr out earlier to do his business, and from afar, Sam saw the street sweeper round a corner and barrel toward them.  Grr cowers from many things, from the innocuous (a paper bag) to the slightly less innocuous (motorcycles and busses), but one of the things that strikes fear in his little heart like no other is the street sweeper.

He's probably only seen one a handful of times, but they left quite the impression.  On some mornings, he will growl and bark into the darkness of the loft when he hears the rumble and swish of the vehicle pass by our window.  Unlike his other phobias which baffle me (a door stop--really?), I can understand this one.  To a puppy, the street sweeper, a giant tank of a vehicle with various brushes and appendages attached to it, must seem like quite the behemoth.  Couple the relative size of it with the flood of noise it generates, I imagine Grr must drown in sensory overload.

When Sam saw one heading their way this morning, he hoped that they could finish up and be home by the time it got too close.  But Grr, still blissfully unaware, wanted to poop, started zigging around a patch of grass with his nose to the ground, searching for whatever sign he needed in order to find that perfect spot.

Then he saw it.  He wanted to get away, but Sam and I were told by our dog trainer to keep him as calm as possible at times like these without coddling him or enabling his fear.  We needed to teach Grr that as long as he was at our side, we would not let anything harm him.  Grr tugged, tucked his tail in preparation for flight, but Sam stood firm, gripped the leash harder and sent a little prayer of bravery out into the air between them.

The sweeper swirled closer, a vortex of sound and fury.  Grr sat on the frigid sidewalk, wide-eyed and trembling before his greatest fear, like Robin Williams in The Fisher King, when the Red Knight would materialize and beat him down.  The sweeper crawled toward them slowly.  Grr sat frozen, ears pinned back.  As the sweeper approached, Grr lifted his head to it.  They were face to face; it could have swept him up and swallowed him whole.

But it didn't, just moved on and continued sweeping down the street, around the corner and down that street until the drone of its vacuum, the hiss of its bristles disappeared and left Grr alone, intact and unharmed. 

Now, I don't know how any of it actually happened; I was sound asleep upstairs fighting my own battle of deciding whether or not to go to the gym.  Sam's account of this modern day David-and-Goliath story was sparsely decorated and much, much briefer, but I took some creative liberties, filled in the blanks for myself, and swooned.  I couldn't help it.  I pictured my little pup as a lowly warrior who went to battle against his greatest enemy, maybe with an Ennio Morricone score swelling in the background, faced annihilation itself and came out triumphant.