Some of you may know about my neighbor, the seemingly nice lady who misinterpreted watering my plants for the weekend to mean eviscerating my garden and inserting new plants of her choosing. A second invasion (after I got home, no less) and a padlock later, she promoted herself from evil bastard to psycho bitch by keeping the HOA's gardeners away from the communal plants OUTSIDE my garden walls.

Lucky me, she's now got competition for most infuriating neighbor.

Every morning I walk Zero and Tawny before leaving for work. They are always on leashes, and I always pick up after them. Tawny finds it necessary to bark psychotically at the other dogs, usually while lunging forward. She doesn't bite or growl, but it is enough to make the more timid dogs nervous. This leaves me holding onto her leash as tightly as I can, to prevent any kind of incident. Last week, one of the woman who I see every morning, commented that I was doing everything wrong and instead of holding onto her leash so tightly, I should be petting her and telling her it's okay. Uh, yeah, no. Meanwhile, her dog that WAS NOT ON A LEASH, was waddling over to get in on the action. She obviously wanted me to let Tawny bark up close and personal.

I tried telling her that Tawny is 13 and has been acting this way for over a year, since she was attacked in the park. Regardless of what I do, she'll stop when she's ready. But no, I obviously hadn't been really trying. Even her kids didn't always get things the first time. Needless to say, I didn't waste my breath listing all the things we've tried, including suggestions from the vet.

Okay, so she's not the nicest person in the world. Or she might have even thought she was helping. Then today happened.

Tawny had just released a large, stinky pile of crap onto the world. Quick! Must bag before stench kills everyone! Or Tawny could see some dogs coming and start barking. Lo and behold! It's the same woman, but this time with BOTH HER DOGS OFF LEASH. I got to stand there, holding Tawny (quietly shushing her, if only because it makes ME feel better), while waiting for the moron and her parade to pass. Well, she got about 10 yards away from me before she realized that she was short one dog. The tiny one had been interested in Tawny and Zero, but the bigger one had wandered off behind some bushes. And he refused to come out. It took the dog whisperer herself a few minutes to convince the dog to come out, all the while glaring at me since this was obviously my fault.

Round 2 came while I was dropping an envelope in the mailbox. She snuck up behind us, so Tawny didn't get to start barking a warning with the usual head start. A few evil glares later, and she was across the street. Meanwhile, a man I didn't recognize appeared with similar mail-induced intentions. He commented on her stupidity for leaving her dogs off leash. That's when manna from heaven rained down upon me and mine. Her perfect dogs saw some crows and thought DINNER! They bolted into the intersection, right in front of not one but two cars! She yelled them to come back, but her calls were unanswered by the larger one, who was perfectly happy in the middle of the road in front of a car. The other trotted most of the way back before stopping to ponder the meaning of life.

After the dumb dog finally decided that he really didn't need to nap on the limit line after all, the man and I exchanged a knowing look, along with some laughter. And so delusional bitch was born.

Note: No dogs were actually hit by cars, and delusional bitch's two eventually made their way back onto the sidewalk, safe and possibly sound.