Today's Cloud

After a nice long walk today, meeting a couple of dogs, not chasing a few hares, and general awesomeness, things went horribly wrong as we got home. We were rounding a car parked on the side of the road, and as we were passing it two men carrying tools and I don't know what turned up on the other side. Monster stared at them, and fool as I am I nodded to the men and said hello, trying to let them know Monster and I were completely harmless. But since they were polite fellows, they helloed back, which made Monster go nuts. Apparently they were allowed to walk towards us, stare at us, and carry strange large things, but he drew the line at them talking...

What? Ever heard of asking for permission first?

I had to drag him away, which wasn't the best way to end the walk.

And after we'd been home for about half an hour, someone started knocking on the door. And would not stop. I frankly find this quite rude, how about knocking a few times and waiting for a response!? The kind of frantic knocking that goes on until someone opens the door should be reserved for emergencies (which I actually thought it was when he just kept at it). But as I opened the door there's a man who wants to sell his drawings...

Monster had been well behaved at first, he barked once at the first sound, and then went and sat down by the hallway. But as the knocking just kept going on, he (understandably) went nuts again, and started really warning off the intruder. When I opened the door Monster was right behind me, still sounding the alarm (I hadn't taken the time to calm him down and wait for him to sit before I opened, since I thought there must have been an accident or something), and I had to just stick my head out to talk to the man. He immediately backed up off the porch, but still tried to run his spiel. I'm frankly amazed at his tenacity, since he was also clearly afraid of Monster. But that doesn't stop me from still feeling annoyed... It's not his fault I have a dog who's prone to overreact to strangers, but some common courtesy shouldn't be too much to ask. Who likes to have their door knocked on like that? Others may not bark like Monster, but I doubt he gets much sold.

Oh, please. Did you see those drawings? Polite or not, his sales are never going to be good.