Three little dogs, Sharon and I are splitville and the homeless at my window

 

I dreamed I was back in the little house in Paradise where Sharon and I spent 10 years together. The Campfire never happened, and Sharon never had MS. I, however, was still an asshole. Some things remain constant, even across multiple timelines.

Sharon and I were split up. I'm not sure the exact reason, but it didn't seem irrevocable. She was living at her parents house, and her mom, Hannelore, was still alive. Since I was this jerk of a guy, I had to do a lot of sweet talking to get Sharon to cozy up to the idea of spending some time together in a temporary dating kind of arrangement. She seemed amenable to the idea, so I must have been doing an ok job of hiding my true nature.

That is, until the trio of homeless people showed up at my window. I'd talked to all of them individually in different settings when I'd been out on my walks. There were 2 guys and one female. It was the female that irked me, since she was the one who came waltzing onto my property and was peering in at me through the shades while I was talking to Sharon on the phone.

"He's here," the overly tanned, middle age bag lady rasped excitedly to the others. "Now we just gotta get him to let us in. I can see him in there. HELLO! ARE YOU IN THERE, MR. MAN?" She fairly shouted the last part, making sure her voice penetrated into every crevice in the house.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!" I screamed at her, grabbing my uncle's bronze casting of a .357 Magnum. It was purely decorative, but it was such a realistic piece of art that it fooled most people. She was no exception.

"Let's get out of here guys," the lady tramp said. "The asshole has a gun."

"You're gonna wish you never pulled that," said one of the male bums, ominously. "We'll come back when you aren't here or when  you are sleeping, and we'll make things bad for you. You'll see."

Still brandishing the fake handgun, I put the phone in my pocket and went outside to make sure that the crew was properly motivated to leave the premises. The man and woman both headed out down the road, closing the gate neatly behind them. The third homeless guy was parking his big rig when the frackus went down, but upon seeing me with the gun and his friends fleeing, decided to turn the semi around on the incredibly narrow street, in kind of a slow motion Austin Powers style escape.

I ran into my neighbor Stan as he passed the last of the homeless exiting our street. He asked me what the commotion was all about, and I told him I'd been besieged by a zombie horde of homeless that had somehow followed me home from my walk. 

"You got to watch them," he said in his choppy Eastern European dialect. "They take everything. Ruin everything for you. Is things still same with girlfriend?" 

"She's still my wife," I said, "at least for the time being."

After all the transients were gone, I was headed back into the house to resume my conversation with Sharon. But before I could do this, a Dachshund, a Corgi and a Papillon weaseled their way out of my front door and demanded not so subtly to be taken for a walk. I guess they were my dogs, though I've never owned dogs of this variety before. 

I was frustrated with all the interruptions, so I started yelling at the dogs to get back in the house. But then I realized that they'd probably just pee in there if I didn't at least let them out for a minute, as they were indoor dogs and relied on me to let them out from time to time. I resigned myself to yet another inconvenience, still grumbling.

It was then that I noticed that the phone in my pocket was still on and in a call with Sharon. Great. Now she'd for sure have heard me threatening the homeless people, and worse, being short with the dogs. Running some dirtbags off the property might not have even registered as a transgression, but being the least bit unkind to an animal was sure to cast me in the worst possible light with her. I'd hoped she hadn't been listening.

I never found out, though, because there was just silence on the other end of the line. I knew that regardless of whether she'd heard the entire thing, or just a portion of it, the chances were pretty good that I'd let something ugly slip during all that time of uncensored candid phone broadcasting.