The Security Guard

There is a local gentleman who works on the corner by the pee tree (the tree ALL the dogs pee at) as a security guard. He is rather abrupt and mean looking and he works at an apartment building with signs posted everywhere about not letting your dogs pee on the planters, building and walls. One of my first encounters with him was one bad morning before I had, had my coffee. I was walking Ashlynn to the bus and Hoss was still at PT. So, I had Brielle with me and, as is the custom, I brought Max down with me for his morning bathroom duties to get everything knocked out at once. However, we live on the 7th floor and there is only one main elevator (the back elevator is a crickity, old service one) and the main one kept coming up and down with people in it. This matters because most people are terrified of Max and so I have to wait for an empty elevator to get into. I would have taken the back elevator, but the cleaning lady does trash every morning at 8:00am. When she does this, she takes the back elevator up to the 25th floor and holds it as she hits every floor on the way down. This happens every morning, but usually I can get main elevator within a five minute period. Unfortunately, this was not the morning that it happened; instead we waited for an elevator until I was uptight and we were late to catch the bus; then we had to run down the 11 floors of stairs (including the carport). So, I dropped Ash off at the bus and Brielle, Max and I went for Max’s morning relief. We walked him around for a bit but he didn’t seem to be able to complete the pass on the solid end and after a while we just started walking back. As you can imagine we got right in front of the guard shack and down he crouches. The security guard runs out and starts yelling at me in Cantonese about Max and I just shake my head at him and grab out the newspaper to clean it up. However, as I start to clean it up Brielle starts playing on the cement railing by the road and Max starts pulling at another yappy dog that is walking by. So, I start yelling at Brielle to come down and try to pull back and get Max under control so I can stretch out my free hand to scoop up the poop. It was chaos and the security guard, who had by this time grabbed a jug of water, is watching the whole thing go down with distain; as if he thinks I am the typical out of control, disrespectful American with the crazy kid. I guess it did appear that way, but that is neither here nor there. Well, I know you don’t need the descriptor but it was the crumbly type and it was a disaster. I managed to get all but the tiniest crumb and the security guy is still yelling at me. I can tell you that I didn’t have any more paper and for Pete’s sake it was on top of a storm drain grate! So I told the security guard to splash it down with the purposeful bottle and walked off, cursing him under my breath. It was a rotten morning and hard to recover from.

Flash forward to the present. I have tried my best to forget the incident and every time I pass I make sure to wave and smile. On Chinese New Year he came out of his booth to wish me a happy new year and he makes sure to wave and smile at the kids when we pass. I feel like the one rotten experience was just a fluke and through my respect (by not letting my dog pee on his building or ever poo again near him) he has learned I am different. Now, I look forward to waving at him and his friendly smile. I think I will actually miss seeing him on the morning routine and I hope he will notice my absence as well. Maybe we have both gained something from the experience. I know I have.