I was drinking coffee and watching sandhill cranes by the lake this morning when a woman, who obviously lives in the neighborhood, let her yaptastic dog scare them off.

Well, you don’t scare a 4 foot tall bird away so much as you annoy it into leaving. I rather jealously wished I could fly away with the cranes.

Now, I enjoy incessant barking and owners who don’t clean up after their dogs as much as the next person, but I decided to make a little small-talk to let this woman know that by not controlling her dog she was harassing protected birds in a designated habitat, not to mention that walking her dog like that was going to result in tragedy sooner rather than later.

Admittedly, I was a little short with her as I watched her tiny terror run around.

Me: “That’s a bad idea.”

Her: (sneering) “You don’t believe the rumors about an alligator in the lake, do you?”

Me: “I did count 8 in there this morning.”

Woman: (condescension in full bloom) “HOW did you count them?”

(What kind of question is that?)

Me, pointing at the alligator her dog was barking at (who would have been about a foot outside the frame of this photo of the gator in question): “One…”

It amazes me how willfully ignorant people can be about their own environment. You aren’t in the city anymore and there are wild animals here. There’s ample, reputable information about alligators that’s easily obtainable (including in the neighborhood newsletter).

People make me tired.