As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw my neighbor waving at my Chevy Blazer, wanting me to stop before I could drive away. He was in his morning bathrobe with a very angry look on his face. I only nudged the window down an inch or two. I wasn’t going to give him a chance to get his hands on me. I hoped he didn’t plan to continue our argument from yesterday evening.

He was yelling nonsense about someone killing his stupid dog. He said the police were already on their way and that he planned to sue me for everything I was worth. As he screamed, I wondered how red his face would get before it exploded.

I tried to tell him that I never touched his dog. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t hear me over his own screaming. I tried to get in a word or two, but the only opportunity to do that was when he stopped yelling long enough to take a breath. Admittedly, that’s not much time.

During his screaming fest, he pointed several times to his front porch. I only saw shriveled, brown rags lumped together next to a carved jack-o-lantern. I had no idea if this was supposed to mean anything to me or not. I looked at my wristwatch and decided that I’d given my neighbor more than his fair share of my time. I needed to go.

As I pulled away, I glanced once again at the wrinkled object on his front porch. I got a better look at it from the slightly different angle. What had, at first glance, appeared to be shriveled brown rags was actually his Chihuahua. It was as though the mutt’s life juices had been sucked out by a giant, hairy, octal limbed…

No! That’s impossible – wasn’t it?