At the same time as starting uni, I started a job in retail. While being at this job, I have seen a wide range of customers, varying between the nicest people you will ever meet and complete and utter idiots, the type where you wonder how they manage to dress themselves. The latter customers are often comprised with people who will scream at you because of their ignorance, but they are everywhere. No, the story I am going to share with you is of a prize idiot who even made my managers crack up laughing and look more than a little horrified.

The "hero" of our story, a middle aged man, balding, fat decided to approach the registers where I was covering the long suffering register girls break. This "casanova" decided he was most certainly a gift from the gods to woman kind and could charm me enough to gain something. This is more than a little horrifying when you realise that most of my coworkers and the customers think I'm still in high school..........

Idiot customer: Hi
Me: Hi.
IC: I'd like to buy this. (holds up plastic containers)
Me: Sure. (Scans item) That's $24.95
IC: There's a sign just over there for $9.95
Me: (sighs on the inside and looks over the counter at the sign) Sir, I'm afraid that that's for the other item, right next to where you picked this up from. It clearly states its for a 3 piece set by X brand while this is by Y brand and is 10 pieces.
IC: Oh. (Begins to attempt to flirt with me, leaning provocatively against the counter, trying what I assumed was a sexy face while sliding over a $10 note)
Me: Do you still want this?
IC: Yes. (Pushes the money closer)
Me: This is $10. The item costs $24.95.
IC: I'm sure that you could do this for me, just once. Say you scanned the wrong item.
Me: Uhm, no. I can't.
IC: Sure you can.
Me: I'm afraid I can't do that.
IC: It's just a few dollars. Just change the price. I know you can. (Starts to bat his eyelids)
Me: (holding back vomit) I don't have the codes (I would have said this even if I did, but not having them just meant I had plausible deniability). I would have to call over my manager.
IC: No you don't. You can do this.
Me: (debating how long it would take for me to dive to the phone and what words I could say to make the acting manager run like the wind towards the tils) I. Do. Not. Have. The. Codes. I'm sorry, but I would need to call my manager.
IC: Come on. Everyone steals from their workplace. Everyone does it. It's just a few dollars and they wont even notice.
Me: (blinks wide in surprise. Inside thinks, WTF??????!!!!!!!!!?????????? he so didn't just say that) I'm sorry. I'm not going to change the price without my manager. I can't change the price. He is the only one with the codes. I can call him if you want.
IC: (looks at the line mounting behind him with other customers looking at him like he's a freak) No. I won't take this.
Me: Who's next. (idiot scurries away)

As soon as I was relieved I told one manager what had happened and how the idiot told me to just "steal from my workplace 'coz everyone does it". She cracked up laughing and rushed me over to the other manager telling him he just had to hear it. His look of utter horror amongst his laughter said the real story. If it had been someone on the tils who was less experienced than me and faaaaaaaar less cynical and stubborn, then a deal could have been made which could have resulted in a poor young register girl loosing her job for stealing because some idiot sweet talked her into giving him a lower price. It horrified me that this man thought he could get away with it, and that batting his eyes and leaning suggestively would "blow my mind" enough for him to gain things for far less.

When you receive crap customer service, or think that the girls behind the til are bitching away for no reason whatsoever, remember the idiot customer. While hes the first person to tell me to steal from my shop (My job supplies me money, which secures me shelter and food. I ain't blowing that for some douche to get a few dollars off a crappy set of plastic containers, even if he was the living embodiment of sex, which as a fat, balding middle aged man he clearly wasn't), I have to deal with so many idiot customers a day, all of which are snipping at me, pointing at me and telling their children to stay in school or this is where they'd end up (I'M AT UNI! I have a higher education than the morons pointing and staring. I'm doing this so that I can afford my degree, because unlike the idiot pointing I'm not just dropping a kid for centrelink cheques). This makes me crabby, cynical and hate before I've even met you or heard your latest complaint about how you can't read a sign or about how the guy down in electrical didn't bend over and allow you to spank him. And to be truly honest, I don't care. With a passion.

I have a million more stories, most of which would horrify you. Remember, the holidays are coming up. If you annoy me at the start of a 12 hour shift, well, that's 11 hours of you getting ignored and told that "I refuse to do that". If you want customer assistance these holidays, remember the long suffering university students, the high school graduates waiting for a better job and the wise workers who have been working in retail so long they don't remember not being in a shop. These people have to deal with everyone's crap, and listen to seriously horrible Christmas carol tapes while they're at it.

Don't screw with me these holidays. I will not stand it.

Pop

I just read my dad's post on this, and I felt compelled to write a bit myself.

My pop died. That should be a phrase which causes me to burst into tears, curl into fetal position and never leave the house, but it doesn't. Strange really as I cried for ages over a dog, and still occassionally mist up and this is a man who was my father' father, but really, I'm scarily fine. I feel nothing.

Basically, I never knew the man. He lived in another state when I was a child and we never saw him, but we had a replacement in my Nana's husband, a man who is always there and cares about myself and my brother greatly. This doesn't mean I don't have any memories of pop though. As a child I would recieve gifts and a letter from my pop's wife for my birthday, but this stopped on my 7th bithday when we recieved a letter saying he was in the hospital. Mum quietly conveyed to me that he'd had a heart attack and was very sick in the hospital. When we didn't recieve another letter, I wrote him off. He'd died as far as we knew and so that's what I assumed.

A talk years later with my father changed that. He said pop was still alive and kicking. Again, I felt nothing. I forgot about him again until I recieved a card from him, asking how I was forwarded through his step-daughter when I was 16. This card made me feel conflicted, as I realised 2 things with this card; 1. He was still alive and who was this man, and 2. why hadn't he asked about my brother or sent him a card, and why hadn't he contacted us before? These thoughts conflicted but eventually my procrastinating self won out, and I never replied.

The next I heard of him, my step-aunt rung me up to say he was dying and that he wanted to speak to me. At this point, I felt curious and a bit of pity. This caused me to say yes, yes I would speak to him to satisfy my curiousity and to ensure that an old man was at peace if the end was near. It was when I spoke to him that he asked about my brother, to which I said he was ok, and it was the first time he had shown any interest in my younger brother in my life. This annoyed me slightly, as he had 2 grandkids through my father, but he hadn't even put any effort into contacting one, sending him a letter or anything.

We ended up speaking twice, and to this day I still don't feel sad that I never met him, nor do I feel sad at his passing. I only hope that the old man didn't suffer unnecessary pain at the end, just as I would any other stranger.

Remembering Bonnie

Saturday the 7th March was just like any Saturday when I have to work all day. It began not so well, as the universes schemes has forced me to loose a prime homework night the night before, but this was a minor issue. Something to be annoyed about sure, but not any great hassle. So asides from being annoyed at work (something which happens anyway at work. Some customers make you want to scream) the day occurred as per usual. I worked all day, got into my car and drove home, ate some food and rested my aching feet. As I was debating as to what to watch that night, I received a telephone call which changed that day dramatically.

It was my brother, hysterically crying on the phone to me. Bonnie, our 9 year old Miniature Poodle had suddenly died.


As per usual, my brother and mother had gone down the local dog beach with the 2 family dogs, Bonnie and Billy, a 2 year old Spoodle. They had all had a great time, running through waves, climbing rocks, chasing balls and just generally running like loons, something both dogs absolutely adored. All of a sudden Bonnie began yelping, but quickly stopped and began to run again, causing mum to dismiss any problems with the wussy poodle. Yelping, after all, was her favourite past time. The next time she yelped however, she didn’t get back up. In fact, she stopped breathing and her heart failed. She died on the beach. As they had not parked near by, mum had to carry the rapidly stiffening beloved family pet in her arms to the car, while walking back a hysterical boy and oblivious puppy.

She was buried next to another beloved pet in their back yard.

As I live away from my mother, my brother called to inform me of what had happened. It was completely unexpected. She had been to a vet recently who had given her a clean bill of health, and asides from becoming a bit slower throughout the week, she was fit as a fiddle. So it has been decided it was either a surprise heart attack or a sting from something at the beach. Either way, she went in a desirable way, doing what she loved, running down a beach chasing a ball with loved ones.

This has hit my family hard, with all of us bursting into sobbing at very random intervals as we remember something that the poodle has done. With me, it’s remembering the quiet moments of cuddling her as she sat upon my lap. Bonnie was the ultimate lap dog and she would often climb legs like a cat, digging in her little claws to clamber onto a lap, curling up tight and demanding pats. The little black dog was smaller than some other mini poodles, and thought of herself as a human being. Maybe even master of the house.

This loss has caused me to look through old photo albums which contain her to help me remember and grieve. The one containing the most pictures of her starts oddly enough with my dad pelting a cricket ball at one of my camps, a ball which seems to have been bowled by Harvey Jolly, the father of one of the boys on my camp. All of us girls have scattered as the ball has been lobbed off the picture screen. The other photo on the page is a goofy one of my grandpa wearing a crows beanie, looking quite odd. It also highlights the fact he needs a new wardrobe as he still wears that same shirt. As I flicked further through the album, I saw how much my brother had changed over the years, and that all the pets in this album are dead. Scary, as it started in 1999.

When we bought Bonnie as a puppy, she fitted in 2 cupped hands. This little black ball of fluff was aloof even then, thinking herself better than most humans. Upon meeting her parents, it was very obvious she took after her moody mother. Later on, she even began to look like her, as her coat became grey. This little ball of fluff was eagerly accepted into a household which contained 2 pet cats and a turtle (for my 7th birthday I asked for a puppy, and got a turtle.). The cats, Moggy and Sox, already established in their routines were not so impressed by this yappy black dot, which wanted to play with *shock horror* water. Moggy, who had already made her territory in the front yard, was affected very little. Sox however, as she was the younger cat, had been issued the backyard, and this is where Bonnie was released into. Sox began to live on the fence and the outdoor furniture, watching the weird ball of fluff that barked at her.

Bonnie was introduced to the Grandparents and their dog Tammy. Tammy immediately became Bonnie’s favourite toy. Tammy, a reasonably submissive dog, quickly became chewed upon and generally attacked by Bonnie, leading to a very funny incident when Tammy managed to kick Bonnie across the yard. Tammy, who had been pinned upon her back with Bonnie on her chest, gathered her back legs under the dog and kicked out, sending the puppy flying across the back yard.

Tammy died just over a year ago in tragic circumstances. As she stopped wanting to eat, the grandparents took her to the vet. The vet said there wasn’t anything wrong, gave them some pills to give her and sent them away. As Tammy grew worse they took her to another vet, who said something was very wrong and gave them different pills. The grandparents then went away on a long planned holiday, leaving Tammy with my mother. Tammy quickly grew even worse, not moving at all, not eating and then loosing control of her bowels all over the floor. Mum quickly took her to her local vet who diagnosed very advanced Cushing’s disease, saying Tammy had been displaying symptoms for quite some time, gave my mum some better pills and suggested that surgery might be the answer when Tammy became strong enough to handle it. Tammy died the next night, after she had deteriorated too much to recover. Needless to say, no-one in my family is ever using that first vet again.

After moving house from where we had been when we first got Bonnie, we moved into the grandparents place. The only serious pet occurrence to happen there was when Sox got stuck up a tree for several days leading us to believe she had gone AWOL, until she was found and rescued by a very scratched up mum, and the departure of Moggy from our lives. Moggy had been with the family since a year before I was born. She was a tough cat, willing to take on anything, like Tammy, who hated cats. Tammy and Moggy got into a scuffle, which injured both pets, however Moggy did end up worse for wear when Tammy managed to bite hard into her back leg. Moggy did get quite a bit of Tammy under her claws, so some justice had occurred. Moggy escaped from her room a short time after and never returned. The theory that she ran away to die was generally accepted, but Grandpa would insist that he would occasionally see her on his morning walks and that she had been adopted by the crazy cat lady down the street. Either way, she never came back.

We moved again, this time to a place where Bonnie and Sox became closer friends/enemies. I remember vividly one time when Bonnie decided to play with the small cat, something the cat was not amused with. One quick clawless swipe up the head later, one poodle ran inside, yelping like she’d been shot and the cat sat there, looking quite pleased with herself, guarding my feet.

Another move led to new friends for Bonnie. She was quickly introduced to Trippa, an obese, old Blue Heeler. This old dog and Bonnie quickly made a pact; you don’t get in my way, I won’t hurt you. This pact was maintained until they became solid friends. They would occasionally get visits from the mother’s ex’s parent’s dog, a tiny little partly blind and deaf terrier named Gem. Gem has also departed from this world after becoming very old. Bonnie had no problems with the smelly old dog, as it would leave after a short period of time, and therefore not worth removing from the household. As this place was a farm, I introduced to the family Baby, a Jersey calf who thought it was a dog. It would respond to commands and the cute calf watched how dogs played, and tried to emulate it. Bonnie would sprint away as Baby would run after her, thinking they were playing chasey. Bonnie however, was not playing chasey. Bonnie was terrified of the thing with big legs. Baby also had an infatuation with Sox, falling in love with the cat it shared the hay shed with. Sox was also afraid of the gangly calf, not wanting to be squished under its hooves.


Baby was, as is the fate of most farm animals, taken to the slaughter house when he was big enough. Eaten as someone’s BBQ chops, he was removed from our lives, and our beautiful calf only lives on in our minds and photos.

As Trippa was very old and ailing (she had arthritis, was very obese and suffering general old age ailments), Amber was added to our family. Amber pup immediately became attached to me and Bonnie, becoming Bonnie’s best friend. These 2 dogs were nearly inseparable, and Sox loved Amber as well. Amber was afraid of the small cat (and most other things) to the point where Sox would walk up to the dogs bowl, threaten her with a claw and eat her food, just because she could. Amber would then have to sit back and watch this happen, while hoping Bonnie would leave some food behind for Amber to pinch once she had finished. It was a highly amusing scene as the cat, which was the size of some kittens, would eat the Kelpies food while it watched on.

Trippa died, and it was again not a pleasant death. One day, the usually hungry dog simply stopped eating. For over a day. The vet was called in and advanced liver cancer was diagnosed. The very old dog was put to sleep after saying a tearful good bye to all around her to save her a painful death.

Mum moved out of the farm, leaving behind Amber, as it was not our dog in name, but taking all the other pets (save Torty the Turtle. He had died during a cold winter outdoors at the farm. There is still a lot of hate directed at one man after that incident) with her. Amber was left at her place while her owner went away for a week, so Bonnie had her playmate again briefly, and this was the week that Sox died. Sox, after having stolen Amber’s food once again the night before, and just terrorising the dogs as she always loved doing, simply meowed once one morning and died. It was suspected to be a heart attack, and was very sudden, but not unexpected when you considered how old she was at the time. She was around 14 years old, a very long life for a pampered cat, and she is still sorely missed.

Once Amber was returned to her owner, Bonnie became very lonely. With people out of the house all day, she was left alone outside, to sit and do very little. To solve this problem, Billy was bought one Christmas, and Bonnie immediately hated him. Once she realised that this annoying young male puppy wasn’t leaving, Bonnie would sit in a corner and growl whenever he would approach. He then turned it into a game which would annoy all humans. He would crawl on his stomach til he got close enough to make Bonnie growl and start barking happily at her til someone attacked him with a water pistol, which he also loved. He became mischief incarnate, and will still destroy anything which is left in his reach, or any plant which has been shown affection. The pup, which has separation anxiety, was the bane of Bonnie’s life for a while, until Bonnie realised that she could act up and the puppy would be blamed. She began with pooing in cars to watch the younger dog be yelled at, who would look confused. She would encourage him to enter the chicken pen, escape and watch as the lighter coloured dog, covered in mud would be told off for chasing the chickens and so on. She would take great delight in causing as much chaos as was physically possible, and blaming him, but they still became great companions, playing with each other and thriving on each others company.

Now that Bonnie has left us far too young, she has been buried out in the garden next to Sox, and arrangement that neither pet would have preferred in life. Our family still grieves for her, and Billy’s anxiety has increased greatly. My mum, brother and Billy came and visited me Sunday night, and the poor dog was waking us ever 2 hours, afraid that we had left him even though he could sleep in the same room as 2 of us. Every time mum went to the toilet, he would sit outside and whine until she would emerge. This poor dog who has never been alone long term before in his life is already pining for Bonnie, though this isn’t affecting his diet as he swallowed a lamb cutlet in one bite.

Never again will any of us be able to cuddle Bonnie, or even just have her comforting presence barking at neighbours walking down the street again. I will forever remember her bark, the sound of her disapproving growl and her snobby behaviour to new dogs, and to anyone who returned after having been gone for a week. She was the personal warming device at hockey, when you could just lift her up and place her in your coat. She looked great either scruffy or shaved. The amusing way she would cock her leg and squat to pee after the incident of the first shave she ever got and squatting on frosted lawns with a bald rear end. I will remember always how she could tell when you were sad, or lonely, or scared and would sit closer to you, or lie in the room. I will always remember scaring her for life with a quilt, resulting in her being afraid of quilts, but she would always sleep on a sleeping bag, taking up all the leg room and trapping you in one position. We will never forget the sprinkler when she was a puppy, when she would try to kill what was spraying water at her, to cop another burst on her chin. We will never forget her athletic ability, as she was able to catch up to cars, out run people and jump great heights. I will never forget the annoying pained yelp she would do whenever she thought she could score more pats out of patsies. I will never forget how she would eat, as every meal was amusing as to how she worked out how to fit it in her mouth. I defiantly won’t forget the puke all over the place whenever she would eat something that disagreed with her and there is a thousand more little things and moments I will never forget.

Rest in peace Puds. You have the best of company, and I know you’re chasing balls in heaven.

You will be missed and always remembered.

The kindness of strangers

Thursday night I was subjected to a cruel prank, one I did not become awear of until Friday afternoon. I was the latest victim of the bin swipers. That in itself is not that big a deal. It was annoying, and pointless, but I knew where my bin had gone (the river) and they had at least been considerate enough to give me the lid, which they left on my letterbox. No, the bin I could deal with. They took it before bin day, so now all my rubbish is around the river banks, and my bin was wet and broken (and I really didn't want to go swimming to go get it). But that wasn't all they did. They put a syringe in my mail box. A used one, with the uncovered needle facing where I'd put my hand.

Now, I went to the cops, as you do, then the council, who violated their own rules to remove it for me. Then I went to warn my neighbours about syringes. All in all, it was a crappy afternoon. But then one of my neighbours did something very nice for me.

He went swimming and reclaimed my bin for me. He and his 2 friends, both in suits, went down to the river and grabbed the bin, while also taking down another bin to clean up some of the rubbish on the river bank.

While a stranger may have done this to me in the first place, a neighbour who knows nothing more than my name and a council which in reality didn't have to do anything for me fixed this crime. Just when you loose faith in humanity, people prove you wrong.

'Tis Ranting Time

This post will irritate a few people. I am aware of it, but it must be said. What I say in here is thought by many and spoken by few. I, however, am in an excellent vantage point to commentate on this.

There are 2 girls at uni who get special treatment on assignments. One girl is disabled and the other is depressed. When the disabled girl gets an assignment, she does her hardest to do the assignments and hand them in on time. She warns the lecturers ahead of time if the assignment is especially difficult and hands in very high quality work. The other girl says she's depressed and has financial difficulties. She also says her mother beat her and that she was thrown out of home to suffer on her own. She says to every lecturer that she needs the special allowance on every assignment and gets into a temper when she doesn't get it. What gets me though, and the reason why I care is that she's saying she's depressed when she's really not.

How do I know this? I have spoken with witnesses and have witnessed myself her saying she has lied at least on one occasion about the depression. The period of physical abuse apparently happened during uni, yet no-one saw the bruises to her face she has said she had. But the damning evidence is that her mother pays for all her bills and visits her often, so she is hardly abandoned by her family as she suggests. She is also hardly strapped for cash, with parental support (bills, rent being payed), rent assistance and centrelink. She has $70 for food each week. Far from strapped.

Why do I care, you say. Well, I've been depressed. Suicidally so. I have been emotionally abused several times over quite a few years. I am a full time student with 2 jobs, both unpredictable with hours and pay and I am not financial. Quite frankly I have quite a few troubles in my life, some ongoing. I have confused counsellors with my mental state and I don't get special allowances, nor do I want to.

I want to prove to the world that despite my failings I can still be supreme. I have only had 1 special allowance at uni for depression, and that was during my darkest time. When I was suicidal I didn't scream it from the roof tops like she has, instead hiding it til I was told off by the people who care for me to get help. And I have seen her get these allowances on weeks when she couldn't be stuffed doing work rather than weeks when she is in mental distress and it makes me want to scream.

Now, I don't mind the disabled girl getting extensions. She tries so very hard. I don't mind people who really try and do their best, getting help when they're beaten. That's the reason for the system. But people who mess with the system like this make it worse for the rest of us. We loose out as lecturers smarten up. One day, a lecturer is going to realise what she's doing and they might not let someone who really is depressed get an extension because of her and that might kill them if they are so inclined. I refuse to sit idly by and let her screw up someone else's life, like the disabled girl's as it can also reflect on her despite medical evidence to the contrary, simply because she's slack. Already some of the people are "anonymously" tipping off authorities to her flouting the rules and that "dobbing" will continue while people get annoyed. Others, however, simmer silently.

Silence only helps those who hurt the system while people who hurt are drowned out by these loud fakers.

I will not allow the silence to continue. If she is in need of help, she should take what has been offered, like the counsellors, and not keep taking the benefits if she refuses to help herself.

No more silence.

Dear Channel 7

Channel 7, I know you've hated me for some time now. My first clue was on Today Tonight. You see, I am a 19 year old uni student with her p-plates. That's pretty much your number 1 target for every expose in the history of mankind. The only thing I could do to make me more of a target is to either work in retail or be a single mum on the dole. Whoops. I work in retail too, for a big corporation. My, I am the devil aren't I.

But my big gripe is not that I am often stereotyped worse than an Italian housewife on one of your many crap programs, but rather that you have once again screwed up the only two shows I watched on your entire station; the Stargate franchise of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis.

Lets start first with your worst crime, how you have screwed up SG1 for me. I watched every season up until around season 7 on channel 7, which you consistently screwed up, starting and stopping often in the middle of the seasons. Like not playing it for 3 weeks in a row and bringing it back later without warning. But the most painful thing was when you changed the time it was on to the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT with NO advertising. This meant, as of course you did this halfway through a series, I missed the entire series. In fact, I then missed season 8. Then season 9. But wait, I did accidentally watch the very last episode of SG1, the end of I think series 10 simply because I was bored and turned on the tv in the middle of the night. Screaming in anger all the way, not knowing the 2 out of 5 characters (my actual words were along the lines of "Hey! That's the chick from Farscape! Hang on, that's the guy from Farscape! Is the whole f****n cast of Farscape on Stargate now???? WTF???") and then being told at the very end that I had successfully spoiled the entire franchise for myself, I was ropable.

But I decided to keep an eye on that spot, to see what you would do and you did not disappoint me this time. Stargate Atlantis graced my screen. At first I had been sceptical of Atlantis, but soon found myself loving it more than SG1 with the simply awesome characters and fresh new look. Every week I would stay up well beyond bed time, sometimes til 1.30am on technically Friday morning, even with uni or work the next day. It became my highlight of the week. Until this week.....

I rush home from a night at work to watch Atlantis, buying dinner for myself so I wouldn't be stuck in the kitchen getting dinner while the show was on, only to discover there was no Atlantis. My night is ruined, and before you say, DRAMA QUEEN, I cannot afford the DVD's and this is a big part of my week. I stay up late, study before it starts then turn everything off to watch it. I have become addicted and have learnt how not to sleep so I can watch it. To discover it is gone and has been replaced with Marshall Law, which quite frankly is not really that good, is annoying in the least. And to think, you have Celebrity Spelling Bee on at prime time, something I avoid like the plague as it is beyond useless to everyone on this planet and does not even entertain the lowest common denominator. If I wanted to see idiots singing I'd go to the pub and watch drunken singing, which is far more entertaining than your show.

Now I know you don't care, but hey, thanks for making life easier for me. I'll now sleep and wait til Christmas, when I'll be payed more then buy the DVD's, and then eliminate my need for channel 7 entirely. But hey, if theres no reason to watch channel 7 now anyway, why watch it? Buy channel 7. Hope your advertisers like it when all the devoted sci-fi fans rack off.

For Austin

Our darling Austin, the reason for Super Austin, recently gave us all quite a scare. Basically he ended up in an emergency vet with me on the phone to a very distressed Blondie. Many dogs die from bloat and he had it. Now he's okay, which means instead of worrying about him, the blonde one instead hassles me, and as she has my mobile number, here is her story. Have fun with this poorly written 10 second story for our Austin with characters only really known to friends.

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Hospitals are horrid places, Bonnie thought. Full of antiseptic and death. It was however, one of the few rare times they all got together. Of late it seemed the only time they all saw each other was at a funeral and this left her feeling depressed. With any luck they would all be seeing the weakened hero who had been poisoned alive, poorly but alive, very soon rather than committing yet another to the earth. She looked around her to see the others waiting in the room. Austin had many friends and they had all wanted to come, but it had been stressed, his closest friends only were permitted to stay. This meant that she had had a handy excuse for getting rid of the terrible twins, exiling them into the corridor. Billy had remained, sitting quietly and sedately at her side, an odd occurrence for the pup. It was a stark reminder how this life was aging them all. The once exuberant youth had been impossible to tame, but now life had changed him into a mature young dog. The twins she had sent outside were young and uncontrollable just like he had been, and herself she remembered, but she knew that too soon they would be shown just how horrid the life was. Tammy had been a stark reminder of how quickly and surprisingly life can change. In fact, her funeral would have been the last time Bonnie had seen Austin.

Damn. How had they drifted apart? They used to be such friends. Not necessarily good friends, but Austin was one of the few dogs that truly got her outside of her family. She thought of the twins again. Hell, he was one of the only dogs that got her full stop. If he were to die….. No. Thoughts along that line were detrimental to everyone. Happy thoughts. He would get through this. He was Super Austin for cripes sake. Poisoned food was no where near enough to take him out. She forced herself to look at the rooms other occupant. Jessie. Someone she had never met before today yet had heard so much about. This new superdog was famous for her acrobatic abilities, and Austin had said she was a very reliable partner when they met up. But Bonnie had never met her. The distance, she mused. She had forced a distance between herself and the world ever since Amber when she thought about it. Billy had only just had some success bringing her back into life in the world, but Austin was truly gifted that way. When he asked, she found herself giving which for her was extremely odd.

The wait was killing them all. Jessie had started to shake, making her look nervous and Billy was chewing his tail. He paused then spoke aloud into the previously silent room, a joke for just Bonnie.
“Remember when Kat gave me that haircut recently? I was bald and patchy for a month til it grew out.”
She smiled and Jessie looked confused. It was a truly amusing memory. Once Kat had got hold of the scissors, she had hid behind the couch, leaving behind her protégé who had promptly suffered a most terrible fate. At least he kept most of his leg she mused. It was then the door opened and a teary Lauren emerged. They all jumped to their feet, eagerly awaiting any sort of news.
“He’s going to be weak for some time, but he’s going to be fine.”

Relief flooded the room as she went back in to be with her beloved pet. Bonnie sighed in relief, then turned to leave the room. Billy started to follow her as Jessie called out, “Where are you going? Don’t you want to see him?”

Bonnie smiled. “He knows I was here. I want to get who poisoned him, and end them.” And they disappeared into the night, taking the twins with them, to hunt down El Manuel and show him the real meaning of justice. Their way.