See below for a quick story/fictional essay/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, that I did back in '07. I’m posting it in an effort to knock the farmer’s tan off some of my work.
There’s something about the piece that I still like, but admittedly, the phrase “wanna piece,” has probably fallen out of everyday vernacular.
WANNA PIECE? The Rants of a Belligerent Chihuahua
BY KEITH SAUNDERS
Chihuahuas – like me – have been getting a raw deal since the beginning of time.
People step on us, call us oversized rats and treat us like living, breathing fashion accessories. Yeah, we’re small and have big ears – but we also have big hearts. But does anyone see that side of us?
No.
They see a remote-control-car-sized piece of flesh and bone that shivers like a windup toy and barks like their life depended on it.
And my life does depend on it — because quite frankly, everyone wants a piece.
That little old lady pushing her grocery cart push-basket. That cop with the twenty pockets and the twenty different perpetrator-thwarting devices strapped to his person. That annoying kid who flings around that rubbery, yo-yo like thing. That Rottweiler I see walking his owner around with the chain leash and collar. And most certainly, the black and white pug I pass every morning during my 6 AM bathroom break.
They all wanna piece, and they all can’t get a piece.
Last week, my owner’s daughter had a new kid come over.
He wanted a piece.
He showed up at the door wearing a huge I’m-going-to-sleep-with-your-owner’s-daughter grin and carrying an Algebra book. But the academic paraphernalia didn’t fool me. I can see right through that stuff. I may be small, but I have a mighty big intuitive sense about me.
So, when he took one step into my domain – otherwise, known as my owner’s house – I went for his $110 sneakers. He wanted a piece. Because the moment I saw him, his smile gleamed, and my eyes were blinded by his fakeness, and everyone knows that fake-smilin’, hundred-ten-dollar shoe wearin’ fools like him want a piece. But before I could sink my hungry little teeth into his ankle, tear away a little fleshy souvenir and put it in the display case at the bottom of my stomach, I was prevented from going forward by an unseen force that scooped me up quickly and held me against their chest. And by the stench of the B.O. that wafted to my finely tuned nose, I surmised that my owner, the big, bad Cecil Demontague, owner of the house, had halted my mission.
I twisted my body to look up at the owner of my doggy license, and if I could speak human, I would’ve yelled, “You stopped me from reprimanding this fool, son!!! This is a grave, grave injustice you commit. For this defiant man in front of us wanted a piece!!!”
“He’s a feisty little one,“ my owner said to the new boy. “Don’t mind him.”
Don’t mind me?
Don’t MIND me?
DON’T MIND ME???????
I don’t think he thought about that statement before he uttered it. Because I am certainly one to be minded. I’m a Chihuahua of excellent pedigree, fit in health and strong in my resolve to chide all those who want a piece.
So with that, I calmed down and put on my okay-I’m-nice-and-I-want-to-lick-your-hand demeanor, just to play along. Because now was not my moment. To wreak terror upon this household. To devastate the ankles and the placid sense of well-being that existed around me. To unleash the wrath that is my heaven-sent gift of dealing with the disrespectful masses.
No, it was time for me to wait. To plot. To devise. To be stealthy. So I relaxed in the hands of my master as he greeted this stranger into my domain, and as the boy looked down to me, with his soft countenance that indicates a weak interior, I shivered, stopped, bared my teeth once more, and uttered in my guttural doggy growl, “Grrrrrr rrrrr RRRRR,” which translates to: “Dammit. You wanna piece?”