Unexpected Exposure

A Gidget McFidget Story

As I continue to adapt to life without Gidget McFidget, I find comfort in sharing little stories about her and the crazy antics she brought into my life.

This is an excerpt is from my memoir THREE HEARTED GIRL which tells the story of the pair of remarkable journeys that brought me to my two heart transplants. It’s still a work-in-progress, and I need to be done with edits and find an agent eventually.

This scene is from shortly after I moved to Nashville to live alone with Gidget McFidget until a heart became available. Last week I published a short essay that encapsulated the entirety of my time with her, but this breaks it down into a single day in the life of Gidget McFidget.

While we were in Nashville recently, I took a couple pictures of the area where the event occurred so you can better visualize the scene below.

Excerpt from THREE HEARTED GIRL

During the first week of living alone with Gidget, I began taking her to the dog exercise area located at the front of the apartment complex. The dog run was a patch of grass on top of the sloped area above the ramp leading to underground parking, adjacent to the parking lot shared with the medical building between the apartment complex and the main street. The dog run measured roughly thirty feet wide and twice as long, rising from street level to an elevation about fifteen feet high above the entrance to the underground car park. A metal fence extended around three sides of the run, leaving the street level side nearest the building open to serve as the entrance. Residents frequently exercised their dogs off leash in this area.

Left is the view of the entrance to the underground parking garage, beneath the dog run. Right is a picture of the dog run from the entrance, rising from ground level to a peak of around 15 feet above the parking entrance. The apartment building where I lived appears to the right, and the medical building and parking appears to the left.

One morning before seven o’clock, shortly after I moved into the building, I rolled out of bed and pulled a hoodie over my pajamas to take Gidget to the dog run. I would have preferred to sleep in, but she needed her walk. At least we wouldn’t encounter too many people this early in the morning, I thought.

Gidget McFidget early one morning trying to get me out of bed to take her for a walk.

There were no other dogs or humans in sight when we arrived at the dog run, so I let her have the full length of the fifteen-foot lead so she could exercise without making me short of breath from walking too far. Despite the fencing, I knew better than to let her run without the leash. She was too volatile to trust her recall. Just then, the building’s maintenance supervisor appeared at the opening to the run and shouted something in our direction.

Gidget exploded like he lit a fuse. A shrieking banshee, she hurtled toward him like a tiny black rocket of death. She fully intended to taste his blood. Screaming her name, I frantically reeled her in, hand over hand, trying to get her under control. As I brought her within a few feet of me, she realized her odds of getting away were diminishing, and she started jerking herself backwards to get out of her harness. A simple leash was not going to stop her from defending me with her life - and her teeth.

Gidget McFidget from this time period, standing on the steps in full muscle dog pose.

Running the last few steps toward her, I scooped her up in my arms and held her squirming body against mine as I struggled to control her. She continued to thrash and flail her legs. One of her back paws hooked the waistband of my pajama pants, and with a single ill-fated kick of her tiny leg, they fell down around my ankles.

There I stood on the highest end of the elevated slope, nude from the waist down, my biscuits and gravy on full display. I froze for a moment, paralyzed by the realization that cars were pulling into the parking lot and lining up to enter the underground parking garage below while I stood, half-naked on a pedestal, directly above the entrance while arriving workers gaped at the sight.

At the open end of the dog run, the maintenance manager likewise stood with his mouth open in surprise, or horror, as he realized the situation. All the while, Gidget continued to scream and thrash, ensuring that anyone inside the building who had not yet noticed my dilemma would peek out their window to take in the show.

Immediately, I dropped to the ground, trying to get Gidget under control by bear-hugging her with one arm while I flopped around on the dew-slicked grass, struggling to pull up my pants with the other hand. The maintenance supervisor left and I never did find out what he was going to say.

After this incident, Gidget and I limited her morning walks to the courtyard.

I hope this put a smile on your face on this beautiful morning in this broken world.

Gidget is gone now, but I find reliving her especially animated moments brings me joy.

Take care and have a great week!