Three Dancing Chicas and a Rabid Dog...

The music overcomes us- that’s the only way to describe it.
The “We no speak Americano” song with its repetitive beat does something funny to us three girls- we start spazaming around the living room- I can’t really call it dancing, that would be pushing it a bit far in reference to the shapes we were making. It’s one of those songs that this summer, every time it comes on a nightclub, you jump up and down like a 5 year old on Christmas morning, poke a fellow shape-maker in the arm and proclaim ‘choooon!’ Unless of course, you’re me, and get too over excited and shout ‘song!’ instead. (It doesn’t have the same effect.) It’s 5am but that’s not stopping the volume button sliding up, (entirely of its own accord, of course.)

It over-spills onto the patio where we start a West-End musical style dance routine, (if I do say so myself) going down the steps of the apartment leading out onto the street; three other friends arrive out of their taxi and stare in amusement from across the road. In truth, the look on their faces lay somewhere between awe/ horror/ and most notably, embarrassment.

When the beat overcomes you in moments such as these, any sense of time melts- the neighbour, however, had a much keener sense of time. A neighbour with a dog.
Now this dog had been scaring the b-jesus out of me for the entire week- it was some sort of rabid Alsatian, eyes gleaming with some inner turmoil of madness, saliva dripping from fangs every time meat would innocently wander past- primarily in the form of me and my two female accomplices. Every time we went to get into our apartment, it would jam its head between the pillars of the patio, gnashing its teeth ferociously, the desperation to kill so strong in its eyes, it made me doubt the strength of the stone pillars that separated me from death.

Now, I’m all for pets. At one point we had 5 cats and a pair of hamsters that refused to stop multiplying. In my mother’s kitchen back in England there is currently a royal python sitting in a glass tank, putting off any unwanted guests (and unsuspecting plumbers.) BUT , a pet that would make you quiver in your bed for fear of the beast wanting a midnight snack in the form of your throat? This is not a pet. This is a hazard.

I digress. While me and my fellow dancing amigas are busy being overcome by the awesome never-ending beat, the dog awakens… Now, as its 5am at this point in the story, there is no point trying to convince you that we were sober. With this in mind, we decide it would be hilarious to goad the aforementioned dog-of Satan, by flicking water at it at the same time as agitating it with our jerking shape-making. It barks and snarls (I swear I saw it spit) until an even worse creature consequently appears from the depths. The owner. Crazy-Spanish-neighbour-lady does not appreciate being woken up at such an un-godly hour by us or her equally crazy dog, and lets us know this by screaming at us. We retreat instantly, the three of us locking ourselves in the bathroom as she threatens to set the dog on us. The flimsy lock on the bathroom door will defiantly not withhold from an attack from devil dog and I silently apologise to the gods of twisted fate for all the water flicking. Our three remaining friends who were watching our performance from the street as they got out of the taxi are still outside, and we shamefully leave them to take the rap. And possibly be eaten.

We meekly appear from our refuge 20 minutes later to face 3 stony face-boys who probably don’t want to be our friends any more, (although no bite marks are apparent nor any limbs missing thank the Lord.) We offer cups of tea. And turn off the i-pod…