Let It Be and Nice-Nice

Car used to kid me a lot in front of the kids - who have been known to take up the chant themselves at times - calling me 'Ms. Let-it-be'. He would be itching for a big political debate with lots of criticism and jabs at people's motives, and I would defend the poor guys. He would groan that it was no fun having a "let's criticize the neighbors" session because I was too Nice-Nice. (I told him the saying I'd learned from my mother, that if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all, and he shortened it to "nice-nice"). I know some people think it's harmless to put people down when they're not around to hear it, but for some reason, I cannot say something the slightest bit cruel about someone without having it come back to haunt me. The moment I say something 'mean' - even when it's supposed to be in fun, something that just came off the top of my head - I end up receiving some sort of rude awakening that lets me know I've messed up again. For instance, on one of the first blogs I ever wrote, someone commented and I understood the comment to be sort of "wisecrackish" so I answered their comment in what I thought was a snappy wisecrackish way myself. I wondered about my answer though, as I hit the 'post' button, and some hours later I opened my blog just to reread their comment; sure enough, I saw that I might have totally misinterpreted it, in which case, my answer to that comment would be totally inappropriate, so I deleted it and wrote another answer, addressing the issue on a more serious level, but it was too late - the person never commented on my blog again. To this day, I don't know if they ever came back to see the revised comment...
Just the other night, I commented on another blog - trying to be witty - and made a wisecrack about the epitaph on the grave of the beloved dogs buried next to the woman who had been their mistress. My comment was supposed to be sort of tongue-in-cheek, questioning her love for her dogs by pointing out that some of those dogs (it was rather a long list) had not lived very long lives. I felt kind of bad after I had written it - after all, just because they died young, didn't mean it was her fault! But it was too late - the comment was written and anyway, it was just a little thing, I thought, stop torturing yourself.
Lo and behold, some hours later, we were awakened by the police at 2:30 in the morning to be told that our crazy dog Nemo had gotten out of the yard and gone to a neighboring property and killed all their chickens, which came to about 15 birds, from turkeys to fighting cocks to laying hens to young chickens... The neighbor had trapped Nemo in a cage and when we trudged over there, all groggy-eyed and apprehensive under such eerie conditions, there he was, still chewing on a chicken leg... The neighbor was, of course, rather upset, and by then there were no less than 3 patrol cars with their lights still flashing, and the policemen were saying if I didn't agree to pay up, they could always press charges against me (?) or my dog (??)... But of course I promised to reimburse him for the damages - I had never thought otherwise - I only wanted to be sure that my dog was the only culprit! Since where we live is absolutely teeming with dogs that run loose at night, I was questioning whether perhaps Nemo had been one of a group of dogs - the only one caught! But the neighbor said he had come out and caught Nemo in the act and there were no other dogs... so, I felt that I was not getting anywhere with my careful questions... Both the neighbor and the cops clearly believed that I and only I should be the one who was going to pay.
We agreed, and I told the neighbor we'd have the dog put to sleep. It was so sad. In spite of it all, when I looked into Nemo's eyes, it seemed that he was saying, "I'm sorry, I know I did wrong, but I couldn't help it. Do what you will."
Poor Anto, who is out of school as of a week ago, got the unpleasant task of taking him to the pound. Of course, we all knew he had used up his last chance to turn over a new leaf. Since his return over a year ago, after a 10-month disappearance, he has torn up our fence in several places, bitten two people, menaced certain friends that have come by, and now this latest caper was the last straw. But when I thought about it, he was only five years old, not very old for a dog. See how my words come back to haunt me???
The ending of this tragic tale is actually not so tragic. As it turns out, when Anton took Nemo, the office was closed but the guard and his wife took a liking to the dog and didn't want to see him killed. They said they would keep him as a watch dog (on a chain) and see if it works out. I shook my head. What if Nemo gets loose and comes home (it's not very far from here and he's famous for getting loose from anything that's holding him back). I will not keep going through this kind of thing with that dog. Anton reassured me that he signed a paper saying he had relinquished the dog to the city pound and that the dog is no longer our responsibility. I told him he'd better go back next week and ask for a copy of that paper!