Common New Orleans Injuries

On the flight back from Pittsburgh last weekend I sat next to a gentleman who owned a very profitable trucking business in Louisiana and surrounding states. He had so much money, in fact, that he got to sit back in Coach on an AirTran flight wedged next to me and the bathroom.

He told me about how he was in the hospital for a few weeks because he got hit in the head with a sack of Mardi Gras beads. (!) He said it in such a matter of fact way, too. Like normal people might trip on a step or slip on ice. Nope, not here. A concern for the elderly is the trajectory of large bags of plastic items thrown drunkenly through the air. He's fine now, though.

He then went on to talk about how his company has bought up entire streets in the Ninth Ward and New Orleans East, areas that were badly hit during the 2005 hurricanes. "We just go in there and clean up the titles and the squatters and then take over." I could have asked more questions about the "clean up" process (yikes) but I was trying to change the subject since the woman who was sitting on the other side of me worked for a nonprofit who rebuilds storm-damaged homes in the area. And she probably despises people who do what he does.

So a bead attack is one type of common injury in New Orleans. Another is a dog scuffle.

A dog scuffle is when you are walking your dog(s) on the bumpy sidewalks of residential Uptown and you meet another walker and her dog(s). "Hey how are you?" "Great, how are you?" "Isn't this weather spectacular?" "It's only gonna get hotter" yada yada. And your dogs sniff each others' behinds.

Then when you try to walk away ("Take care! Enjoy the weather!"), the other owner's standard poodle lunges for your Buddy! and comes tearing down the sidewalk toward you. The other owner falls flat on her face in her tennis skirt (this is Uptown) and leashes and keys and water bottles go flying. Oh, and dogs. Dogs are all over the place.

On this particular day there were three: Bud-man, the giant poodle and a tiny fur ball that I think was a shih tzu. So tennis-skirt lady is on her stomach clutching a leash that is no longer attached to the poodle (Cujo) and Buddy! is under Cujo and the shih tzu is just sorta bouncing around. And cars are whizzing by.

I call it a scuffle but it's more like a circus.

But it was fine. I had to grab two of the dogs and accidentally hit one (Cujo) in the head with my keys a few times. But eventually we got it under control. Poor lady's tennis skirt was probably ripped and I'm sure she had a nasty strawberry on her legs somewhere.

New Orleans, home of interesting things to worry about. Or not.