Was Jacko Lacan that guy that was all about the gaze and who is always looking at who?

I'm getting ready to go to work and there is this INSANE barking coming from the backyard.

INSANE, I tell you.

It's early and there are neighbors who live like, on top of my fence and even though I should be happy that they get woke up from sleeping in their illegal rental units that, did I mention, are like on top of my fence, I am sort of embarrassed to be the bad neighbor with the barking dogs and anyways, this isn't even like barking. It's INSANE.

So I run out there and I hope I was wearing pants, and there's Gustavo. Feet splayed out in front of him, leaning back in a recoil of HORROR, and barking his head off, not budging off a spot.

Oh my god. Was I wearing pants?

HOLY SMOKES, I think.

Loudthink.

He must have that possum/racoon/vampire/owl/cat cornered out there good and it must be actually more on the horrific end of that laundry list for him to be so freaked and not trying to kill it. Even though I never have seen him go after anything with the intent to kill. He has evil sisters for that. But this looks/sounds like a serious situation.

Maybe it is a vampire. I was just joking yesterday. I knew it was a owl. Vampires are like the new black. Vampire, vampire, vampire. It's all about vampires right now and this is what I get for not running out and getting my own as soon as they came into vogue. Now we're probably infested or something and Gustavo cornered one out back.

So I try to call him, but we're way beyond the point of return in the meltdown situation. Curiously enough, the other dogs are inside and not in on the barking, which if it involved some kind of rodent or cat or kitten in a little dress with a jump-rope, they'd be all over. So we can definitely scratch possum, raccoon and cat off the list.

Vampire? Zombie? You know the score about who sees those. The whole dead people thing. The other dogs, used to the whole dead people thing and rarely even wander out to see what all the ruckus is about when it's Gustavo freakout barking in the yard or out the window.

Because, hello. Garbage cans? So late '90's. NOBODY barks at garbage cans anymore.

I sort of poke around in the bushes. He is just planted there, shaking and screaming and I'm just not seeing it. Ruby and Otterpop stroll out onto the deck, scanning the yard, but they're just not getting it either.

Then I see it. A relic from my last Martha Stewart Landscaping period, which was pre succulent, but post jackhammer. The time I put the cute, broken mirrors up on the fence, to reflect the sparkly plastic reindeer hanging down from the camelia bush. I think that's what Martha would have done, right?

One of the mirrors has toppled to the ground, leaning up against a fence post. And poor Gustavo. Poor, dear, little buddy. He can see himself, and he thinks he's a dead person, and neither of him is backing down.

I move the mirror away, don't even try to explain to him this phenomena, don't try to talk about the gaze and the other or the poetry of Sylvia Plath, just gather him up and bring him inside, and give him a little rubber bone to chew on.