Yesterday I struck out with my husband, sis, sister’s boyfriend, and his sis, on a lovely springtime hike. We didn’t leave Seattle until about 3:30, but thought a May weekday might be an appropriate time to introduce ourselves to Mount Si (or at least the first half of it), that Seattle cliche of a hike that everyone complains about being overcrowded.
Well, it was lovely, and not so crowded yet, and the people we met along the way were quite pleasant. Afterwards, we decided to head over to Snoqualmie Falls, where we hopped out for a quick trip to the loo and a peek at the falls. When we returned to our car, we found a most nasty note tucked under the windshield wipers:
Now, really. I understand that leaving my animal in a hot car for hours at a time is irresponsible and unsafe. But seriously. At 57 degrees and raining, and for a trip to look at the falls (which, I’m guessing, rarely takes more than 20 minutes, and in our case took about 15), is it crucial to leave the windows open?
Am I a dog abuser, or was this really quite unnecessary? Talk about uptight Seattleite.
Just wish they could have said it to our face, so they’d have heard my husband’s scientific calculation (based on scuba diving experience) of exactly HOW long a dog could survive on the oxygen provided by our wagon.
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I’m frustrated by the “uptight Seattleite” comment — it always drives me a little nuts to hear about how terrible people are here, because I am one! we all are! — but the other half of my brain is right there with you. The worst part, imo, is I’m sure the asshole who wrote the note does a lot of really jerky stuff (such as leaving really mean notes) and has no right to mouth off. The second worst part is the way people always assume they know the whole story, but I think that’s universal.
Your journey sounds good though. We haven’t tried Si yet even though yeah, I’ve been hearing about it for, um, 13 or so years now.
Yeah, I was thinking about that column in the Weekly called Uptight Seattleite . . .just seemed an appropriate reference, didn’t mean to offend Seattle, because there are jerks in every city. I just don’t see why they had to be MEAN . . .I mean, how about a note saying “please crack your windows for your dog?” One of our group is a sociologist, and she had a great take on why people who would never say things like that to someone’s face take advantage of anonymous notes to vent their anger at society . . .interesting.
Well, I see both sides of the story. However, no matter what my opinion is, at least there are people in Seattle who THINK about this sort of stuff, and whoever wrote the note (even if it was rude and semi-unproductive) wrote it because they CARED.
However, knowing Bromley, I’m sure that he would have rolled the windows down himself if he wanted/needed to… 🙂
OMG – LOL – YMMV – yada yada.
For the record, a conservative estimate is 3 hrs before the dog could breathe once through all 120 cubic ft (one-and-a-half standard scuba tanks) of air in the car. Of course, at that point the air is still there, just with less O2 (from 21% down to 16%, by volume) and more CO2. Rebreathing would probably take at least another 3 hrs before the levels were actually dangerous.
Now that we have that settled, can we frame the note?
Thanks for the addendum. I will add at this point that only in Seattle would you get such a nasty note with completely correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. (Now I will wait for someone to correct me… anyone have an ubercranky, correctly written note from anywhere else in the U.S.?)
I am so upset about this because the people/authorities at Snoqualmie Falls are SOOO militant about NO dogs allowed at the falls. We live 15 min. from the falls and are often out with our dog and are frustrated at the level of “uptightness” that we encounter at many public venues such as this. So what is one to do? Arrive thinking that it might be OK to have a dog on a leash, only to find nasty signage forbidding such a filthy presence? What harm could this possibly do? I am still unsure what my response should be when I encounter the uptight Seattleite. Too many rules….
Daphne, I had the same thought . . .I kept looking for spelling errors.
Jenny, we had the same question, and decided (for once) to leave her in the car . . .who knows, maybe the note was from the Falls management b/c they don’t want dog within a 5 mile radius of the park.
That guy was probably pissed about something else and decided to take his rage out on someone else. Furthermore, this guy obviously doesn’t know that Bromley wouldn’t dare go out in such nasty weather.
I wish Sadie had been there so she could have “replied” to his message (and his getting so close to the car).
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