There are two kinds of people in this world: people who receive a notification at 3:17 in the morning that says POSSIBLE WOLF DETECTED and immediately decide that’s a problem for tomorrow, and then there’s Ned.
Unfortunately, Ned lives in Magnolia Heights.
Now, after the Great Moxie Search Disaster, which resulted in thirty adults, one drone operator, and an Amazon driver participating in a neighborhood-wide search for a dog who had actually been inside Miss Chali’s house eating biscuits and watching The Price Is Right, Ned reached what he believed was an important conclusion. The problem wasn’t that we’d overreacted. The problem was that we’d lacked information.
This was, in hindsight, a catastrophic misunderstanding of what had happened.
Over the course of one weekend, Ned transformed his house into what I can only describe as a suburban surveillance state. He installed cameras on the front porch, cameras on the back porch, cameras on the side of the house, and what appeared to be a camera monitoring another camera. He added motion sensors, infrared night vision, cloud storage, backup batteries, and an artificial intelligence monitoring system that promised to identify people, vehicles, animals, and “potential threats.”
“It’s not paranoia if you’re prepared,” he told me while standing on a ladder with a power drill.
I’ve lived in Magnolia Heights long enough to know that when a man says something like that while holding power tools, your safest option is to agree and slowly walk away.
For three days, everything was fine.
Then came Tuesday.
I walked out onto my porch around seven-fifteen with my coffee and immediately knew the neighborhood had entered another crisis because there were already people standing in the street. Nobody in Magnolia Heights voluntarily gathers before eight in the morning unless somebody died, somebody got arrested, or somebody believes they saw wildlife.
Ned was standing in the center of the crowd holding his tablet with both hands. He had the expression of a man who had spent several hours being proven right.
“I got footage,” he announced.
There are several phrases that have never once improved a situation. “Hear me out.” “I did my own research.” “It’s probably nothing.” And, of course, “I got footage.”
By the time I walked over, there were already ten people standing around him. Marco was there. Manny was there. Three neighbors whose names I still don’t know were there. Miss Chali was there in her bathrobe holding a coffee mug and looking deeply offended that she was awake and participating in society before breakfast.
Ned held up the screen.
The image was grainy. Of course it was. Security footage only becomes crystal clear when you’re doing something embarrassing on your own property.
A small, stocky figure with glowing eyes was walking along the edge of the street.
“The AI identified it as a possible wolf,” Ned said.
Now, there are several reasons this statement should have ended the conversation immediately. First, we live in suburban Southern California. Second, the creature appeared to be approximately fourteen inches tall. Third, it looked less like a wolf and more like an ottoman with unresolved anger issues.
Naturally, nobody reacted to this information like a sane person. Marco immediately asked if it might be a coyote. Someone else wondered if it could be a wolf-coyote hybrid, which I did not know was a thing people worried about recreationally. Another person asked if it might be rabid, because apparently we had skipped several levels of concern and gone directly to apocalypse. Miss Chali listened to all of this, took a long sip of her coffee, and asked the only reasonable question anyone had posed that morning:
“What if y’all have lost your damn minds?” Unfortunately, she was the only person making sense.
Ned enlarged the image, which somehow made it less identifiable. Then he enhanced it, which made it significantly worse. At this point, the creature could have been a wolf, a coyote, a badger, a raccoon, or anaggressively judgmental footstool.
“The AI says there’s an eighty-three percent chance it’s a wolf,” Ned repeated.
I don’t know who programmed this particular artificial intelligence, but I feel comfortable saying they’ve never met a wolf.
By seven-thirty, Magnolia Heights had transformed into a suburban wildlife emergency response team. Marco had binoculars. One of the newer neighbors had bear spray. Someone brought an air horn. A man I’d never seen before arrived wearing camouflage and announced that he’d watched every season of Alone, which apparently qualified him to participate in suburban predator management.
Greg was there too, which honestly should have reassured us…
Meanwhile, the Nextdoor post had accumulated over fifty comments…
Poor Pickles. That dog had become the neighborhood equivalent of a suspect in every unsolved crime.
By eight o’clock, Magnolia Heights had done what Magnolia Heights always does when confronted with uncertainty and too much free time: we’d become experts.
People started organizing search zones. Search zones. For a wolf. In a suburban neighborhood with an HOA and three yoga studios. Ned had drawn a map of the neighborhood and was using a laser pointer to assign coverage areas…
Then Marco shouted that he saw movement, and every person on the street turned so fast I’m surprised we didn’t collectively injure ourselves. A small shape darted between two parked cars, and the neighborhood immediately descended into chaos…
When the creature finally emerged, it wasn’t a wolf. It wasn’t a coyote. It wasn’t even a particularly threatening animal. It was Mr. Biscuits…
Then Manny arrived, stepping out of his truck holding Moxie like a man who had absolutely no idea he was about to destroy an entire neighborhood’s sense of dignity…
Unfortunately, once Manny said it, none of us could unsee it. The shape. The ears. The little barrel chest. The squat body. The unmistakable silhouette of a dog who had already humiliated this neighborhood once before.
Moxie chose that exact moment to yawn.
Nobody said anything for a second…
Then, with the calm confidence of a creature who knows she has destroyed an entire community’s credibility before breakfast and feels absolutely no remorse about it, she farted.
Ned sat down on his front steps and stared at the ground for a long moment.
“I don’t think I should have access to this much technology,” he finally said.
And honestly, it was the smartest thing anyone in Magnolia Heights had said all morning.
Moxie trotted away toward Miss Chali’s house. No one stopped her.
After all, if there’s one thing we’d learned by now, it’s that Moxie always ends up exactly where she wants to be, and the rest of us are just unfortunate witnesses to the journey. 🏡☕🐺🐾💨
Next time: Somebody starts feeding the crows. It escalates.
Coffee With Caylin 