I don’t mean to belittle the idea of a true hate crime, so forgive the title. But I thought I’d relate a little story that happened on Saturday.

My wife and I decided to have a few people over for gumbo on a beautiful Saturday evening. Being such a nice night, we opened the “front” door of our house, which faces the street. It’s complicated, but that’s actually the “side” door to our home, as it faces sideways on the lot. But whatevs. You get the idea. The door opens onto a generously-sized screened-in porch. That porch is in our “front” yard, inside a low fence about 20 feet off of the sidewalk.

Anyway, we dined with the door open, approximating al fresco dining. After the meal, we retired to the other side of the room for drinks. While socializing, we heard a loud smack and the sound of something heavy bouncing across the floor of the cement floor of the porch.

“What the hell was that?” I asked. Simultaneous to that, my dog, Elsa Von Facebiter, who had been relaxing on the screened in porch, ran into the house, her tags on her collar signaling motion and a bit of distress.

My wife stepped out onto the porch, as she was very near the door when this happened.

“I don’t know.”

I walked to the door and looked around. I found, beneath our window, a jagged, broken piece of sidewalk about the size of a large man’s fist.

“What’s this?” I asked the group, who had now assembled on the porch.

“Maybe Elsa knocked it off the ledge, ” my wife said, pointing to the window ledge just above where the rock was found.

“I don’t remember it out here…”

Then my wife discovered the hole in the screen. The evidence clicked, and I realized what happened. Somebody had chucked a large rock at my dog on the porch. I think this because she had given a couple short barks right before this happened, now that I think about it.

In short: this is unbelievable. I hope Elsa bites this person’s face someday.

Update: I later weighed the rock on my new kitchen scale. 1 1/2 pounds! It could have killed her.