When people start laughing at you, it’s a good sign it’s time to take stock of your situation. When that person is driving by as you walk to the library, it’s rather more difficult to figure out what’s up. Has the eel left the rock face? Nope, undercarraige secured. Is my hair askew? No more than usual. Maybe it’s something in my immediate environment…
Looking down, I looked into the eyes of a creature that firmly believed in love at first sight. I noticed another that thought crotch-sniffing was a perfectly valid form of social intercourse. Two dogs, pugs, in fact, were looking on me as a theist regards his deity.
Which would have been well and good, except that I do not own pugs, nor had I ever seen those dogs in my life. I walked a bit, noticing how those dogs ghosted my every step. I had, in the course of my stroll to the library, acquired a loyal following.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Indeed, I had been walking along, minding my own business (utterly oblivious to everything else, in fact), and, somehow, I had picked up two cute, friendly, strange little dogs.
`You are big and well-fed and going somewhere and we love you! Let us feast with you upon the next kill!’ the pugs seemed to respond.
“Go home!” I said.
I was met with devotion as unswerving as a '63 Cadillac with faulty brakes and no steering. Irresistable force never looked so cute.
Not knowing what to do, I walked on. I hoped the dogs would find someplace else to be, but it struck me that they might be strays. No, not strays. Strays usually don’t have collars, and besides, these dogs looked well-fed and well-groomed.Collars! That’s it…
“Name, rank, and serial number, pup.” I said as I checked each collar for tags. Nothing. One collar was red, the other blue, but neither had anything like a tag on it. Oh, well.
I walked a bit. I was in a residential district, with light traffic and houses on both sides of the street. Wednesday and Pugsley (as I had taken to thinking of them) dutifully trotted close by, now paying respects to a fire hydrant, now going far out ahead, now coming back to being almost underfoot. I realized that I was going nowhere, and I contemplated calling Animal Control. I ran through that scenario in my head…
“Yes, is this Animal Control? I’m being tailed.”
No, not gonna work. Besides, what business would let me in the door with two dogs?
I pondered the situation. The dogs ran around a bit, but never out of sight of me. I figured that if they saw home, they might be reminded of their true master. Since I hadn’t found it going in this direction, I’d better turn around.
They followed me in the other direction just as readily. Past the same houses, the same hydrants, the same intriguing piles of crap.
Until a man in a pickup entered a townhouse unit in front of me. The pugs, their tiny little minds shocked by recognition, raced up to him. He let them in.
I smiled and turned around. After all, I still had to return On The Road to the Havre Public.
