So there I was, waiting by the bus stop in the pouring rain, with only one shoe and a bag of apples in my left hand. How did I get there? Well, it’s a long story. I hope you have time.
It all started last night. I had stayed at work late that night working on a project for my supervisor. I work for an advertising company and I’ve been working on a campaign for a toothpaste company. For all the time I spent at the office, I hadn’t come up with any ideas. The up side was that I had really minty fresh breath.
So, I was walking home from work and I decided to drop by Stanley’s Market and get some fresh apples. Stanley was an elderly man who owned a produce shop a block from my office. His wife Shirley worked there sometimes too. She made tea cosies in her spare time and sold them at the church bazaar. She also made the best Rice Krispie squares ever. I know they’re the simplest baked good you can make, but somehow hers tasted better than everyone else’s. So I went into Stanley’s and picked out a dozen apples. As I paid for them, I chatted with Stanley for a while. He’d had to put down his old dog Digger last Tuesday. The dog had been seventeen years old. The poor thing had been suffering from arthritis for five years. Finally it had become too much to bear.
So, I took my apples and walked the remainder of the distance home. My house is in a small neighbourhood just a few blocks away. It’s close to downtown but it’s a nice neighbourhood.
It didn’t take me long to get to my house, the day was warm and the walk was enjoyable. When I got home I went straight to the backyard to let my dog in. My dog is a golden retriever named Crisky. Don’t ask how I got his name; it’s a pretty long and rather pointless explanation. Anyways, I was in the backyard getting my dog. I whistled for him but he didn’t come. I whistled again, and then I went to look behind the shed, his favourite hiding place. He wasn’t there. Then I noticed that the back gate was ajar. “Darn, darn, DARN!” I yelled. My gate was open and my dog was gone.
I went inside and grabbed his leash and a couple of dog biscuits and headed into the front yard to look for the mongrel. When I got there, I looked down the street and followed the trail of overturned garbage can with my eyes. The trail led downtown. Sometimes I really hate that dog. I knew I’d be getting a phone call anytime now from old Mrs. Langley next door. She was eighty-four and really despised dogs. She said the next time she saw my mutt scrounging around in her trash that she was going to call the pound and have him taken away. Which actually wouldn’t be a bad thing because at least I’d know where to find him.
I began walking towards downtown. All the way I whistled and called for my stupid dog. When I reached the main street nearest to my neighbourhood, I began asking people whether they’d seen my dog. No one was helping me out. Most answers were a rude “no”, that is if they didn’t just ignore me completely. Oh that dog will be the ruin of me someday.
I wandered up and down the streets of downtown for an hour and a half, calling the dog and whistling and looking in every crack and crevice. I even looked in the alley behind the local pizza store hoping he’d be back there sharing a plate of spaghetti with a lady dog and being serenaded by an overweight man who is stereotypically Italian, singing that song about eyes being like pizzas. So what if I watched too many Disney films as a child. They haven’t warped my sense of reality in the slightest.
Finally, I sat down on a bus stop bench nearby and buried my head in my hands. It was no use. It was dark and cold and very late. I had to head home and get some sleep. I was exhausted from my search and stood to head back home. As I got up, I felt a slipperiness under my shoe. A rather familiar slipperiness it was. I looked down at my foot, having a feeling I knew exactly what substance was smeared across my very expensive Italian leather shoes. (Perhaps made by an overweight man that fed spaghetti to dogs?) “Oh shoot!” I cried as I scraped my shoe on the curb trying to dislodge the dog droppings from my shoe. For all I knew this abomination was probably the digested bits of Mrs. Langley’s garbage which my own dog had left here in a mockery of me. Dogs!
Giving up on the shoe, I stormed away from the bench in the direction of my house. In doing so, I walked straight into a man with a briefcase. “Hey, watch it man,” I barked at him. “What’s your problem?” said the man, giving me a little shove. I was exhausted and angry and frustrated and it all seemed to erupt onto this unsuspecting stranger. “My problem?” I said, “How about my dog ran away, I’m hungry and exhausted and I just stepped in dog crap in my fine Italian leather shoes okay?” I shot back, and then pushed past him. “Screw you buddy!” the guy mumbled as I passed. “What was that?” I cried. I turned and was about to punch the man right in the face when a pair of arms grabbed me from behind and pinned my arms behind my back. A strong voice said calmly, “Maybe you should come for a ride with me, Sir.”
So, I was arrested. When I got to the police station, I was given a breathalyser test. I managed to prove to the officers that I was just a tired and angry man and not a drunken nuisance. However, they decoded to keep me overnight to teach me a lesson as I had kneed my arresting officer in the groin.
They put me in a cell with some drunk. He told me that his name was Sparkles and he came from a moon of Saturn. I know a lot about astronomy as I’m a bit of a backyard astronomer but I figured discussing astronomy with this man would probably never get anywhere. In his condition he probably didn’t even know what planet Saturn was. I ignored him and tried to get some sleep in my lumpy, hard cot.
I guess I managed to drift off for a while because I awoke to a burly police officer barking at me to get up. As I got up to follow him, I realized that one of my shoes was missing. I searched all around my bed and came up empty-handed. I cast a suspicious glance at the snoring “Sparkles.” The officer was checking his watch and staring quite impatiently at me so I decided that the shoe wasn’t worth the effort. AS I walked towards the cell door I looked down at my feet again and realized that the one shoe I had left was the one covered in the canine crap. “Dammit.” I muttered under my breath. “Pardon me?” the officer inquired. I replied with a sullen “never mind,” and he led me to the front desk where I signed a form. As I was heading to the exit, the desk sergeant called out to me. I turned around and he held up a plastic shopping bag. “Don’t forget your apples!” he said, sounding pretty satisfied with himself. I snatched the bag from his pudgy hands, which were encrusted with donut powder and walked hurriedly out the door.
Getting outside, I remembered that the police station was an hour’s walk from my home. I had to walk several blocks before I came to a bus stop. By this time I was more aggravated than I could ever remember being. I ate an apple as I waited. It was going to be another half hour until the bus arrived, since that last one had just been pulling away when I was just arriving at the bus stop. How typical. I wished I were at home in bed with a big cup of coffee waiting for me when I woke up. And a fresh newspaper with no wrinkles in it.
Then, it began to rain. I looked up at the sky and frowned at it, almost hoping to scare the rain back into its clouds. “Oh, shit,” I groaned.
So now the bus is arriving. I am very grateful to see it. I am now a step closer to being in bed with that coffee and paper waiting for me. Oh, to be warm and dry again. I am still a little worried about my dog. I usually find him sooner than this. I hope a car has not hit him.
The driver is giving me a strange look. I know that I must look like a madman. After all I am soaking wet, have only one shoe, am rumpled and unshaven (and showered) and my only possession is a bag of apples, also containing a royal blue canvas dog leash and two Milkbones. I give him the fare without a word and retire to a seat in the back. I stare out the window until I reach my stop. As I walk the three blocks to my house, a search a little among the houses to see if my dog is anywhere to be seen. He is not.
I get home and walk into the kitchen. As I am starting a fresh pot of coffee, I look out the window into the backyard. “In-fucking-credible.” I exclaim out loud. There’s Crisky, asleep under the picnic table as if he’s been there all along. “In-fucking-credible,” I say again as I open the back door and let him in.