Friday Follies

Fridays are a joy for me. I have between 9 am and 12:30 pm to get my act together. I usually fill the time with book writing, lecture tweaking, and reviewing for class the next day. Yesterday, I planned to do just that, plus meet a friend for a quick cup of coffee at 11 am.

At 10:47 am, just as I was ready to head out, there was a knock at my door. I peeked out the window and saw a neighbor of ours. A sixth grader, whose mom and dad were out of town. It didn't look good.

Me: Hi J. What's up?
Him: Oh Hi. The dogs got out. Both of our dogs got out.
Me: I was just getting ready to go out. Hold on. Come in, and let me call my friend and then we'll go look.

He came in, I picked up the phone, and couldn't find my friend's cell phone number. I glanced over at the kid, who punched furiously into his phone, possibly texting his mom.

Me: You don't even have shoes on. Go ahead back to your house and I'll come get you. I need to let my friend know I won't be coming.
Him:  Okay. Thanks.

For the next hour or so, I drove around the neigborhoods. Part of the time he was with me, other times, I let him off and he got on his bike to look around. I looked like a burglar: driving slow and casing the houses. A few people had seen the dogs, but they'd been running like the wind and couldn't be caught. I checked large open spaces, and tiny yards. I didn't see anything.

I returned to my house and had just opened the computer when there was a knock again.

Me: Hi J.
Him: Someone has Stanley. My mom is headed home [she had been on her way out of town, to a place 2 states over and had turned around to take care of this], but he's at 612 XXXX.
Me: Come in. Let's find out where that is and we'll go get him.

We find the house, we get the dog, we put him in the car. I drove the child and the dog back to their house, and when I opened the door to get the dog out, I made sure to grab him by the collar. Which wasn't the thing to do. He basically dragged me to the door, where I fell upon the stone steps.

And now, I have bruises on my knee and a scrape on my hand and some lecture reviewing to get done because I didn't yesterday. I'm not complaining. I'd do it again because helping the poor kid is the right thing to do, and I'd hope that a neighbor would help my child if it happened to us. And by the way, this neighbor did help us once, big time. They cleaned up after Lucy in the big vacation debacle. (Don't remember that one? Read about it here.)

Moral of the story? There are two. Karma will get back to you eventually. And of course, go check your gates to make sure they are secure. Then, if you have dogs, your Friday won't be so insane.