The other night, I’m driving home from work and when I get to the light that means I’m almost home, the dogs always start to whine. It’s the light at Bay and Mission, the 4 way dagger that stabs the Westside in the heart. You can turn right to go to the University, left to the beach and my house, turn around and go downtown, or keep going straight past where Paul’s Diner and Rick’s Burger Pit used to be and drive the hell out of dodge.
It’s a long light, and the dogs always whine. One minute and counting to be done with the car. Dogs are like GPS when it comes to Home and This is Off the Freeway and Near the Forest. I look over and there’s a girl sitting outside the falafel place, the one with the grimy floors, and she has a little narrow corgi. Not a big poochie meatloaf kind, like our old pal, Hoss. Smaller and delicate, except this small and delicate one is going apeshit at a guy running down the street. The girl looks kind of frantic, then I see her get up and grab something off the sidewalk then kind of pace around.
She looks in the falafel shop, then marches next door, past the abandoned hookah den where the dog wash used to be, to the guitar shop, and pounds loudly on the door. I’m thinking it’s weird the guitar shop is shut down, it’s not even 6pm, and boy oh boy, should that girl read Control Unleashed. Or talk to Susan Garrett. Or sign the dog up for agility. Something, because it’s boinging around at the end of it’s leash, and I think, good god girl, this is MISSION Street, Highway One, get a grip on your corgi before it dives into traffic.
Being a narrow minded dog nazi, I automatically think of all the mistakes she’s made since I’ve been sitting at the red light. Barking and lunging at a pedestrian. Pulling on the leash. Too close to traffic. Looks unsocialized. Corgis, little ankle nippers of the queen, not good dogs for the general public. Maybe I’ll see her one day in agility class. She’ll teach the dog to round up sheep. Get it out to run somewhere that’s not a major intersection. Light changes and off we go.
I cut to the chase of the story arc. Am reading the newspaper on the internet, like us cheapskates do, and find the story of Cute Westside Corgi Puppy Saves the Day During Armed Robbery. Which I now pass along to you:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_14506143?source=most_viewed
I was in a small store in a small strip mall once, standing in line at the cashier's, when suddenly two people ran in through the front door, shoved their way through the line, said (rather calmly I thought), "robbery! next door!" and pointed, and then ran out through the back. The cashier kept cashiering, the other people in the line looked barely interested, I looked out the front and didn't see anything, and so I just shrugged and kept standing in line.
I have no idea what that was all about. Maybe there was a robbery. Maybe they were the robbers. Maybe they were working for candid camera. The point is, maybe you can even be right in the middle of it with people yelling about it and figure there's nothing going on.
But that is very funny that you happened to be right there right at that moment! What a great story you now have to tell. Obviously.
I need to move west, nothing nearly that exciting ever happens in NYC these days.
Yeah, I bet stuff like this NEVER happens in NYC.
I have lots of good stories from back in our San Francisco days with titles like the Time Me and Timmy Had to Run Away from the Crazy Knife Lady and the Time the Crazy Guy Stole Timmy on Market Street and the Time Timmy Almost Ate the Drunk Guy That Got Thrown Out of the Bar.