Accidental Brilliance

One of the great things about living in a small town or cluster of small towns is the comforting mainstays. (Thank you Jon!) The people who are constant fixtures in your life even though you have never met them. Like the shirtless and shoeless doberman walker or the real live Santa who hands out stickers to the children who greet him.  Or the group of old men who sit in lawn chairs in front of the pizza place watching the traffic go by and the bike rider who is pedaling so slow I seriously don’t know how the bike remains upright.

One of these constants is the fluffy dog walker. I would see him on my drives into and home from work, walking his little fluffy tan dog on the side walk. Sometimes the man was in a suit and sometimes just casual clothes. He looked happy walking his dog and of course the dog was more than content to be outside. Lately though, I noticed just the man walking and no dog. The first time I saw it, I didn’t really register the difference. But then I felt that every time I saw the man, he was alone. For some reason this made me sad. I wondered if his little fluffy friend had died or run away. The man seemed sad too, I thought, but I could have been projecting. 

Today on my way home, I saw the man walking again. And this time he had 2 fluffy tan dogs with him!! 2!! Now I’m not only happy for the man, but I’m also very curious about these 2 dogs. Is one of them the same fluffy dog before, but perhaps he got a second dog who wasn’t trained yet so he couldn’t walk them both and he couldn’t walk one without the other?? Did something happen to the fluffy dog so he replaced him/her with 2 new dogs? Doesn’t he know I’m noticing these changes, in an unstalker-like fashion, and demand answers? If I see him tomorrow and he has 3 dogs, I think I’ll lose my mind!