Of Trucks and Dogs

OK, let me start by saying that despite all the excuses and disclaimers, it was all my doing and is entirely my fault that I ended up in the situation. I recognize that. I accept that.

The difference is, I’m willing to talk about it and all of the rest of the people who have done EXACTLY THE SAME THING just sit there in silence.

It wasn’t especially early, and I’d had enough coffee that my brain was mostly functioning. After taking a friend out for our annual birthday breakfast, I had to visit the SuperMega Hardware to get a new space heater.

The old ones, aside from dimming the lights in the entire neighborhood when they kicked on, tended to make the circuit breakers blow.

Even the oversized ones that I put in to prevent just that occurrence.

I’d shopped them up both online and in the stores and found the one that would hopefully work to warm us a bit without making the electric meter spin out of control. They didn’t have it at the SuperMega Hardware by our house, so I had to go to the one across town on the highway.

I was actually very pleased with myself. Breakfast finished at 8:00, I popped down the street to SuperMega Hardware and was in and out by 8:30 having resisted the lure of all the cheap tools and other sparkly things that go in a shop that are already set out for the Christmas sales. Indeed, having gone in for one item, I was leaving with only 4 (including my originally intended purchase).

For someone in recovery, this isn’t falling off the wagon. This is a wonderful accomplishment.

Baby steps.

Anyhow, I had a 9:00 appointment so I couldn’t really troll the aisles for bargains as I have so many times before. There was plenty of time to load my meager purchase in the car and get back to the office, but no time to waste, either, so I headed out to the parking lot toward my truck, which was conveniently outside the exit door.

I circled around to the passenger door and opened it to put the stuff in.

It’s hard to say who was more surprised, me or the ancient beagle that was asleep on the seat.

Fortunately, the dog was so old that his reaction wasn’t one of protecting his turf. It was more, “Could you close the door? There’s a draft in here and I was napping in the sun.”

My own immediate thought was, "We don’t have a beagle. Why would someone decide to dump this poor dog out and leave him in my truck?  Why didn't I lock the doors?"

The Beagle's true daddy, however, happened to be coming out not far behind me and wondered --aloud, no less, and in a tone of voice that would  brook no baloney -- what I was doing getting into HIS truck.   A truck which, coincidentally, was the same year and color as mine.

As we all stood there kind of surprised, my jaw agape as I tried to focus my brain on some type of rational explanation, the truck’s true owner realized I wasn’t stealing his beloved hound, but was about as shocked as the dog was.

Explanations and apologies were offered as I shamefacedly saw my truck parked a couple of rows away and headed off toward it.

You can always tell mine, because since I got it there’s been a red-tailed hawk’s claw with native American beadwork around the ankle hanging from the rear view mirror. Because the talons are sharp, there’s also always been some type of stuffed creature in it – Santa, a leprechaun, the Easter Bunny – usually something sacred and seasonal, but most recently a lamb that’s better at staying in the claw as we ride along than some of the other things.

I could see it shining across the parking lot as I hurried to leave.

When I got there, though, my new clicker wouldn’t open the door. Neither would my key, but I noticed that some idiot way on the other side of the parking lot had set off his car alarm.

Then I realized that maybe I didn’t have enough coffee on board yet. That, or my vision has gone beyond simply needing reading glasses to function, because that wasn’t my claw on the mirror, it was someone else’s fuzzy dice.

Oh, and the idiot with the car alarm was me.

So now I had to go back past the man and the dog – both of whom were laughing and shaking their heads, having first watched my retreat and then hearing the alarm in front of them – to get to my own truck which was flashing it’s lights in an attempt to further draw attention and humiliate me.

So I slunk across the parking lot as quickly as I could with a cart which has one wheel that refuses to track properly and flung my stuff in MY truck, realizing that I can’t possibly go back to SuperMega Hardware for a while.

At least until I’m sure that the dog has gone on to his reward and I can have a custom paint job done on my truck so that it no longer looks like every other burgundy Ford in the parking lot.

DISCLAIMER -- I am not under oath when writing this.  I am also not telling which parts are slanted a bit, or what I left out.  Some truths we take to the grave, that's just the way it is.