poka bean

my faith in mankind has been restored

A few days ago I was out walking my poor, sick puppy when she needed to make a pit-stop on the side of the road. Now that she is taking prednisone, she has to pee A LOT and when she does, it takes quite awhile. As I stood there waiting, holding her leash in one hand and two poop bags in the other, I sensed a car pulling up behind us and waiting for us to move. I thought perhaps we were standing in their parking space or something so as Lucy finished and we began on our way I looked back to nod and wave an apology for her taking so long.

Unfortunately, I was not met with a gracious reply. The dude in the 4Runner pulled right up next to me, leaned out his window and said loudly and accusingly, "DO YOU HAVE A BAG TO PICK THAT UP?"

In total confusion, and because I can never think of good, biting comebacks until 24 hours later, I offered up the eloquent response:

"IT'S PEE!"

Nice job there, Bean. That'll teach him.

I looked at him with utter confusion, my very soul crushed at the insinuation that I am an irresponsible wretch who doesn't clean up after her dog, and he returned my gaze with an evil, accusing stare. He shook his head in disgust and drove off. Turns out we were not in his way or in his parking spot. He lives a little further down the road and was just stopping to play Poop Police.

Two days later, after having fumed over this incident way more than it merited and having schemed all manner of evil payback scenarios including but not limited to lighting a bag of dog poop on fire on his front door step or asking him if he had any bags to clean up his yard, his hideous, hideous yard, we encountered him again. This time, Jon was with me. Lucy stopped to pee in the same place and I sensed a vehicle approaching from behind again. I turned to look and there was 4Runner dude hanging out his window with his mouth open to speak. But this time, he said "Hey, I just wanted to apologize for the other day." I told him it was okay, I was just so confused because she was just peeing and I hope he knows we always pick up after our dog. He said there's some dog that's always leaving messes in their yard and in their neighbor's yard and he was sorry he wrongly accused me.

After he drove off, Jon and I went on and on about how big that was of him. He went out of his way to apologize and make things right. Who does that these days? I am now relieved of having to regard all humans as loathesome, hateful beings on account of apologetic neighbor. We should all be like him.

Posted by Poka Bean at 4:31 PM