Back

Yay, I'm back. And those pre-programmed posts are a great way of dealing with Blogger's Anxiety Syndrome, where you break into a cold sweat if you are unable to post at least once a day. I spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday without going anywhere near a computer!

I had a good trip. Though I wasn't the only one...

(segue)

I was mowing my lawn today for the first time in a loooongish while. I got a decent amount done, even though I started right at sundown. I wasn't very far in when I discovered that I had received a call from the friend I had visited this weekend, and I decided to call her back.

I was sitting on my front steps talking on the phone when a very pretty girl, somewhere between 17 and 25, came walking by. I couldn't help getting distracted by her pair of puppies. Well, they weren't exactly puppies, more young adult dogs. Boxers. Very handsome dogs. And she was pretty good looking, too, did I mention that?

Unfortunately they weren't the most coordinated dogs in the world. And as is often the case while walking pairs of dogs, they got tangled around the legs of the person walking them and managed to knock her over onto the sidewalk.

It was more a sort of slow-motion tumble, something I've done myself many times before. She crumbled to the ground in a series of physically unsustainable poses and eventually wound up laying on her back, with one of the dogs laying on top of her as she tried to snag the collar of the other with her foot.

Still on the phone, I jogged over to try to size up the situation. The one dog was completely covering her. The other was standing at attention, facing me. I decided he was not in immediate danger of running into the road. I approached more slowly.

"Get off of me!" the girl yelled to the Boxer on top of her. "She's trying to kill me!"

"No," I said, "she's protecting you." From me. Mistress is down, helpless. Hulking strange human within range. Protect. Defend.

Prepare to attack?

I got close enough for the alert dog to strike me if it wished without moving much. I made no move toward it, or her. But the dog could smell me more easily, could probably analyze the lack of adrenaline leaking out of my pores. Stand down. Strange human non-threatening.

She looked to be OK.

As she sat up I started to extend a hand to help, but she obviously didn't need it. She got up, dusted herself off, said "How embarrassing,", and continued on her way.

A little while later a red SUV pulled up in front of my house and a guy got out, leaving the motor running. What's this?, I thought. The guy looked old, older than me, at least. He had several plastic bags in his hand. He ignored me and walked up the sidewalk to where the girl had tumbled...

...and scooped up some poop. Um? How did that work? What just happened? As I had just mowed along the sidewalk, it would be a week or more before I ever saw that spot again, and the poop would not have bothered me.

It was only later that it occurred to me that this might have been a classic front-door / back-door con, where one person distracts someone at the front entrance to their house while another enters through the back door and proceeds to rob it. Might have been, but wasn't.

Anyway. Now I'm wondering if I'll get to see this girl around the neighborhood again. And her puppies. They sure were cute.