Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 - 12:03 p.m.
Double Duty
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I am at my desk this morning and my sight line is down the driveway and sweeps the whole front yard
An old guy drinking a Tim Hortons coffee is walking his old, old dog past the house
His old old dog waddles over to my ditch to poop.. this was not in their travel plans for today but hey...
Old guy looks around and sees me watching the whole scenario from afar and shrugs as his old old dog lets loose explosive diarrhea, & I mean gallons
The old guy looks back at me and sees I definitely watched it all transpire.
So he methodically puts his coffee down on the road and bends over to pick up a set of advertising flyers wrapped in a plastic plastic bag at the end of my driveway. He slowly removes the flyers from the bag puts the flyers down respectfully on the end of my driveway and prepares to stoop and scoop..as best he can. He can barely bend over. His old old dog is limping and ill and struggling to make the assent up the modest grade of the ditch.. Old guy can barely navigate the slope down into the ditch and at the same time he is labouring with the indignity that he is performing an odious task for a critical audience of one It is his civic duty as a dog owner to private property in this uptight little white town
so I zoom to the door and with all the indifference in my voice I could muster I call out:
" thanks I'll get those flyers later, its quite ok. Just leave it. Have a nice day guys "
I could see his dignity return, and a sense of relief as wide as the sky. I watched from inside as he painfully bent over in slow motion to retrieve his coffee on the road while his old old dog maneuvered his old old dog face in close to get a pat at the same time, which he got. These two have been pals for a long time.
The old guy shuffled off with his coffee, his old old limping dog and a free plastic bag in his pocket for next time. God help us all, may there actually be a next time to live towards
I will look forward to the green spot in the ditch next spring
