…this morning, with my Burmese cat (nothing wrong; just our six monthly checkup) a distraught young woman came charging in, clutching a dog that she said had hurt its paw (and so could not walk).
“Mind if I leave it while I park the car?”
“No,” said the receptionist. “Not allowed. No pet is allowed in here without a minder.”
“Just for a matter of minutes?”
“‘Fraid not,” she said.
The others there each had a dog in tow but my Amadeus was still in his box. Silently I held out my arms and she dumped the mutt, mumbled and fled. It was the one and only time I ever remember embracing a dog. It was hairy and snuffly, not at all like my beautiful boys.
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” I commented. “If she’d just run it over and never comes back…” The dog had closed its eyes and appeared content. Odder things happen; at least it wasn’t a child.
But back she came. Well, of course she did, along with a man with a lead in his hand. Why he couldn’t have carried it in in the first place, God knows.
Amadeus, by the way, was – as usual – judged perfect.
