DOGGED

On the way back from a three-miler near my house a very cute dog with a very dumb owner started (what do you call it? When they’re excited so they only take small bites?) “engaging” my ankles. I thought, “Wow, this guy really loves his dog and all he wants is for me to love him, too”. I remember thinking there was something so sweet and infuriatingly negligent about that. In this, a similar pickle just on a different day, I decided to shoot him a look – the kind that he could interpret however he wanted, and of course, that he could not prove in any courtroom. He called out from behind a car he thought he’d just the same proceed to fix, “He just wants to play”. I thought of all the young children that might be about and bit down on my tongue until all that I could manage from the slit between my lips was “I don’t”.