Christy The Writer

Coming home from Keeli’s baby shower late last night, I pulled into the driveway and opened my car door to see a dog sitting there looking at me.  I patted him on the head and called him a good puppy before it occurred to me: we don’t have a dog. But it was late and dark and I’d had a bit of wine with dinner and wow, what’s with all the judging?

The dog had a collar on and seemed friendly enough, so asked him if he cared to come inside for a moment so I could get a look at the name on his tag. He said he was good with that, so we went inside where I crouched to look at his collar while simultaneously yelling for Guy to come down and help me. Guy came downstairs and gave me a look that conveyed the message “Oh good lord, woman what have you gotten yourself into now and why do these things always become my problem next?” I am so familiar with that look it isn’t even funny.

“I found a dog,” I said.

“So it would appear,” Guy answered, taking our scrappy, punky cat, Harry Potter Kass, back upstairs and closing him in the bedroom before he could take the dog apart. Turns out the dog’s name is Buddy and his tag had a phone number and an address. Buddy’s home is the next town over. He’d come pretty far and across some busy streets. Plus this is New Jersey, don’t forget, where Driving With Your Head Up Your Butt is the norm. That Buddy hadn’t been killed was a miracle, plain and simple.

I called the number and got voice mail, so we loaded Buddy into the car and drove to the address stamped on the tag. A woman was in the yard, just kind of pacing. When we told her we had her dog, she was visibly relieved. I let him out of the car and he bounded over to her with all the jubilation of a second-grader just home from a field trip with his class.  “Mom! Mom! Mom! Guess what I did! Guess! Guess! Guess! Mom! Mom! Mom!” She thanked us profusely, saying her husband was out looking for the dog as we spoke.

We drove home, and I was all glowy and giddy because of the nice thing we’d done and because the dog had been so sweet and cute and a little bit because of the wine I’d had with dinner. But mostly because it felt good to do something nice.

I was sitting at the kitchen table just now when the doorbell downstairs chimed. I opened the door to see the woman from last night and a man with her. In the back window of the car I could see Buddy’s sweet face watching me. The man handed me an envelope with a Dunkin Donuts gift card inside (it’s like he knew me before we ever met) and a note that said, “Thanks for the ride home! Buddy.” The man thanked me over and over again for bringing their dog back.

“I don’t know how he got out, or how he got this far,” he said. “But I’m so grateful he found you. A lot of people wouldn’t have done what you did.”

I am still sitting here thinking about that. I hope he’s wrong. I’d like to think that anyone would have done what we did. If we can’t look after the simplest of God’s creatures, who have no words and no idea about traffic safety, how can we ever hope to look after each other?