I am not a very superstitious person, but I should have known better when a large black dog came charging at me this morning. This uncontrollable mutt lives on the ground floor of the building where the hostel is located and barks holy terror at all hours of the day, and night if he has to voice an opinion on something. He is big, black as the night, and probably miserable as hell for being cooped up in a small apartment for most of the day. So when someone was careless this morning and lingered half a minute too long at the door, the dog wasted no time in breaking out from his personal prison. He may be big and energetic, but the joy in his eyes as he tore past me and onto the street was unmistakable, barking with glee and sassiness. The owner, as you can imagine, let out a string of Portuguese expletives I probably shouldn’t be learning, and I couldn’t really tell whether she was yelling at the dog, her daughter or the universe in general.
The unholy terror lingered around me for a while, and I tried to coax it back inside, to which he trotted up, sniffed my hand, pounced on me, (the damn thing was my height when standing on its hind legs) and then turned around with its tongue hanging out and ran down the street to find another victim. Why didn’t I hold on to him? First of all, would you hold on to a ginormous mutt you don’t know by first name?! Second, he wasn’t wearing a collar. Third, it was just too hilarioius to watch this prison break.
The young man who came out of the building next door assumed it was my dog and gave me an amused grin. I shrugged and smiled back, watching helplessly as Doofus Rufus crossed the road. He was damn lucky there were no cars at that moment – nor buses! While he pranced around the other side, his owner donned on a pair of leggings, screamed bloody murder at her seemingly clueless daughter, and charged past me fuming like a coal factory chimney. I pointed to where her four-legged brat was, and before I knew it, she galloped over to him, with daughter in tow. All that was missing was a prison siren and the SWAT team.
It’s a good thing my Uber arrived because it would have been too rude to continue standing there laughing my head off. Doofus Rufus was brought back home walking only on his hind legs and sandwiched between mother and daughter, each of them holding on to a front paw for dear life. The dog looked at me with a sappy grin and lolling tongue, as if to say, I did it! That was all the proof I needed for not getting an apartment on the ground floor…
As for my Uber driver – not a chatty one today. The young ones never are, but boy how I wished I could have photographed him! Perfect portrait material and he has a profile that could break a thousand hearts. Imagine a young David Beckam during his manbun stage. Same intense blue eyes with a twinkle. I tell you, my commute to work is never boring!
If this is Monday, which usually sets the tone for the week, it is going to be one hell of a week folks. I wonder if Heaven has a special offer on miracles this week – three for one? As I write this, there is a group of people in the stairwell jabbering away noisily, someone else slamming doors, and Doofus Rufus two floors down is barking up the neighbourhood again. Have I accidentally fallen into an episode of Big Bang Theory? I need to borrow a stun gun from Star Trek…
FrogDiva Thoughts 