Roughly 15 years ago, a young man moved in across the street. A week or so later, he came over and introduced himself. He was renting the house. The real reason he came over, though, was to ask if I had seen his dog over here, which I hadn’t, and he asked me to keep an eye out for it.
Now, I didn’t lie to him, but I didn’t volunteer any information either. I have written before about how important it is to listen to that faint subconscious voice when it speaks. A couple of days earlier, I had done just that. I was working from home in those days, and it’s usually very quiet during the day. There was the constant drone of traffic, but it’s background noise, and I don’t usually notice it. Somehow though, a car slowing down enough to turn into my driveway or the driveway across the street is different enough to get my attention. I may have the Gladys Kravitz gene because a couple of days before a visit from my new neighbor, I hear a car, and I go to the window to see what was going on. I see a lady across the street, and she is calling a dog that comes to her. I had never seen the dog or the lady, nor had I met the neighbor, so I didn’t think too much of it. But something didn’t sit right with me. So, I grab my binoculars and get her tag number.
After the visit from my new neighbor, I call my daddy, who was the Sheriff at the time. The bottom line is they found the thief and told her to bring the dog back to the owner. I’m a little relieved it wasn’t going to turn into a federal case, and my neighbor was getting his dog back. I figured it was over. The thief and her husband did try to bring the dog back, but my neighbor wasn’t home. That’s when I get a call asking me if I could go across the street and get the dog until the neighbor got back home. I agreed to do that.
So, I go across the street, and the thief is trying to explain herself to me. First, I didn’t believe anything she was saying, and second, I wasn’t really interested. Her husband looked horrified, and I felt terrible for him. He tried to get her back in the car as quickly as possible, but she couldn’t stop talking. At this point, my new neighbor pulls into the driveway. He has a friend in the car with him who looks like he could be an offensive lineman for the Falcons. The thief’s husband’s nightmare has now taken a turn for the worse. As my new neighbor gets out of the car, he has no idea what’s going on. He sees his dog is back but doesn’t know any of the story. I’m taking his dog over to him, and he is stuck somewhere between joy and confusion. The husband is almost frantic now trying to get the thief into the car, and she just won’t shut up. Now the friend is starting to ask questions, and he’s getting agitated. I’m thinking this has the potential of making the nightly news. I am beginning to tell the story to my neighbor, and for some reason, the big guy starts listening to me. The husband seizes the moment to get his wife into the car, and they are gone. All that was left was the reunion of a man and his dog. The young man had likely never heard of Mrs. Kravitz, but he was grateful to have one in the neighborhood. 😃
* For those of you too young to know who Gladys Kravitz was, she was a very nosy neighbor in the television show Bewitched (1964-1972).
Haha! Good job, Gladys!