Gromit went shopping

I must stop by Kinko's again, and put his photo on the web, so I can put it with this posting.

Who is he? He's my dog of course. Gromit Smiley Dog.

Why is he interesting? He took off Monday night, ran off into a blizzard, leaving me standing at the door staring out into the swirling snow. I'll spare you with how I felt.

He wandered over to the grocery store. It's always been a place of treats. Often, I buy a couple of pieces of fried chicken from the deli, and we share. Don't even bother with the, it's not good for him routine. He's always said, he never intended to live forever, and if he dies before I do, that's tough. He doesn't want to spend his old age mourning me in a small kennel with a concrete floor at the humane society, waiting to be euthanized, eating bland 'healthy' dry dog food.

I once asked him if that wasn't kind of cynical, and he told me not at all. He said that if it was a question of me crying for a month straight, or him being on a thin mat on that cold floor for ten days waiting to be executed, he'd much rather be eating fried chicken every day.

He does have an amazing gift for clarity, when it come to describing what really matters in life.

Here's what he did. He took off, and ran toward downtown for a few blocks. Seeing nothing was open, and no people were around, he changed course pretty quick. How do I know this? Somebody saw him on the sidewalk headed east. He got to the grocery store pretty quick. They close at nine, and he got there before they closed. He walked up to that automatic door, it opened, and he went right on inside. One of the customers decided to take the nice doggy who was lost home.

She called the cops from her house. If she hadn't taken him home, I might have found him, but I don't blame her for taking him home. I can only speculate if there was some, 'can we keep him' going on, and that husband who was at home said no way, look at the size of him, he'll eat us out of house and home, and we'll need a wheelbarrow to haul away the dog shit.

Did I sleep at all Monday night? Of course not. I did get pretty well versed on 'lost dogs', which might be worth the ordeal, but I'll only know that if the time comes. I mentally accepted being single, and I only cried a little.

It costs about $75 bucks to get your dog out of dog jail. Toss in the fuel for running around, and the other little details, and you've pretty near got a C-note. I could get ten - 8 piece fried chicken for that money. Do you hear me pup?

What a guy.... He just opened an eye from his nap, and spoke in that single word language of his, hmmmmmm, and said, "8 piece? Are you kidding? You never even buy those for yourself, let alone buy them for me. Once a month maybe, if I'm lucky, do we share one. So I should care?"

He closed his eye, and now he's twitching in his sleep again, chasing something out there in the woods. I'll bet it's a wood chuck, he likes chasing those things.

Last night, Tuesday night, with him beside me again, I got the best nights sleep I can ever remember getting.