Thanks for the help

No, I still haven't recovered from my shower of rat sh*t, but thank you for asking...

I'm moderately cranky these days and fighting it. My Christmases have been pretty much suspect since my parents split up eons ago. I've had good years here and there, but they still pretty much paled to the times when the folks were together and everyone was alive. I know by now I'm a grown adult and should be focusing my energies on my own family and my own children, but whoops, I forgot to have one/some. So here I am in a rat infested house, with nary a single Christmas decoration.

Needless to say, I'm usually pretty blue between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I'm somewhat used to it and try to fight it and some days are worse than others.

I don't know where I was going with this. Maybe it's because this afternoon didn't help any.

Herewith, today's story:

I picked up Destructo, the world's cutest dog, from doggie daycare this afternoon and headed home after a long day. Because of the constant road construction in this area, I've carved out all sorts of routes on back roads that probably don't save me much time, but save loads of frustration on my part. I was taking a very poorly lit back road through a residential neighborhood after dark this afternoon when a black dog ran out in front of my car! I had to slam on the brakes to avoid him and fortunately did. I'm not even sure how I saw him in time. There was a guy nearby getting out of his car and I asked if he knew who the dog belonged to and he said, "No," and continued on his way. Gee, thanks. In the meantime, the dog continued his journey down the middle of the street.

I tried turning around to go after him, but several impatient drivers descended on my car. I wound up going along my original path home and started the internal debate: "Should I go get him?" "Surely someone will help him." "Really? What if it was Bodhi??"

And so I turned around and went after him. Bodhi was having none of this, however. When I caught up with him, she turned into Cujo, barking and snarling, and the stray ran away. I caught up with him again but wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with Bodhi in the car. I decided to follow him just to make sure he wouldn't get hit. He stopped in front of a house and I couldn't tell if he recognized it or not. I started calling the doggie daycare to see if I could convince someone to come over to help him when I heard voices. Turns out, there were four adults in the driveway next to the house the stray was stopped in front of. I asked if anyone knew the dog and they all told me he belonged to the people next door -- the house he was standing in front of. Mind you, he was still a black dog in the middle of a dark street... I felt stupid asking, but said, "Um...is he normally outside like this?" They responded, "Oh yeah, he runs all over but he's harmless; he won't hurt you."

Sigh.

I told them that I almost hit him and would hate to see him get hurt and they all just kind of nodded at me.

And so I went off on my way, wondering why I had just wasted my time and if I was the crazy one...