This morning Mom and I were plodding along on My Trail when I started to hear a commotion behind me. Mom, who always has her ears plugged up with her stories and can’t hear a dog 2 blocks away, didn’t hear anything and kept running. But I knew that something was coming and started running with my head around backward so I could look for whatever mischief was bearing down on us. The trouble is that when I run with my head backward because a squeaky bike or rollerblader is coming, I can’t go very fast or very straight and Mom gets annoyed because I make myself a “nuisance” (a nuisance is a rock at the end of the leash).
Finally the commotion caught up to us, and I was right to be scared because that’s when I was shot… Shot right through the heart with Cupid’s arrow that is! Two Friends came running around us, and it was love at first sight. I knew that no matter what happened in my life, I was going to follow these ladies until death (or egg time) do us part. They were running between 7:15 and 7:30 min/mile, so now we were going to run 7:15-7:30 per mile. Mom started yelling at me to slow down, but I just ignored her. The more we ran, the softer and breathier her voice got until eventually she was just sort of whispering my name and it was easy to tune her out. Then she started pounding on the leash to get my attention, but love knows no distraction and I kept running after my soulmates and ignoring Mom, who seemed to be turning into a vacuum cleaner.
Mom tried making herself heavy at the end of the leash, but I was a man on a mission. I kept pulling the leash until my collar had me breathing like the big bad wolf with emphysema. Ladies love mouth breathing and wordless grunting from potential suiters so I didn’t let it stop me. I knew Mom would be fine back there. We hadn’t run this fast in awhile, but we used to run like this all the time back when she used to let me run “On your mark, get set, go” with her a few times a week. Whatever, I’m sure she was fine back there.
Unfortunately, Mom couldn’t get her butt in gear to catch the ladies (or that jealous cow purposely slowed me down so I wouldn’t catch them!) and eventually my shift ended and I had to take Mom home. So I’ve put out an ad in the Craigslist Missed Connections and have been reloading my inbox all day:
“Me: Dashingly handsome, 55-lb beefcake mouth breathing 10 yards behind you on the Stevens Creek Trail at sunrise this morning. I was the one tied to my old ball and chain. “You: Two alluring ladies with irresistible body odor and intriguing voices traveling north, right through my heart. I could tell you were sent by the universe to free me! “PM me by peeing on the fence post outside the elementary school. I’ll pee you back.”
–Oscar the smitten Pooch
