The Kindness of an Old Lady in a House Robe


Unlike Blanche DuBois, it's not often that I've depended upon the kindness of strangers-- and we all know, from the murder of Kitty Genovese and the so-called "bystander effect," that if you are in trouble and there's a group of strangers nearby, you certainly can't rely on them to help you-- but all bets are off if there's only one person observing your predicament, there is a much greater chance that a single observer will come to your aid, and I got to experience this firsthand on Saturday morning: my dog escaped out the back gate and took off down the street, he made it a couple of blocks before I finally caught up with him, and he was scared shitless because he knew he had really screwed up and so he rolled onto his back and did his best imitation of Jello and when I pulled at his collar to get him up, this scared him even more and, of course, in my mad dash to catch him before he got hit by a car, I forgot to grab the leash so I was essentially going to have to drag him two blocks to my house or carry him, but luckily, an old lady in an old lady house-robe, walking her old dog, came to my aid-- she brought her dog over so Sirius could sniff him, which made him stand up and relax, and then she gave me the cloth belt of her robe to use as a leash and this worked wonderfully and I was able to walk Sirius home and then return her belt to her, and the only thing that would have made the story better is if she wasn't an old lady in an old lady house-robe, but instead the woman in the photo above . . . she is the first image that pops up on Google, if you type in "house robe," which is both an absurd and wonderful thing about the internet.

9 comments:

  1. I got this image:
    http://bit.ly/GQvwpF

    You lied to me Dave.

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  2. that's the fifth image! but a great one . . .

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  3. That's what all the dogwalkers look like in my neighborhood.

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  4. Okay, Dave, so I hate that I'm having to comment on this particular post of yours, but I need some advice...and I'm tapping into your English-teacher, uber-reading self here...and before I do, let me say that our lab has proven recently that his name should be "houdini" because he has freed himself every time we've tried keeping him within the bounds of our backyard, including leaping more than 7 feet...okay, if you were going to assign several books (3 maybe) that had religious themes - contemporary novels, say, to generally decent students - not the best necessarily, but decent students - what might you choose? Lots of profs are using "Life of Pi" (which I haven't read) and I'm curious if you think it'd be good. I'm considering some classic. Definitely Flannery O'Connor short stories (1 or 2), maybe Elie Wiesel, ...anyhow, I need to decide. I would've sent you an email directly, but don't have your address. Thus this comment. Sorry boys. Thanks!!

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  5. Hey, so here's my email address or send me a message on FB...

    ddesarro@upike.edu
    OR
    donna.desarroraynal@gmail.com


    thanks!!

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  6. "the miracle game" by josef skvorecky and "brothers karamazov" come to mind.

    anyone else have any suggestions?

    i liked "life of pi" but the religious stuff is more at the beginning, then it becomes a survival tale with a twist . . .

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  7. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok unless they can handle Portnoy's Complaint.

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