I was dog-sitting for a friend who has a big, dumb, but very friendly German Shepard named Baxter. On the first day of caring for Baxter, I had to take him out for his morning walk, not realizing how easily distracted he can be. He’s still a puppy, but a big puppy.
He's all over the place, sniffing everything, acting like he's never been outside, a total maniac.
And I hear a voice behind me say, "Hey, are you walking the dog or is the dog walking you?"
Which, to be fair, is the lamest joke and the original writer of that joke I hope rots in hell, but I digress.
So I turn around, and it's this very well-to-do-looking guy wearing a cheesy self-congratulatory grin, like he won a pie-eating contest. His Rolex sparkles as he loosely holds the leash of what appears to be a well-behaved poodle, sitting and looking at me with what I could only surmise was judgment.
But then something strange happened. I thought his poodle was scrutinizing me, but he wasn't at all. I can only now imagine that dog heard that joke one too many times, and today he was going to do something about it. The poodle calmly sat up, walked over to his owner's leg, and started humping it as if the world's population depended on it.
"No, Lord Barkington, stop it," the guy yelled, trying to kick himself free from the determined grip of his lust-driven poodle.
The poodle clung to his leg with the tenacity of a barnacle in mating season, his fluffy ears flopping wildly with each enthusiastic thrust. The guy’s face cycled through disbelief, embarrassment, and the kind of resignation that only comes from being bested by a twelve-pound aristocrat in a fur coat.
"I'll give you guys some privacy," I said, and continued my walk with Baxter as he tried to chase an imaginary squirrel. "Good boy, Baxter, good boy!"
So what's the moral of the story?
Sometimes in life, we think we’re being judged, when in reality, it’s just a poodle named Lord Barkington who likes to get his freak on. We’re all freaks in our own way.
