I was driving home last week after a restorative trek through the mountains, when I noticed right before the highway on-ramp there was a Sunoco gas station, featuring a magnificent 30-foot statue of a green dinosaur. Running somewhat low on fuel, and anticipating a long drive for an important date the following day, I drove my humble red Corolla into the station. As I was turning left to place myself by the pump, I slammed on the brakes, as one of man’s crustier friends ran out in front of my car – a white-grey Labradoodle, with a large red collar and a slight limp. He had somehow gotten quite wet and dirty, but he had a large smile which made me guess that whatever got him wet and dirty and limping had to have been quite fun, at least for him. A mother and several children around a minivan waved at me, seeming to apologize for their underling’s behavior. Eventually the dog figured out his transgression, and got out of my way, and I pulled up to the pump.
I turned off my car and stepped out, then looked back and forth.
“Where’d he go?” I asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. He’s lost and we’re trying to catch him so we can call the number on the collar,” said the woman who I had erroneously assumed was responsible for the creature.
The Doodle spontaneously re-appeared, arriving from the other side of the station. The children waved snacks to try to tempt him, but to no avail. The littlest child – a precious little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 – poured out some water on the ground, instructing the Doodle to come drink. Alas, he was more interested in me, and trotted right up to me as I was trying to open my gas tank.
Now, I’ve never been a big fan of dogs; I certainly wouldn’t say I hate them, but I would say they are a bit much. They exhibit a wide host of antisocial behavior – from a lack of respect for personal space, to drooling, to general incontinence – and I think we extend them far more allowances than they deserve. Nevertheless, I had some sympathy for the Doodle – he must have been quite distraught, and he was clearly trying hard to put on his best appearances – and as I pumped my gas I quietly murmured, “There, there.”
At this point, several other cars had pulled into the station. More and more people stepped out and started gawking at the strange phenomenon. The Doodle got excited and took another lap around; the mother from the minivan tried to grab him and failed, as did a young woman in front of a sparkling-clean SUV. Eventually, however, the dog finished his rounds and ended up by me again; positively begging for more words of affirmation.
“Why don’t you catch him?!” a voice in the crowd cried out.
“Yeah, he’s right there!”
“He needs your help!”
It took me a moment to realize these cries were intended for me. I froze – as mentioned earlier, I really have nothing against the poor Doodle, but our relationship had, up to this point, always been formal; I really didn’t feel it was appropriate to engage in any kind of physical contact. However, these are difficult things to explain to an angry crowd.
“What’s wrong with you?!”
Solemnly recognizing that I was called to action, I eventually crouched down and beckoned the Doodle to come closer. “Here, boy,” I said apprehensively. As it turns out, one of the key talents of the breed is to recognize insincerity, and the Doodle dashed away to do another lap around the station.
“You let him go!”
“He was right in front of you!”
“How could you?!”
The crowd started booing and jeering, which is one of the worst things a crowd can do, especially when oneself is the object of said B. and J., as I shamefacedly returned the pump handle to its receptacle. The cashier had just brought out a tray of slushies for people to throw at my car when a young man leapt out of his sandstone-tan Ford F-350 and grabbed the Doodle by the collar. The beast thrashed and yipped and thrashed some more, before finally submitting to the compassionate authority of the Hermes standing before the crowd, which collectively sighed in relief that the Doodle had finally been rescued by an incredibly attractive and noble figure. The hero’s girlfriend came out from the passenger side of the truck and he handed her the now-pacified Doodle by the scruff of his neck; and she gently guided the re-civilized animal to the convenience store doorway, on account of the slushie-laden clerk having promised to retrieve a leash from the back.
I saw this divine intervention as my cue to escape, and I hopped into my car and turned on the ignition. Unfortunately, the commotion had led to a complete saturation of cars in the Sunoco parking lot, and I was blocked left, right, and center. I looked around with my rear-view camera and saw I had an opportunity to back up and snake around the car blocking me to my right; the only thing behind me was Hermes’ chariot and I had more than enough clearance to back up right next to him then weave back around. I very slowly backed up, feeling more than a little claustrophobic, when suddenly the chariot in my rear-view mirror started following my lead and also decided it would be a great idea to back up. I slammed on the brakes, but alas the opposing vehicle did not follow suit, and it was about to shave off about a quarter of my right-rear passenger door when I switched gears and sped away.
Unfortunately, what I had not noticed when I sped away is that the dog had gotten so distraught at my leaving that he pulled out of Aphrodite’s grip, right towards the front bumper of my vehicle, and I was so distracted by trying to avoid what would have honestly been a minor fender-bender that I rolled right over the poor Doodle, who passed on from this mortal coil in an Opheliatic display of unrequited love.
“Get him!!!” screamed the zeitgeist.
Knowing that I would not be able to make my way through the crowd in the murder weapon, I swung open my door and made a run for it. Luckily, I’m a pretty fast runner in the face of retributive justice, and none of the vengeful faces saw me hide behind the gas station dumpster. I poked my head out and saw ten or fifteen burly men walk up to my car. Without so much as breaking a sweat, they lifted it up and pall-bore it out into the middle of the road, where not ten seconds later an enormous semi truck plowed directly through it. The Corolla exploded in a violent cacophony of steel, oil, and glass; a mushroom cloud formed a holocaust offering to the Sunoco dinosaur as payment for my sin against nature’s most innocent creature. The crowd fanatically cheered in response to the cosmic cycle, and the semi driver gave a thumbs-up as he drove away.
With no time to mourn either the Doodle or the Corolla, I snuck out from behind the dumpster, attempting to take a detour through the woods and hopefully end up in a neighborhood where I could call an Uber and forget about the whole ordeal. Alas, the five-year-old girl from the minivan pointed me out with a precocious “there’s the bastard!” and the crowd, which had just a moment ago established a taste for mechanical blood, now decided that nothing beats the real thing. The burly men grabbed me, tossed me into the dumpster, then hitched it to the back of the F-350 with a chain, whereupon Hermes did burnouts around the periphery of the station to thunderous applause.
I woke up in the wee hours of the following morning, feeling more concussed than I would like but nevertheless saved from lethal injury by the cushion of mysterious decomposing convenience store sludge surrounding me. I crawled out of my would-be coffin and saw a single vehicle at the station: a nice little family in an RV with rental plates. A Golden Retriever approached me, sniffing curiously.
“Come back, bud,” said the handsome young father by the RV. “That guy looks like a bit much.”