As you folks probably know, I go to Panera a really lot, almost every day. When you do that, you get to know the other people who go there frequently–or at least recognize them. In my neighborhood, there are a couple of older guys who bring their dogs and leash them to the railing outside, to wait while the men get their coffee and so forth. These are big fluffy dogs, blue-eyed friendly patient mush-dogs, huskies. They have the typical look of huskies: stand at about my ribcage, curly tails, icy blue eyes, wolflike structure.
One of these dogs is black and white, with a white face and front. The other looks like the washed out version of him, being gray and white, with pretty much the same markings. They have immense dignity and are politely willing to accept petting, without ever taking their attention off the building that has temporarily swallowed their real gods, the men who brought them. When these men come back out, they stand up, wag their tails, and prepare to insert nose.
Today, when I arrived, there were two dogs leashed outside the Panera, on the railing, in the same spot. However, these were weiner dogs. They had the typical look of weiner dogs: stand at about my ankle, elongated bodies, big sad eyes, pointed ears they might step on at any moment. One was dark brown, and the other looked like his faded shadow: light brown, slightly fuzzier, with pretty much the same markings.
I think I startled some people, laughing out loud at these dogs. Now, weiner dogs are inherently funny, it’s true. But not THAT funny. It just occurred to me to wonder what magic transmuted the two huskies into two weiner dogs.
I wonder if you brought your two majestic huskies to lie about in well-trained patience while you got your coffee, and then came out and they were two weiner dogs with disturbing similarities… would you think someone came and switched them? Or would you think some magic had made them shrink?
