So, we went to a chili cookoff but didn’t eat chili and spent 3 hours Saturday waiting for the cops (which is why we didn’t get to eat chili).
(And how was YOUR weekend?)
Anyway. So, we dropped the dogs off and headed out of town to go to a chili cookoff in a small town a few counties away. After awhile on the highway, we decide to take country roads to our destination. After awhile on the country roads, we decide that since we are headed that direction anyway, we should stop off and say hello to Blanche.
Except, remember the last time we tried this and got so lost we ended up in a neighboring state? Yeah. Thanks to Hertz NeverLost, we had good directions to the funeral home but we couldn’t remember the name of the church she’s buried in (so sue me – it was something or other Baptist church and you can’t throw a beanbag without hitting a half dozen Baptist churches down here).
Eventually, we find it. We check out her gravestone, leave some flowers, and proceed to take off, possibly to try and find Gene’s late father’s burial site (which we knew was in a VA cemetery about 20 minutes away, although we would have been lost once we got there!). Oh, and by this time it is 11:30 or so and I haven’t eaten a thing all day. I am famished. And thirsty.
So, we start to drive down this little two lane road (is it a two lane road when there is one lane for each direction?) and I look over and see…uhoh. A stray dog. Remember Awesome-O? Awesome-O II? Awesome-O III? Well, we had us (hee) another Awesome-O. She was friendly. She had a decrepit collar on but no tags. She came right up to us and was IN the car about 20 seconds later.
So, the city we’re in? Is one of the 10 poorest in the entire United States (CNN tells me so). There are no rescue groups and the one and only vet’s office that was open scanned the dog and said she wasn’t chipped so they couldn’t try and find her owners. “But hey, you may have found yourself a new dog!”
(Umm, NO).
So eventually we get the city cops involved…who call the county sherriff’s office involved (because the dog was found outside city limits, it’s a county issue)…who finally get animal control to show up. And that lady put that cute little dog in the back of her truck (the kind with crates, like you see on Animal Cops) and thanked us and drove off. And I’m pretty sure that Awesome-O IV went to live on a farm for the rest of her days.
(It’s 3 PM by this point)
We wandered through the chili cookoff area, which had devolved into a few carts selling drinks, candy apples, etc but the chili was gone 🙁 On the bright side, we got to the hotel (which is why we could not have kept A-IV), got the grime off of us, relaxed, watched a little TV, went to a really good dinner and then watched a little more TV.
And now we’re home and back to regular life. So regular, in fact, that I am going to go fold laundry. The joy of grownup life.
PS: I am including this under the “Sweet Things My Husband Has Done” tag because, even though he’s beating himself up for wasting the early afternoon trying to get a dog (who we may or may not have accidentally stolen, per the cops) someplace safe, it was still done with a good heart. If it had been Betty or Scooby, they would have been lucky to find a stranger like him.