It's Raining Men, Hallelujah

The other day I had to make a quick run to Bahsa's after lunch. I don't normally shop at Basha's in favor of Sprouts or Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, but as Basha's is right around the corner for my house, and I was short on time, it ended up being the place of choice. We got there, and I was instantly reminded of why I don't normally shop at Basha's. A dollar-ninety-nine for a dozen eggs?? Really? Last week I bought them for half that price at Sprouts. On and on the short list went, costing me twenty-five of Pete's hard-working dollars to "pick up" "a few things" on the list that needed to be picked up for the making of brownies that night so we could go to my dad's for belated-Christmas dinner. You might not think $25 is so bad, but I was planning on spending about twelve. Count 'em, $12. So you might imagine my mood was not the best, and to top it off at Basha's, my kids scanned the first item before I could punch in my phone number to get my you're-a-Basha's-very-important-not-really-so-important-just-kidding-person discount. Or Y.A.B.V.I.N.R.S.I.J.K.P.D., as it were. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the screen to go back or find a new way for me to enter my phone number, so I was stuck not just paying a dollar ninety-nine for my eggs, but two dollars and nineteen cents. It was mildly annoying. Also, Joey was sitting under the conveyor belt finding dropped candies and forgotten pieces of gum and sampling each one to "see if he liked it". Also, Riley was kicking Skylar every time she got close enough to the cart, and for whatever odd reason, she continued walking close to the cart in order that she could get kicked. And then yell about it.

Just like a girl.

We left, and I sat in the parking lot for a while staring at the screen of my GPS, willing it to find the Chevron that I knew was close by, but it refused to find that one and found ones that were at best 4.2 miles away, and at worst, 10.1 miles away. I remembered driving past one just down the street with Pete, but I couldn't remember the exact cross streets. After having it search and search and search again, we decided to just go to the one that we do know where it is, and we set off. About a mile down Dysart, a small dog ran out into the middle of my lane. I thought about stopping, but then I heard Pete's voice in my head, as I usually do in these circumstances saying, "Don't stop. He'll move for you. Don't slow down. You're a bigger risk to traffic if you stop in the middle of the road than it is if you hit a pigeon." Only, it wasn't a pigeon this time. It was a dog. Scratch that, it was a P-U-P-P-Y! He was so cute and so scared. I hesitated. He didn't move. Then I figured we were hitting the point of no return. If I didn't stop now, I wouldn't be able to stop in time under the slight chance that he didn't move. I looked at him. He didn't look like he was moving. So I slammed on the breaks. We screeched to a stop just in front of the dog, who had NOT moved, thank you very much, but now looked up at me in great terror. GREAT TERROR! He still was not moving. So I honked. Bad Decision, let me tell you. The dog became even more scared than he had been before and cowered in front of my car. I put ol' Gwenny in park and opened the door, looking in front of the car. Where was the dog? I saw something out of the corner of my eye and realized the dog had come around by my door. I made another Bad Decision and spoke to the dog using my Mom Voice. Which, as anyone knows, only frightens little scared peanut dogs even more. At which point, understandably, and yet exasperatingly, he ran under my car. In the middle of a big, busy street, a little cowery dog under my car.

At this point, another car stopped behind me, and a Very Nice Lady joined me in attempting to cajole the puppy out from under Gwenny. (Have I told you our car's name before? It's crucial to understanding this story. Our car's name is Gwendolyn* Cindy** Deegan, typically shortened to Gwenny, except when she's acting up again, and then she gets the full name, oh yes, she does!) She offered Mr. E.T.P (Extremely Terrifiable Puppy) some food, and he still refused to come out. Then I reached under for him, and he almost crawled out the other side. Into the traffic. Zooming past us because we were stopping up a whole lane of a big, busy street. I called to the kids to pray that the doggy would come out on our side and not the other side so he wouldn't get dead on the middle of the road, and they were happy to be useful. Then, to all of our relief, another car pulled up. A man got out. A MAN. I was never so grateful to see a man in my whole life. Except for maybe a few other times when I was slightly more grateful, but still, I was pretty grateful. The man listened to the situation, assessed the danger to little Mr. E.T.P., and he walked calmly out into the other lane of traffic, bent under the car, and grabbed the puppy. Just like that.

No fear about getting squashed to a pancake or not being able to reach the dog or having any number of hideous things happen to him, just walked out there, grabbed the dog, and walked back.

I love men. I love that God gave us different roles and counterparts and that he put in men an absence of good sense when it comes to dangerous things. Sometimes it comes in so handy. Poor Mr. E.T.P. was reunited with the distraught woman who was dog-sitting him (think she'll ever get called for that job again? I think not!), and I got to watch on the sidelines as he told her to "make sure" the dog "didn't get out" "again". It was awesome. She was almost crying, considering she had thought her short life as a dog-sitter was over. But, good news, her dog happened to run in front of the car of the one person in the entire Phoenix metropolitan area who was more freaked out about killing life forms on the street than just about anyone else. EVER. So in the end, it really worked out well for the dog that we had to sit at Basha's and fight with the machine to try to get our Just-Kidding card number put in, that we had to sit in the parking lot fighting with the GPS trying to get it to point us to the right gas station, that we had to run to the store to just pick up a few things to make the brownies for the belated Christmas. That way, we arrived right on time to save his little life.

It had the added bonus of making me not care about the $25 at Basha's. Isn't life more important than hard-earned (by Pete) bucks? It was also in the dog's best interests that we were joined by several others who offered to help.

Especially the man.

*Because she needed a "princess name"
** After my sister-in-law's cat. Odd, I know, but that's where it came from.