I will not recount my dissatisfaction when ADULT MART decided to abandon the name Ninth Street News when it took over the porn shop across the street because even though the neighborhood residents knew the true identity of Ninth Street News, it was easy to pretend that it was just ... well, Ninth Street News and not a porn shop. I think that the provocatively dressed mannequins in the window gave it away, but still, it was better than ADULT MART with the grotesquely huge sign it erected.
And then, in a bizarre management decision, ADULT MART closed its doors from midnight to eight in the morning. I haven't had occasion to visit porn shops, but I would think that business would be pretty good after midnight. This assumption is based on my personal observation that I wrote about in this blog of the the mostly naked guy running down the middle of street at 4 in the morning to pick up something he needed at Ninth Street News and then sprinting back to the apartment building from whence he came for his rendezvous with destiny.
Last week, in a freakish break in the nasty weather we have been having, the daytime temperatures for a couple days reached 60, which brought the ADULT MART cashier, a rotund woman, cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, a whitish wife-beater under an unbuttoned flannel shirt over some kind of navy blue ultra stretchy I'll-call-them-pants-because-I don't-know-what-they're-called-in-real-life, outside to lean against the building next to the door, enticing passers-by to enter in search of ... a pack of Marlboros, perhaps.
As I approached with the three dogs, she sloped away from the wall and towards me. "I have two dogs," she said, cigarette bouncing up and down in the corner of her mouth. She held out her hands. Bella, the Cameron Diaz of Boxers, backed away and cemented herself against the back of my leg; but Scout, politely wagging her Beagle tail, approached the woman and allowed the woman to rub her head. Sheba, the elderly Boxer, stood and looked at the woman.
"Can I get them a treat?" she asked, ash cascading to the wet sidewalk. "I got treats inside," she said to the dogs.
"I don't usually let them take treats from strangers, but they seem to think you're okay," I said. "But this one," I pointed to Bella, still pressing against my leg, "won't take any treats from strangers."
She laughed and wobbled into the open door. She came back with a bag of some Purina soft chewy things of some sort. Scout happily grabbed the treat the woman held out. Sheba was more circumspect and politely accepted the offer from the woman. And Bella did not move.
"They are delightful!" she exclaimed, now sans cigarette. I thanked her.
And then she said, "Come in anytime for treats. I love dogs."
Yeah, ri-i-i-i-i-ight. Does she really expect me to come in ... for "treats?"
I really though we were going to learn something about the seedier side of a dogs life. Glad that yours are respectable and well behaved: Keep an eye on Scout, could be easily led.
Posted by: Anji at February 25, 2011 05:43 AMI don't think dogs are generally deluded about us. The bleak news about humans is on the wind. But dogs are enormously forgiving.
Posted by: Kyle at February 25, 2011 10:18 PM