It was around nine o'clock the other morning when my phone rang.
The caller I.D. came up "Private Caller," and since I was expecting another private caller call, I answered it. It wasn't the call I was expecting.
The man on the other end of the phone line inquired if this was the residence of J.R.
Rather surprised, I said yes.
Under normal circumstances, I would have said, "Hold on a minute, I'll get him," but this was a little out of the realm of normal.
Now, J.R. is extremely smart and is self-taught when it comes to opening lever-handled doors that pull inward when he thinks he's on the wrong side of the door, and don't push out. He has yet to learn how to answer a telephone by using any of his four paws, nor has he learned to speak English, being that German shepherd is his native tongue.
Although we have become quite fluent in Arf and Wagatail.
I laughed and told the man that he had, indeed, reach the residence of J.R.
Sounding either like he was in a terrible hurry, or just had an cold, no-nonsense voice, he said he found J.R.'s dog tag near the park that's down the hill and around the corner from the house.
Mr. Anonymous checked the address on the tag, and because it was too dog-dirty, he got the last half of the street name wrong. I told him the name of the street, and he didn't seem too pleased at the location of the house and volunteered to put the tag in the mail.
I told him that would be so nice of him to do, and he practically hung up on me before I had a chance to say thank you again. Such a kindness deserves more than one thank you.
I managed to get out my appreciation for his thoughtfulness just before the phone went, click!
Appreciated. Absolutely. We adopted J.R. when his mother was pregnant with him and his seven brothers and sisters.
A "dink" dog, the product of the mating of a brother and sister, because his thoughtless owner didn't have either of his two dogs spayed or neutered. But, he's the sweetest dink in the world, and that tag -- if nothing else -- has sentimental value since it was custom-made in the tag make 'em machine at the pet store long before J.R. was born.
Of course, it really goes without saying that we always want him wearing his tag on the off-chance he get it into his head to take himself for a walk.
As a woman, I long ago got used to a man saying, I'll call or write you, which usually holds about as much weight and as a paper cup under a boulder.
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