I finally decided it was time – we have a house full of beautiful and loving (in their own way) cats, and I don’t plan on getting a dog anytime soon. I’ve had tremendously good dogs, but when Chance passed . . . well.
So I priced the large kennel run, insulated doghouse, and collapsible crate and put them up for sale. Many people jumped at the roofed kennel (and it WAS a steal), but I really wanted to sell everything as a single lot instead of piecemeal.
I found a buyer who said she had just gotten a dog and we agreed on her bringing a truck and someone to help her load everything to the house for pickup Thursday at 6.
To make it happen, my Beloved and I both came straight home from work and labored to move everything for easy pickup. I insisted that he be there with me – you never know with this kind of sale and that kennel was too big to pack up to move to a neutral meeting place.
But she didn’t arrive. Upon texting, I learned that her boyfriend didn’t get off work til 7. Mind you, they live somewhere between 40 minutes to well over an hour away and we had dinner plans.
We’re both getting a bad feeling about this, but my Beloved stayed behind and I went on to dinner, promising to bring back a plate if needed.
Storm clouds gather – both literal and metaphoric. Looks like they can’t get there til after 8. He wants them to turn around, my friends at dinner are saying that I should just tell them not to bother, and the whole evening is going severely sideways. She texts that they’re 17 minutes away. My friends box up dinner and I tear out of there, hoping that I don’t have to start the selling process all over.
On the way home, the storm clouds open up and rain pounds down to the point a couple of giraffes knock on my car window at a stop light to ask if I know where to find some guy named Noah.
I get home, carry in the food (getting soaked to the skin in the process – it is storming HARD!), and realize that my Beloved is having none of it – he moved everything either back behind the house or into the shed due to the storm and he is DONE. Quite frankly, so am I – our night is totally upended and this is my weekend with my Dad, so my Beloved and I have very little time together over the next few days, and we’re spending it mad.
Headlights turn into the driveway.
Righteously angry at the two-hour-plus delay, we stomp to the door, fully ready to turn away these selfish so-and-sos, who are probably just buying this to resell at a weekend flea market, anyway. I bet she doesn’t even have a dog. It’s just a scam and we’re being treated like suckers. Let’s make sure they know who they’re dealing with!
Oh, dear Divas.
I’m at the doorway behind my Beloved and I see his shoulders, which have been bunched up and tense, just – relax. And I peek around him and see a young Hispanic woman, smile beaming on her lovely face, rain dripping off her jacket, holding the purchase price out in her hands. She’s maybe 20.
She’s brought her boyfriend (who’s maybe 21) and her dad, who came in a separate work truck. And we realize – this young girl is loved. Her men weren’t letting her go to some strangers’ house without backup. They wanted to see her smile, and if that meant driving an hour-plus each way in a humdinger of a summer thunderstorm, well, that’s what they were going to do. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure by the quiet, quick way they worked to get everything loaded in the rainy dark that those two men had been hard at work all day – and that work truck looked like it had been at a roofing site. I threw in a fluffy dog bed as penance for being two brays short of a total jackass.
As they drove off, my Beloved said, “I can’t believe I was about to start yelling at Romeo and Juliet!”
My Beloved and I agreed that we both just barely pulled back from being people we don’t much like.
Sometimes, you win the day by just not being a total jerk.
And that’s a Good Thing.
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