I’m used to a “let-down” on Friday evenings. A sort of physical and emotional surrender. Between the grind of the workweek and the stresses of the current Plague, I feel it’s natural for my body to want to let go of it all at the end of the week. I fight it, of course. The let-down. One must rally, after all, on Fridays, and in life in general, lest one miss the things there are to see.
I was, last Friday night, fighting the let-own, but doing so in an uncharacteristically bad mood. I blamed this bad mood on my significant-other. You see, the day before I had come home to a kitchen full of dog shit. My furry friend clearly had a stomach bug of some kind, the result being that he just couldn’t quite wait for one of the humans to get home and take him outside. So, he did his business on the kitchen floor. And an ugly business it was. His (the dog’s) habit is to rotate in a full circle whilst releasing his bowels, and he does not reserve this technique only for outside pooping. No, on the kitchen floor was a grand circle of excrement, in piles of various sizes and liquidity and, for good measure, doggie created a pond of urine in the center of this foul creation. The tableau was that of a mountain lake surrounded by low lying peaks.
My bad mood that Friday wasn’t due so much to my dog having lost control of himself in my kitchen the day before, it was that nothing had been done about it. You see, her (my girlfriend’s) discovery of the “problem area” occurred while I was still at work and, instead of swiftly and decisively moving to ensure minimal damage to the kitchen floor, my significant-other instead called me to let me know what happened, and then promptly left the condo. Perhaps she just didn’t have the stomach for it in the moment, or maybe she was already having a bad day. Regardless, in the time differential between the warning call and my return to the castle, the animal waste was given approximately an extra hour or so to work its way down into the cracks between the floor boards, thereby adding to the clean-up.
At this point one might be asking, “What’s all this got to do with Friday night?”
It’s got everything to do with Friday night because I, like the good little grudge-holder I can sometimes be, was still pissed (no pun intended) about the whole thing when I got home from work on Friday night. Why couldn’t she have just cleaned up the dog crap? This question became a refrain in my brain for 24 hours, and carried over from Thursday into Friday so, naturally, I was still in a self-created funk when I got home from work the day AFTER the “incident.”
Now, one might be inclined to ask something along the lines of, “In what super-positive way did you handle this situation?”
Here’s how: I got home, changed out of my work clothes and took the dog for a walk, all the while barely saying a word to the person who had, by the way, already apologized for not cleaning up the urine and goo from the day before.
The walk, initially uneventful, allowed me plenty of time to continue stewing in my own juices. The dog, for his part, went about peeing on sundry vertical surfaces, aggressively oblivious to my glumness. Nearing the end of the walk we, as usual, found ourselves in the crosswalk in front of my building but, unusually, were approached by a diminutive, well-dressed, older gentleman.
“Excuse me sir, by chance can you tell me where to find Jean Robert’s restaurant?” He spoke with a strong, French accent, which I had no trouble understanding, though my dog cocked his head as if unable to discern a word.
“I think I know where you want to go, but shall we get out of the street first?” The light was about to change and I didn’t want us to get killed before I had the chance to give him directions. Once safely on the sidewalk, I resumed the conversation. “Are you trying to get to the ‘Table’?” The restaurant is actually called “Jean Robert’s Table.” I hoped he understood that the “Jean Robert’s” section was implied.
“Yes, yes. That is exactly where I am going.”
“Great. How well do you know the downtown area?” I was proud of myself for getting it right the first time. He seemed pleased as well.
“Oh, not very well, I’m afraid. I live in Indiana. I am here to meet my friend for dinner at Jean Robert’s. I would call him but I do not have my cell phone”
Aghast at the idea of sending the old gentleman into the darkness without so much as a working cell phone, I made a snap decision. “If you’d prefer, I can just walk you over to the restaurant. It’s very close.”
Somehow, my shitty mood began to lighten.
“Oh, that would be wonderful, young man. Thank you very much. I am Father Maurice. What is your name?”
“Mark. Nice to meet you Father.”
Father Maurice, my dog and I started walking toward where he needed to go, which happened to be right around the corner from my day job. Along the way we chatted about his farm, his twenty dogs, moving to the United State from France, and his linguistic ability (speaks five languages.) And I told him about my girlfriend and the dog poop. Though brief, it was a wonderful conversation, and my burden of self-pity lifted with every step we took toward the restaurant. By the time we arrived I was a changed man.
“Merci, Mark. Thank you for your help.”
“Thank you for letting me help you, Father.”
Father Maurice hesitated for a moment. “Mark, I do not have a card, but I would like you and your girlfriend to come to my farm one night when I make dinner for a group of friends.”
“I would love that, Father.” I wasn’t kidding. I mean, aren’t all French people really good cooks?
Due to the plague, my lack of a mask, and a “no dogs” restaurant policy, I was not able to deliver Father Maurice directly to his friend, who we were both assuming was already inside. I left him at the restaurant door with a smile and a promise to call his parish and leave my number with the secretary.
Other than having been transformed by the opportunity to do a good deed, nothing unusual happened during the remainder of the dog walk. So how did I get so lucky? How was I chosen to undergo this (likely temporary) transmutative experience?
Here’s my thinking: God (or the universe, or the collective subconscious, or whatever one may choose to call it) looked down upon me and said, “Wow, that douchebag really needs an attitude adjustment,” or something to that effect. So, what does God et.al. do to adjust the douchebag’s attitude? Smite him with a lightning bolt? Nope. Take his first-born son? No again. Curse his house with a plague? Maybe. Instead of all that, in my path he places a little French priest in a crosswalk. One who needs directions. Genius.
