No. You don't seem to be understanding this situation. I was just being polite.

This morning I taught my very fist yoga class- ever. (The experience deserves it's own post, I'll just say that Chris attended, and he 'rocked Dancer pose', among other things.) In preparation, I spent an hour in the bathtub going over 'the flow' out loud until I had every cue and voice inflection perfect. I had even come up with some funny tidbits to throw in at the precise moment when students inevitably question why it is that they came to class that morning, and conclude, hopefully to themselves, that they really, really hate chaturangas.

As I opened my front door to leave for class, I came face to face with a man; his hand extended towards my mailbox and in his fingers was an envelope with the word: Sara printed on the front in cursive.

I immediately recognize this man as the owner of the yellow lab that Dyggs, the day before at the dog park, had unsuccessfully tried to mount - a yellow lab that is 13 years old and has arthritis and probably shouldn't be at the dog park in the first place. A dog who now has a bone chip in his elbow, because Dyggs hasn't grasped the subtle technique of "Hey cowboy, can I buy you a doggy biscuit?" Instead, he prefers a running start and well, I'll leave the rest out.

When the humping incident occurred, the yellow lab had made a sound not unlike one that I could imagine resulting in say, pulling a dogs legs off one by one, similar to what my stepbrother used to administer to flies on family road trips and as the yellow lab is sprawled out on the ground, screaming, the owner starts talking about the dog being is 13 years old and having severe arthritis. And I'm thinking, inside of my head of course, that the dog park is probably not the optimal place for this dog to be hanging. Really, would you drop your frail grandmother onto a roller derby rink? Probably not.

As I'm preoccupied with my thoughts, the owner bends down and picks up the dog- because the dog cannot walk, and he carries it to his car. When he comes back for his other dog, a frisky black lab, I tell him that I hope his dog makes out o.k, but by this point he looks so distressed over the whole situation that I blurt out, "I live in that house (pointing to my house) and if the dog turns out not to be o.k. please come over and tell me so that I can help you pay the vet bill." Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

And now, as I'm standing in the threshold of my front door looking at this man, all my cues and funny tidbits for my class fall out of my brain and onto the porch floor, they roll under the railing, over the edge and land in the shriveled up Day Lilleys. All that is left is a bill for 216 dollars.

I opened my mouth with the intention of saying something along the line of, "You idiot! Your dog is 117 years old in human years, and you brought him to the rowdiest dog park in Fort Collins?"

Unexpectedly though, as I was gathering enough air in my lungs to catapult the entire sentence at him in one breath- I stopped, and I had two thoughts. The first was: Having a dog park enemy would not be a good thing. No, it would be really bad thing. It would cause anxiety and stress and in short, it would suck. The second was: Oh my God. This is exactly what parents must go through when their fellow playgroup parents are complete idiots. They force a smile, and quite possibly, they undergo the equivalent of 216 dollars worth of "You're not serious, are you? No, of coarse you're joking- funny stuff. Oh my God, wait. You are serious.. and I just made plans to spend every Wednesday afternoon with you for the next 3 months because both of our children have peanut allergies?"

See, what I should have said to the owner of the yellow lab was, "No. You don't seem to be understanding this situation. I was just being polite."

But instead, I wrote a check for 108 dollars and 0 cents.