Yesterday morning, I took Goblin out and realized that I had forgotten to bring my apartment key. My little dog and I were homeless! Abandoned on the mean streets of the Upper West Side, with no keys or money or cell phone. I was unshowered and unshaven and wearing my rumpled clothes from the day before. Faustus has a spare key, but since he had a fabulous guest, he could not bring it to me; Goblin and I walked thirty blocks uptown to retrieve it. It is not an unpleasant hike, but I remembered midway that I had a meeting scheduled. I had no clock with me, but I estimated I had about a half hour to get the rest of the way to Faustus's apartment, get home with the key, take a shower, and then get to the meeting.
That put a spring in my step.
Faustus was wonderful. He gave me the key, lent me his dog's carrying bag so I could take Goblin in a cab, and to top it all off, he gave me money for the cab. Thanks to him, I actually made it to my meeting in time to see my client choose the most hideous logo ever conceived and ignore my considerable efforts at dissuasion.
Later that evening, I gathered the key, the dog carrying bag, and the money he had lent me and took them out to meet Faustus at Barnes and Noble. It was only then, as I returned it, that I realized that the bag also contained a pornographic magazine, plainly visible to any passers-by through the mesh construction. Faustus had stuck it in there so his fabulous guest would not see it and then saw no way to remove it before we stuffed Goblin in.
As we laughed about my inadvertent (and highly obvious) transport of gay porn, a frighteningly intense man in a "Keep Religion Out of the Classroom" shirt stomped up and demanded, "Are there any animals in that bag?"
"No," we said, perplexed. The man harrumphed and walked away, leaving us to wonder what his problem was. Did he object to exposing innocent young furry minds to a pornographic magazine?
Come to think of it, Goblin did quiet down awfully quickly in there, and I thought I heard pages turning and the muffled canine gasps of disbelief.
