Home Improvement Stores are the best places to start up conversations with wonderful people--especially if you have a dog with you.
People of all ages ask if they can pet Luci and she eats that up. Old people bend down as best they can to pet her and children whose parents tell me are afraid of dogs timidly stretch out their hands. Today a little girl named Olivia said, "I touch her, I touch her, my first doggie!"
A week or two ago in Home Depot two young teenaged clerks asked if they could pet her. The one with dyed orange hair said, "We've been singing the Miss America song watching her cause she's so pretty." Then she took out her cracked cell phone to show me the picture of her rescue dog. "We just got her and we think she's about nine years old," she said.
Today in Lowe's a man I wouldn't have expected to like dogs said, "God has blessed you with a precious creature."
A woman said, "You are lucky. Both of you."
The checker said, "Thank you for adopting her. She's really special. I love her."
When an easy-going old soul dog is present, no one talks of politics or the troubles of the world. Rich and poor, young and old, people see a friendly dog and tell me about their dogs, past and present. Some of them want to know where they might get a little dog just like Luci.
A couple with a very well behaved Lab-Shepherd mix (wearing a "support dog" halter) laugh when Luci jumps gleefully on their all-business worker dog, trying to initiate a game. The big dog looks ahead, paying no attention to the little pipsqueak jumping all over her, just as she's probably been trained to do.
Two large men covered in tattoos stop in their tracks in the parking lot and smile at me. "That's a damned cute dog you got, Mam."
Luci likes them all, every single one of them. She sniffs their feet and jumps up on their jeans, knee high.
"See?" Olivia's dad says to her as they are walking away. "Some dogs are real sweet."
I almost always drive away from Lowe's with a lump in my throat.
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