On Calls, Dogs and A Better Breed of Men

I got a phone call last night sometime before 11:00. I was sitting on the couch staring vacantly at the television, relaxing after a whirlwind weekend of touring two friends from Portland around the great city of Chicago. I was rather exhausted and the images on the television screen blinked by without making much of an impression.

When my phone rang, I had to decide whether or not to get up off the couch to see who was calling. My first impulse was to stay seated. Because of the late hour, however, I exhumed myself from the confines of my comfy couch and hobbled over to the phone on my blistered feet. When the phone rings late at night, you look to see how is calling.

The number that was displayed on the front of my phone was not one I knew. It was local and looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And so I stood there holding the ringing phone without answering it. When the phone number is unknown, you let the caller leave a message.

The caller did leave a message and I checked it as I settled back down on to the couch. The caller was a man I had gone on a date or two with some time ago. He lives a couple of blocks from me. When he identified himself, I assumed he was looking for sex. When someone you once dated calls late at night, he is only looking for one thing.

As it turns out, that last rule proved to be wrong. The caller was not looking to get me naked. Instead, he was looking to have me walk his bog.

Turns out the neighbor I once went on a date with was not feeling well. From what I could gather, a fever and vomiting were involved. He wanted to stay in, but he also needed to walk his dog. He was calling to see if I would be willing to walk his dog for him.

I was flabbergasted.

I felt for the guy. I really did. Having a fever and throwing up is truly awful. And I suppose that if you have a dog, it is an important responsibility to walk said dog. What I couldn’t understand, however, was why he has called me.

If memory serves me correctly, we had gone on one actual date. The second time I had seen him, he had shown up at my front gate unannounced. I’d been polite, but had decided then and there that there was no future for us. Since then we have had little to no contact.

And now all of a sudden he wanted me to walk his dog.

Needless to say, I did not call him back. Nor did I walk his dog. I can be a nice guy when I want to be, but I can never be that nice. A boy has to learn when to draw a line in the sand.