End of an era

Katherine and I were driving home tonight after an early evening massage at our new favorite place in town, LV City (you get water before AND after the massage...classy).

Anyway, we were driving down a familiar road, a road we've been down many times before. The road, in fact, that leads to the restaurant I took my lovely bride to for her birthday on Friday.

It's also a famous road here in our very own Life on the Mekong.

So tonight, we're driving along and I see a weiner dog following lazily behind a man walking towards a lighted entryway. We stopped, rolled down the window, and asked whether the dog was his. No, he said, and gestured towards a woman emerging from the doorway. She came up to the car with a neighborly smile and confirmed that it was indeed her weiner dog.

Catching my breath, I hopefully inquired whether she might also own a small monkey.

She did.

And did that monkey, by chance, ride the weiner dog from time to time?

It did.

BUT....

The monkey died a while ago. And so the weiner dog no longer had his passenger.

'GET ANOTHER DAMN MONKEY,' I wanted to scream at her. But behind her smile I thought I sensed a touch of sadness. Yes, I was projecting, she didn't give a fig about the monkey. In fact, maybe if she gave a fig TO the monkey, it would still be alive today, who knows?

So I didn't demand that she get another monkey and train it to ride the weiner dog for my amusement.

And so, another one of our animal kingdom friends has passed on.

Rest in peace, little guy. You are riding weiner dogs with Jesus now.