Jet, Set, Go!

A few years ago, my parents and I were running some errands in our beat-up old van. It had no back seat, and the back hatch latch was broken, so it would come open at the slightest touch. We also had our year-old black lab, Jet, in the car with us, but weren’t too worried about him because he tended to stick right next to me as I sat in my bean-bag chair in the back.

This particular day, however, we were stopped at a red light, and he was sniffing around the back-hatch. The van lurched as we started forward, and Jet proceeded to tumble right out the back, sending me into an adrenaline surge as I shouted, “S***! JET!”, fully expecting the cars behind us to run over him as they followed us.

My father immediately pulled into a parking lot just a few feet to the side, and as I threw the side door open, I saw my poor, confused pup meandering out of the street and onto the sidewalk. But what I always think happily on as I remember this event is that not one single car had moved, not even those on the other side of the intersection. The people in the other cars saw what happened and all made the same choice to stay right where they were until Jet was safely back in my arms.

If anyone who reads this was there that day, THANK YOU. Jet was completely unharmed, just incredibly confused as to what had happened, and is still going strong today, thanks to everyone staying where they were and waiting until he was okay.