Things Are Heating Up, But Not In The Car

When I got home from work one day, my son immediately wanted a ride to basketball, so he and the dog got in the car. I dropped my son off and then decided to stop at the grocery store for a few things on my way home. I pulled in, rolled down the rear windows an inch for airflow for the dog’s comfort, exited, locked the car, and went to walk into the store.

A couple was hanging out smoking near their car a couple of spaces over, and as I walked past, they started calling to me about not leaving my dog in the car. Since it was a beautiful, sunny, -4°C (about 25°F) evening, I used my own judgment and decided that my dog was absolutely fine, and I ignored the couple while continuing to walk into the store.

Upon completing my grocery shopping — two bananas, a bell pepper, a head of lettuce, and a pack of bagels — I returned to my car to find the couple encroaching on my space, screaming venom at me, still smoking their cigarettes (that’s how long I had been gone). When I started my car, the woman planted herself in front of my car and continued screaming at me.

Woman: “You’re a dog murderer! I’ve called the police. You’re not allowed to leave without facing justice!”

I decided it wasn’t prudent to actually murder her with my car and sat back with my dog to wait for the police to arrive, which took about twenty more minutes. So now, my dog had been sitting in a car that wasn’t running for ten times longer than I had intended, but at least it was perfect weather for it.  

When a police officer got there, the woman approached him just as calmly and coherently as she had me — so, not at all — and proceeded to scream at him about my “dog murders”, which made him quite a sympathetic ear when I got to my side of the story.

I pointed out the clearly not murdered dog, the amount of groceries I had purchased, and the perfection of the car-sitting weather, and I tried really hard not to roll my eyes through the whole thing.

The woman’s male companion had backed away considerably, being almost out of the conversation at this point. As the police officer was explaining the situation to this woman, we all heard it: a baby crying. The police and I both looked over and saw a baby in his car seat strapped into the woman’s car, just waking up and crying about having to wake up at all.

I loudly gasped and started going on and on.

Me: “You’re baby murderers! How could you leave the baby in the car for that long?! It’s been at least twenty-five minutes by now! Officer, you should arrest them!”

The officer was clearly trying hard not to get exasperated at me as he asked me to please leave, and as I was pulling out, I saw him still there talking with the couple about the situation.  

In their defence, the baby looked and sounded perfectly fine, just annoyed about being awake again. He had a fuzzy-looking outfit, and the weather really was perfect for that sort of thing. But maybe don’t pretend it’s dog-murdering weather when you are doing the exact same thing to a human baby?!