Blow In The Wind (Adventures In Dog Walking Part III)

Two weekends ago on Saturday night at about 10 pm I decided to take the dog out. I wasn’t at my apartment, but rather the apartment of my lady, who was due to return home a bit later in the evening from a trip across the big water.

As the pup and I are exiting the elevator we notice a well dressed man crouched in the foyer moving his hands about frantically.

“Lost a contact” I thought.

It was then I could see him shoveling a white powdered substance from the floor into a tiny vial. The powder was all over the tile in the foyer and as we got closer and opened the door he stood and spun quickly, vial in his right hand.

“Thanks for opening the door,” he said, trying to play it off.

“Not a problem.”

I made sure to keep the dog clearly to the side away from the, what I can only surmise was the gentleman’s cocaine.

As I walked the dog I thought about it and figured he must have gone for his keys and out popped his drugs which then spilled all over the place. Then he decided to try to salvage as much as he could… dirty floor be damned. Hell the stuff already probably had enough chemicals in it that a little filthy NYC floor wouldn’t harm it.

Then I got to worry a bit. Harmless enough fellow, but there are a lot of dogs in the building and I started to think about what would happen if a curious dog, like Jack, the little man I was walking, was curious and sniffed it. Not good. Not good at all.

I finished the walk and got the dog safely away. I then wet some paper towels and went down and mopped it all up and threw the paper towels down the garbage shoot. I got really angry thinking about the carelessness of some people.

Then it made me think what would have been the Miss Manners protocol. Should I have said, “Pardon me, sir. I don’t mean to be rude but you seem to have misplaced your illegal substance. Would you mind disposing of it properly?” or “Yo, clean up yer coke. I don’t want any dead dogs around here.” I wish I had… but instead at first I was as embarrassed as he was in a way, running into a neighbor in an awkward situation of their own devising.

Next time I’m not going to be nice and polite the way I was raised. Next time I am in a situation like that I’m going to turn on the New York that has been built in me the past decade and make the other person feel the fool and clean their own mess.