Phone Lost

The Dog Walker wasn't able to walk The Dog on Monday morning. It just so happened to be the first week since many that I was home for the full week, and, therefore available and keen to fill in. I miss my lovelies (The Dog and The Man) when I am on the road, and a Monday morning walk seemed the perfect way to start the week.

I put my phone in one of the shallow pockets of my shorts. I put my keys in the other. I told myself that I had better pay attention; my pockets were shallow, and I ran the risk of losing either my phone or my keys or both.

Why don't I always listen to the admonishing voice, which seems prone to premonitions?

Somewhere along the walk I forgot the cautionary voice within my head. I walked The Dog down to el Parque del Oeste (West Park) where I scooped her shit, ran along beside her as she playfully pulled the lead with her unmuzzled mouth, and later threw a squeaky ball that had lost it's squeak and was therefore less attractive a diversion for The Dog than the smell of her own butt, which she sniffed with abandon.

It was when The Dog was preoccupied with her butt that I noticed a Magpie pecking away at what initially looked like a fluff of garbage. Something compelled me to take a close look at the fluff of garbage. Somehow I intuited that the fluff was actually a baby something. It had reminded me of my best friend in fifth grade who had found what she described as a fluff of cotton. Her fluff of cotton turned out to be a baby owl.

Because Katy's mother worked in a science laboratory, she had access to dead mice, which she brought home as food for Napoleon, the eventual name of the ball of cotton who grew up into an owl living in the screened porch of Katy, my best friend in fifth grade.

I was always a little jealous of Katy's good fortune; I wanted to find a fluff of cotton and have an owl of my own.

My thirty year old covetousness was finally answered. After shooing away the pesky Magpie, I looked closely at the fluff of cotton and recognized the wide eyes of an owl in the small downy face.

"Oh my!"

I thought to pick up the poor dear but thought better of it ... something about not touching wild critters because your human smell would put their own kind off them for life, and they would be forever doomed.

Uncertain what to do, I reached into my pocket to get my phone to call The Man who would certainly guide me along the most beneficial path for all parties involved.

"Fuck!" I am pretty sure I muttered this outloud, probably scaring the recently pecked cotton-owl even further.

My phone was not in my pocket. I could not get advice about saving the baby cotton,

Do I just let nature, cruel nature!, run it's course?

It was early yet. There were few, if any, visitors to the park. If I hurried and retraced my steps I could possibly recover my (fancy!) phone. My mission to save my phone was at odds with the idea of saving the fluff of cotton.

I left the fluff of cotton to perish whilst I retraced my steps (x 2) to find my phone. It was not in the vicinity of where The Dog had grabbed the lead in her mouth and playfully pulled. Nor was it near the ground where I had knelt down to clean the earth of The Dog's smelly waste. Nor was it anywhere between or before or after.

My fancy phone had perished as I'm sure the fluff of cotton had. An ominous start to the week.