Which way?

It was necessary for me to turn right because I forgot where I parked. Exiting the office store with more items I planned on buying, that turn seemed the correct course of action because the dinged up pylon over there looked familiar. Not that yellow, concrete, scuffed pylons are rare, mind you, but this one had battle scars unlike any I’ve ever seen. It was, and sadly still is, bent and twisted, dented and puckered, …. red, blue, and silver bumper-scratched from years of neglect and abuse. I thought maybe I could find my car and brain somewhere in that general area … remembering I had passed the memorable pylon ten minutes prior… I thought. .. or, had thought, or was thinking at that time … whatever the correct grammar is here🤦🏻‍♂️ …

I suffer from DDDD. Doug’s Destination Distraction Disorders. I use the plural because there is no one itteration from what I can see. Happens pretty much everywhere I go – including leaving office supply stores looking for my car that, apparently, someone moved. My equally sorry automobile wasn’t anywhere near my disformed friend as I remembered. What would you do?

Me? Well, why not go into the local pet supply store, right? Distraction is key to solving the problem at hand. That’s what I figured, anyway. DDDD. An automatic response required for survival of my kind of species. In generations past, over-hairy, grunty cave dwellers in my lineage must have done evasive maneuvers similar to this. “Getting away from the situation” became the option of choice when over-hairy spouses’ constant nagging about the state of affairs, or losing the family dinosaur in a parking lot, knocked on their cave door. So, I dragged my knuckled self – albeit willingly – into the pet store because my preprogrammed, habitual mind told me to.

Pet stores have that certain smell. It’s a mix of new puppy, hamster poop, dog food, rabbit sweat, and cat shampoo. Once I opened the door, this woft of non-human odor molecules rode its way into my still car-less nostrils.

I wound my way around the leashes, treats, and nuggets – with partially full office bags still in hand – gliding seconds later into the marvelous, colorful, fishy-fun-filled, fantastic under water world of organized clear, stacked bubble tanks. Homes to many where directions don’t matter to orange, yellow, blue, and red inhabitants living in gravity free no-parking zones with cars they don’t own. Swimming randomly, bumping cautiously without harm, communicating with ease, joy aplenty just being there. Me, myself, and the fishes.

Watching for a few minutes was my take away from life. I do believe they posed for me … the pinks, the whites joined in. A symphony of silence for my enjoyment. With enough time, I would have named each friend swimming quickly by. Some said, “hi”, then found a new direction to make room for another to do the same. Some blew kisses. Some lifted their gentile fin in passing. Others had a glimmer of hope beaming in their ever opened eyes. What matter most to me, however, was their presence. They were there.

I had the unfortunate situation of still not knowing, though. Deep in reflection about inner self-worth in a scented box store filled with over-priced rats and snakes wasn’t exactly fixing my original problem. Asking my friends, the fish, where my car was parked wasn’t going to produce any results. Fish can’t talk and I’m pretty sure dry-erase boards don’t work in water. I had to solve this by sauntering out of the pet store and attacking the issue bumper-on. Certainly my car HAD to be out in the lot somewhere, I surmised.

It was. Just one row over, down from the battle scarred pylon soldier, hidden beside a rather large beast of a truck. Perhaps if I would not have turned right to begin with and continued forward, I may have seen my car. InDDDDeeed, I say this with all the confidence I can muster. I also know, had I done that, my magical moments in a pet store, alone with many friends, would have been lost forever.

And that is something I’m glad my hairy ancestors passed on to me.