Does This Sort of Thing Happen to Normal People?

So I'm riding home Monday at 6:00, just when it's starting to get dark. About a block away I see this little black dog running pretty fast. Then I see a boy of about 10 years old chasing after the dog.

"Mister, please help me," the kid pants. "Please help me catch my dog."

Well, I can't really refuse that. I park my bike and figure the dog will see a new person and come up to see me, then either me or the kid can catch her.

Nope. The dog runs at me, then takes off in the other direction.

"Come on, please get off your bike and help me catch her."

I get off and put my bag down on the sidewalk and start running for this dog. The dog is running on to porches and then running away at full speed. Every time I sort of start to half-ass it after the pooch, the kid seems like he's about to burst into tears and urges me to catch her.

Finally the dog goes into a back yard. The kid starts closing the gate and pleads with me to close the other one.

"Yeah, I don't know if we should mess with someone's gate like this."

"Please, please, please," the kid wails, so I close my part of the gate and figure with the kid and the dog in the yard, my work is done. Plus, I was sort of getting tired of the chase, what with little Vince Lombardi there telling me to keep hustling after the world's fastest dog.

Naturally, as soon as I close the gate an SUV pulls up.

"Hi, um...I'm sorry about this, there's a kid back there trying to catch his dog. He chased her back there and I'm really sorry about messing with your gate and..."

The woman was actually very understanding and thought the whole thing was funny. If I had pulled into my driveway and seen some helmeted guy coming towards me after closing my gate, one hand would have been on the final 1 in 911, the other hand would have been wrapped around a gun, and my foot would have been poised on the gas pedal ready to floor it.


I guess that's the sort of thing you get to miss driving to work.