Oh Shameful, Shameful

Yesterday was a day of shame. But also a day of cute furry animals. Yesterday was a mixed day.

I have work this weekend, you see, and my shamefulness began when I went on my lunch break. I walked to Schlotzsky's. Yum. I was excited because I had a coupon for a free birthday sandwich. I was planning on going all-out today with my lunch since the largest portion on the payment was absent. I ordered a drink, some chips (I never ever ever never order chips) and then also a packet of cookies. Total was around $7, then take away the sandwich price with the coupon and it was around $3.

I handed my cashier my debit card. She swiped it, gave it back. Then told me it was declined.
Declined?!
What? How could my card be declined? And only on $3?!?

Miserably, I mumbled if I could just have my free sandwich and a cupful of water. I went into the far corners of the restaurant and ate alone.

To make myself feel better, I went to Pet Supplies Plus. They were having their weekly Puppy Adoption, so I knew that I could go get some puppy action while I was feeling blue.

First, though, I went into the pet store to meet their ferrets. There were two of them: one extremely tiny little black sable ferret who was only a couple of months old (I learned the age later, and that Marshall Ferret had sent him over too young. They still had to bottle-feed the guy!! Learn that everyone... Marshall Ferret is SO BIG of a ferret mill that they can't even keep track of their ferrets. Ferrets are way over-populated in the pet world. This makes me sad and makes my heart break), and another larger one who had white gloved-mitts and huge honking white blaze running down his head (that means he's deaf).

These two guys (although, I admit that because of the black sable one's size, I initially thought it was a girl) made me very happy. They rolled around and nipped me. When I went back and visited them today with Natalie, the little black sable one chomped my chin and just hung on. I think he's teething.

So that was nice; helped me crawl out of my shame hole.
Then I went outside to meet the puppies, and guess what caught my eye? Was it the litter mates that hung out in the pen together, and young and full of baby fur and splooshy little mouths? Nope.

It was this black lab. You could tell she had given birth recently, but she didn't have a litter with her. I found out while meeting her that she had lost all of her babies. Her breasts were still extremely heavy and stretched with the milk that was meant for her little ones.

She looked at me as I approached her; I offered my hand. She smelled them, thought me over, and then licked my fingers. She had accepted me. Now I could touch her.

She didn't flinch as I placed my hand upon her head. She didn't even look up at me. She sat there, with her sad quiet eyes, allowing me to gently scratch her behind her ear.

When I removed my hand, because I thought she didn't seem to care if I was there or not, she suddenly looked up at me.

It was like she was talking to me: "Don't go, don't leave."
"Okay," I told her, but I knew that I had to go soon. My lunch break was going to be over soon and I couldn't leave Keir there all by herself at the Young Adult desk. So, when I put my hand back on her head, she broke eye contact with me. I didn't even scratch her this time around, I just kept my hand there.

My insides were churning. She was so chill. All she wanted was someone to be there with her. She was lonely. Someone told me her name was Onyx.