occupational hazard

25 February 2010

occupational hazard

If I hadn’t had a patient hospitalized in ICU, I might never have had to go in there, and never would have heard about him.   At least, I wouldn’t have been in there at 7:15am, so wouldn’t have been one of the first to fall in love.

If my phone batteries were dead, I couldn’t have taken a hundred pictures and sent them to my boyfriend with texts basically amounting to: WE HAVE TO HAVE HIM.

If it wasn’t such a slow day, I would have been able to hang out with him and get to know and love him as quickly as I did.

If it wasn’t almost March, if I wasn’t about to graduate, if it was just before the trip to Mexico, I would never have considered it.

If I hadn’t happened to be right there when the shelter arrived to pick him up, I couldn’t have run interference, and might have lost track of him, or lost my motivation.

And who knows: maybe if his huge ears didn’t stick straight up (with the left tipping down just slightly), if his eyes weren’t as brown, if he was barking while he waited for the shelter, if he didn’t immediately bury his nose in the neck of whomever was holding him, if he didn’t pee as soon as he walked outside, if he didn’t eagerly jump into my boyfriends arms when he knelt down and called for him, if he wasn’t so healthy despite his emaciation, things wouldn’t have ended up the way they did.

Really, any number of events could have transpired just slightly differently so that Tuesday did not end with my sitting on my couch with one of the most darling creatures I’ve ever seen curled in my lap.

But they didn’t. And I did.

I have no idea what breed he is (dingo/red fox has been suggested), and he still doesn’t have a name.  He’s exceptionally well behaved and divinely affectionate.  I am completely crazy about him.

Permalink