"Your dog smells"

   We'd been walkrunning, weaving a black peoples hair, through the park's people.  The boys were leading the weave until one who'd closed his eyes to better imagine California ran smack into a tall, slender lady with a skinny dog leash and diamonds on the small dogs collar.

 "Rooood," she declared.

  "Your dog smells."

  "Very rude," she judged.

  "Your dog smells.  That means something." He wheeled his hand and arm like he was moving cars stuck at a toll booth, motioning come up here.  We looked at each other like all of us?  When he spied the one he wanted, he pointed, You, here.  The girl pointed at herself in an overly dramatic display of Me?!  He picked me!  

  "Smell this dog!"

  "Do I have to?"

  "Yes."

  The woman looked down a particularly planed nose.

  The girl looked up and asked, "Does it bite?"

  "It may at this point."

  The girl swallowed hard, kind of a gulp.  But moved a foot forward like we were on our iceskates.  The dog's mouth wouldn't stop grinning.  She sort of leaned forward and did a dip just close enough to affirm, "DOG SMELLS!" She said it pretty loud.

  The other boy came over.  "Did your smelly dog hurt my friend here?"

  The lady's eyes literally had to lift up about a foot and a half because he was tall.

  "Not that I am aware of."

  "You hurt?"

  "Naw man."

  A person with a boom box on shoulder was coming closer.  Black Sabbath, someone said.

  "Her dog smells."

  "So you've said.  And Lisa here confirmed it." Lisa did a curtsey.

  "That means something."

  "That the dog smells."

  "Means something else too and I want her," an arm reached out and pulled on the back of her coat because she'd started to walk away.  

  "Her?"

  "Your Dad's girlfriend knows what stuff means, correct?"

  "Possibly.  But I'm NOT her."

  "What could it mean?"

  The lady in the camel hair coat jostled the leash like the dog was going to pull the sled of her.

  "I think it means SHE doesn't really care about the dog!" Lisa determined.  "And, look at her, you think she actually gives dog baths?"

  "Prolly not.  That's what it was.  I sensed something."

  The lady started to move off.

  "It should have a ribbon!" T came close and said.

  "What?"

  A quiet because the what may have been rude.  The boy changed it to, What should have a ribbon?  The dog?

  "Naw man, the

  "I bet that lady's hair smelled too.  Like five hundred pounds of hairspray!"

  "The WEAVE!"

  "Right then. More weave."

  "What color would the ribbon be T?" Lisa asked.

  "Um, like black and red and tan."

  "Cool." We were purposefully not saying coolio like the jerks.

  "YOU, YOU, AND ME," He pointed at himself, "On ribbon."

  "Now let's weave!" The other boy said.