I walked the dog last night around dinner time.

Like 5:30, 6:00.

I literally said out loud, “Where the f*$k is everybody?”

I live amongst rows of houses created between 1902 – 2020. Fairly diverse.

It’s the time of year around here that you try and grasp to slow down – blue skies, warm, no wind.

Somehow exacerbated by the fact there’s no traffic, and in the case of my block last night not a human to be seen.

Suddenly I realized I hadn’t brushed my teeth, so perhaps no human contact was a good thing. And I was wearing the same clothes as the day before; both largely out of character.

The dog is a heavy sniffer, so we tend to plod along quite slowly.

Up the block, I came upon a dad in his front yard sneaking around with an absurdly large Nerf gun. Suddenly he took a defensive position behind a brown Adirondack chair and a series of darts pelted off the wood slats. He returned fire at his 5-year old son and won the round. A classic example of the need to establish a base of fire, then flank, as opposed to conducting a unadvisable frontal assault.

At the cross street, we (I should saw we since our dog was present) encountered a parade of joggers, new-baby-havers with $7000.00 bionic strollers, walkers, fast-dog walkers, slow-dog walkers, attractive couples, etc.

So I was just on the wrong street earlier. I felt better.

Although I still felt regret for not having brushed my teeth.