Why I Wish I Had a Digital Camera

ABOVE: A Great Dane and a Chihuahua, only not the same Great Dane and Chihuahua.


An Expository Essay, by Marguerite.

I wish I had a digital camera. There are many reasons for this, but one in particular.

Earlier today, I was walking up Park Avenue, on my way home from the bookstore, when I saw a woman walking a Great Dane wearing an orange fleece hoodie (yep; the dog was wearing the hoodie; it's not just poor sentence construction). The hoodie even had pockets on it -- I guess so Marmaduke will have somewhere to put his keys.

I've seen plenty of Great Danes, but this one was easily the largest I've ever seen. You might even call it a Best Dane. A grey-haired gentleman walking by looked at the dog, then turned to me and noted, in the charming way that some older people have of pointing out painfully obvious things, "that's a big dog!" My natural reaction was, "that's not a dog, that's a guy in a dog suit!"

But it was indeed a dog. A big dog.

As I got closer, I noticed that the woman walking the Great Dane also had, in her other hand, another leash, connected to what was either a hairless guinea pig or a exceptionally tiny Chihuahua, also wearing an orange fleece hoodie, an miniature version of the one worn by the Great Dane, right down to the tiny pockets. At first, I hadn't even noticed the smaller dog, because it wasn't visible from more than, say, 10 feet away.

What strikes me about this scenerio: someone put a lot of thought (and money) into creating this tableau. This ain't just the kind of crazy idea you get while drunk, and then sober up and realize, crap! I ordered a Great Dane and a Chihuahua from the 24-Hour Dog Delivery Service! It's not like a hasty 1-800-MATTRES purchase. It's a multi-step process.

This means that one day, someone who had perhaps watched one too many sitcoms said to himself/herself, "I know! I'm gonna get the biggest frickin' dog I can possibly find! And then, I'm gonna get the smallest dog. And see if they can live together in an apartment in New York! And so nobody will mistake this for an accident of fate, I'm gonna dress them in identical outfits. With pockets."

As a result of this reasoning process, these two dogs look like urban canine lumberjacks. Like they should be on pg. 69 of the L.L. Bean Fall-Winter catalog, looking at a watch and smiling ruggedly.

The middle-aged lady who was walking the dogs wore a Burberry-style raincoat, and didn't crack a smile. From a distance, she looked bored. Up close, she seemed a bit startled to find herself on the corner of Park Avenue holding two ridiculously well-matched, inappropriately dressed dogs of vastly different sizes. I don't know if they were her dogs or someone elses'. But when you find yourself in that situation, it's a sign that your life had taken a very wrong turn.

If I had a digital camera, I could prove to you that I'm not completely insane. Well, maybe not. But I could prove that these two dogs, and their fleece sport coats and all that it implies, really does exist.