“Oh do I have a story for you! Sit down there child, and listen up. Once upon a time…wait. No, I won’t tell you that story.” The old man thought to himself while the fidgety child waited as patiently as he could. He squirmed and adjusted himself; looked around and then back at the old man. His grandfather was deep in thought, or so he thought. In reality, the old man fell asleep. His head bobbed around as he began to snore and then he snapped back to! “Wha…what? Oh yeah, I remember now. Look here Johnny, do you remember that old dog of yours?” he asked. Johnny shook his head, “Yes grandpa, I remember. His name was Krummy!”.
Krummy was a common, everyday mutt. He wasn’t anything special to look at. The dogs tail was an odd length nub. It was cut short, but not quite short enough. It was just weird. Nonetheless, Johnny loved that mutt, and Krummy loved him back. “Well, Johnny, let me tell you where that dog came from. Do you want to hear that story?”. “Yes, Grandpa! Tell me all about it!”, Johnny replied. So the old man adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat, “Well, I was on my way to the market you see, and as usual I stopped off by the barber. It had been a while since my last visit, so I figured I had better go ahead and get it done while I was in town. When I finished up at Bernie’s, I said my goodbyes and out the door I went.” The old man paused briefly to light his cigar.
“So there I was heading to the market when I remembered I needed to stop over at the county clerks office and take care of some business. Gladys, the old bat, made me wait in line while she went on her break. I never did like Gladys. Did I tell you about her, boy?” he looked at Johnny seriously. “Yes, all the time Grandpa.” came Johnny’s response. “Now don’t you sass me Johnny! I will get right up and lay a switch across your backside!”. Johnny apologized quickly, and his grandfather went on. “Alright, now anyway, after stopping by and wasting time with Gladys, I figured I best get on to business already. So I headed down the street and there he was. He was a dirty little scoundrel, just laying there on the sidewalk. He payed me no mind as I came up to him, so I reached down and gave him a pet.”
“He seemed like it didn’t matter if I pet him or not, he didn’t mind though. Well I went on to the market, and picked up the things I needed. I was after some meat and eggs since breakfast supplies were getting thin. I thought about that mutt again while I waited on the butcher to cut my slices. That dog sure was a odd one. He kind of reminded me of me. So, on my way back home, I stopped and pet that dog again. That was when he got his name. He smelled the meat that I picked up and he was excited about that. The dern dog jumped on me, knocking me back a bit and of course the bag hit the ground. He snagged a piece before I could get it away from him. It was the krummiest thing he could have done, so that was his new name. Krummy.”. He puffed on his cigar as the boy waited, and finally picked back up, “Now, let me tell you, I wasn’t happy about that. I thought a minute about smacking that dogs nose with the rolled up paper I had, but I left him be. The more I thought about it though, I figured the dog owed me since he took my food. So I brought him home.”.
There were many stories the old man had to share. They didn’t amount to much, but to him, they were big parts of his life. Johnny spent his Sunday afternoons with his Grandpa, listening to his stories. It was the only thing the old man had to look forward to these days. Not many people came around to visit, and it had been a couple years since Krummy died. There really wasn’t much company for Johnny’s grandpa these days. Today was going to change all that though. Johnny had a similar trip to the market before he made it over to Grandpa’s house. Only this time, Dangit was the dog’s name. That’s what Johnny named him when the dog knocked the bag of food out of his hands. Dangit had a new home now. Johnny figured the dog owed him that much.