Finding Hope in Strange Places

By Kathryn Socie, 7-17-08

Sometimes things go awry and you’re left wallowing in the pit of despair, drowning your sorrows in some dive bar.  Sometimes you really do get ripped off.  And then one day, mystically, magically your ceramic lawn dog returns home after a long absence. Just when a Portland, OR woman had given up hope of ever seeing hers again, she started receiving post cards from across the country signed “lucky dog.” Finally, last Sunday she looked out her window and found her missing dog had returned home, complete with two new ceramic pups.

She wasn’t robbed, her ceramic dog went on vacation and, apparently, procreated somewhere in route.  After visiting Disney World, Graceland and New Orleans, among other destinations, the dog arrived safely back home with a photo album documenting its adventures. Talk about luck. Talk about genius. 

In our wholly complicated, stress-filled world, people demonstrating a little harmless, creative, amusing criminal behavior is much needed.  Admittedly, being robbed is really disturbing and upsetting on so many levels, but in this instance even Edwina herself, owner of the ceramic dog gone a-missing, admitted she got a great story out of it all.

Still, I’m left wanting for more.  Who came up with this plan and when?  Were they a bunch of locals that had their eye on the dog, hatching a plan over the course of time in some guy’s basement? Did the dog go on vacation with someone, or was it shipped to various locales where co-conspirators traveled to tourist destinations and snapped a few shots?  If so, why didn’t they go international?  What lawn dog travelogue is complete without a shot of the dog taken at the Eiffel tower, wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette?

Finally, why the pups?  I suppose if you’re going to steal a lawn ornament, transport it around the country, document its adventures and return it, you have to quell your guilt somehow.  In that light, the pups are a nice touch.  But maybe Edwina was set on having but one lone dog and lacked the garden space for three.  Seems if you are going to be criminal you might want to be conscientious about it and not strap the poor woman with more lawn animals. I would have left a gift certificate or perhaps a goose wearing a seasonally appropriate outfit, to diversify the lawn brood. 

Regardless, any friendly, preferably ridiculous, reminder that life is worth taking much less seriously gives me a lot of hope for humanity; uptight narcissists that we tend to be, we make a lot of mess and often forget to enjoy life.  These folks weren’t ending starvation, finding a cure for cancer, or reversing climate change, but nonetheless making an important contribution (of sorts) to the world, in my opinion anyway.

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