James the 300# mountain man showed up to plow my garden at 5pm.

Thank god! My back can't do it. Jim had, as usual, his 5 year old "little" boy with him. Tyler got out of the truck looking for Nick-Nick. Tyler is a fat little kid. Nick loves Tyler because Tyler will toss the Kong-on-a-Rope all day.

As I showed Jim the work I wanted done, my dogs Sirius and Nick-Nick tagged along. Jim told me that his Lab puppy was neutered yesterday. Jim started plowing the garden, I was on the phone to a client in Japan, and little Tyler was throwing the rope toy to Nick.

After the call, I went out to the garden to check on Jim. All was well. Little Tyler asks me to stay outside to play with the dogs. I say I can't.

He asks me for Nick's name again. I say "Nick." He says what is the other dog's name? I say "Sirius." He says, "Write them down so that I can remember them."

I ask him if he can read and he answers "Yes, sir." I then ask him why he can't remember my dogs' names. His answer was "I have a dog named "Buster". I said that that was a name I could remember. Then he, the 5-YO said "Buster had his goddamn balls cut off yesterday!" And he repeated that mantra several more times as he played with Nick.

He again asked me to write down my dogs' names. So I went in the house and retrieved a snapshot of each dog .. good pictures, both. On the backs I wrote in felt-tip "N-I-C-K" and "S-I-R-I-U-S." I took them back out to the little kid and presented only the backs of the photos, like 3X5 cards, with the dogs names. I said, read this. He said, "Nick." Then I showed him the other "card" and asked the same thing. He stumbled. Then he said "Sy-re-us .. no, Sirius!"

Then I flipped the "spelling cards" to show the photos of Sirius and Nick-Nick. Tyler looked at me and I said "The pictures are yours." The tears started rolling down his fat little face and he said, "I've got to take these to the truck." Nick-Nick followed him to their ratty F-150.

Mac