ADEQUATELY SUPPLIED WITH ANECDOTES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A pet can be too much discussed as well as too little. There are some gaps in Bandit’s life story, especially prior to last year; but from that time onwards we are adequately supplied with anecdotes. There can be no doubt that Bandit  liked to sit on the patio, and that when strangers approached the fence he barked in a tone most felt was more delighted than angry, and that once in late spring he took advantage of an unlatched gate and squirted out onto Tresser Road, at which point he approached a woman who was, despite her dark blue shorts and light blue shirt, not a mail carrier, and sniffed inquisitively around her feet. Many in the neighborhood also note his determination to dig a hole between the stones of the front path and his repeated destruction of the flowerbeds toward the back of the yard. These actions do not submit easily to analysis, which may partially explain their repeated retelling, and yet there are those among us who tend to become irritable when Bandit’s character and intentions are re-litigated without any material change in the record.