Amusing interaction
It always surprises me the things that people don't know, or how easily they can be impressed. I was stopping by Walgreen's on my way home today and saw a black girl with a dog, and I smiled and approached them. The girl hadn't noticed me until I was only a few paces off and reached to pet the dog, the girl's mum walking out of the store just as I did so. Both of them started to say something beginning with "Don't" just as I started petting the dog, I presume some sort of warning. I had knelt to pet the dog, and she had put her paws up on my shoulders and licked my face. I glanced up to see both the females glancing at me in pure undisguised wonder as I told the dog to sit. The mother said "Oh, she won't sit..." and she didn't, but I smiled gently and said "Oh, she will. What's her name?"
"Fifi", the girl replies. I look back down, into Fifi's eyes, and place a hand on her rear and say "Sit, Fifi." She sat immediately. The mother said "How did you do that?", the girl "She must like him." The mother, quickly "You must be special or somethin'", and the girl "Yeah, she ain't trippin' or nothin'", all in about three seconds. I laugh, petting the dog, who is now sitting and tilting her head up to lick my chin. The mother asks my name, and I reply "Rivien", of course. She asks if I train dogs, and I say "No, but I used to be a Druid." After briefly explaining what a Druid is, I proceeded to explain how to train Fifi to sit (this was not, by the way, a poodle. It was a larger mixed breed of some sort), and they'd both bid me a good day, bowing their heads slightly as they did so as if I were some sort of religious figure. My hair was tied back, I swear it. Judging from the breathlessness in their voices, though, I couldn't have impressed them any further if I'd proceeded to command the Traffic Sea to part to let my people through to freedom.
Still, even something as simple as that made me feel absurdly accomplished. It was a simple thing, in fact more than natural to me to befriend a strange dog effortlessly, but the way they treated it made me feel like I'd performed a miracle. I don't know how the dog behaves around anyone else, maybe I did in some sort of fashion.