Woke up this morning early, and the first thing I noticed was a text on my phone from a neighbor asking me if Lola got home all right, so of course, I started looking for her. She was nowhere to be found! I immediately jumped in the van and started searching the neighborhood, nothing. I came back and saddled up Flash, and proceed to spend the next 4 ½ hours searching far and wide for her, nothing. This was just not like her, she ALWAYS comes when she’s called! Finally, it dawned on me. We have a neighbor who (against the rules of the neighborhood) rents her place out on AirBnB. We’ve often seen strangers there, and Lola has gotten in the habit of sometimes going over there to see if there’s anyone to play with. Often there are kids there, so of course, they do play with her, and so she keeps coming back for more. When I passed the place at 7:30 this morning, there was no one there, but I had seen lights and heard voices there the day before, so I texted the neighbor across the lake from that house to see if she noticed what time they left. She said, no, but that Lola had been in the area around midnight, and if they were still up, likely she went over there. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I texted the woman who owns the house to see if she would contact her renters to see if they had seen her. The answer came back a few minutes later, Yes. Not only had they seen her, they thought she was a stray (despite the fact that she had on a collar and a very recent rabies tag!), and they decided to take her home and put her in a shelter, since a shelter could trace the rabies tag. When I asked where they were now, I was told, CHICAGO!!!! What the HELL!!! They had left very early and were just about to arrive in Chicago! What is WRONG WITH PEOPLE! She gave me their number and I called right away, and told them they needed to return my dog. They objected to coming all the way back to Tennessee, but I wasn’t about to lose Lola, so I had to agree to meet them in Louisville, KY. Aaaargh!! I had already missed breakfast looking for her, I didn’t have time to grab lunch, I just hopped in the truck and started driving. Four hours later I arrived near an agreed upon town, grabbed a quick steak dinner while waiting for them to arrive, then met them at a nearby truck stop. Two young men, two stupid young men, were waiting with Lola, who looked totally dejected. I immediately gave her a big hug and put her in the back seat of the truck, before turning back to these two young idiots (well, not that young, probably late 20’s, old enough to know better!), who were already walking away. I was astonished they didn’t apologize, didn’t address me hardly at all. When I suggested that it would be appropriate for them to reimburse me for my unnecessary travel expenses, they laughed and continued walking away, whining about how THEY had to drive 19 hours to accommodate ME! Like they were doing me a favor! Unbelievable! What was I supposed to do? Over seven hundred miles round trip, at my expense, because these idiots thought taking a dog with a collar on from Tennessee to Chicago was a good idea. I was so mad, all I could think of was, it was a good thing I hadn’t brought my gun. Relieved to have Lola back, but seething from the whole experience, I headed back home. What made it worse was that I was supposed to dialyze Hubby this afternoon, the last time before my short trip tomorrow, so now he was going to have to go for THREE DAYS without dialysis. NOT GOOD! I had planned all week for his final dialysis session to be today, and this totally screwed that up. And to top that all off, I have to get up at 4:45 tomorrow morning in order to catch a flight to Billings, Montana out of Nashville! Good luck working on 3 hours sleep! Grrrrr!
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