Co-workers were talking last week. I sit across the cubicle farm aisle from them, but they share a cubicle wall. They talk between themselves about various things, this and that.
I work with my back to them so sometimes I'll overhear their conversations. Earlier this week the two were discussing an event that happened to one, something very distressing. She had lost a dog.
Several people came by her work station. Some had heard of what happened and offered advice. "If you go house-to-house looking for your puppy, take your other dog with you. That way, if they say they haven't seen your puppy and they're really lying because they want to keep the puppy for themselves, the other dog will start barking because it will know the puppy is there."
That was a distressing thought. But I guess people can be terrible at times.
I could feel the sadness from across the aisle. She said to others that the puppy was fairly new and they had planned to get it chipped, but it ran away the day before they were going to get it done. Timing.
We all kept working, the pall of sadness still hung in the air, but I wasn't sure just how sad she was until she got a call on her cellphone.
"Hello?"
"Yes, this is she."
"Yes, that's my address."
"You found my dog," she said, pure joy--pure emotion in her voice. Though I wasn't looking at her, I heard the relief, the cloud of sadness disappeared in an instant.
"Oh, thank you. I'll be right there."
I turned and said, "That's so great, you found your puppy." She said a neighbor--someone she didn't know but lived a few doors down--found her puppy, saw her notice, and called. She said she was leaving work to go pick up the puppy and take it home.
I returned to whatever it was I did before the call. The news even made me feel better. The thing that caused so much pain was replaced with an equal and opposite amount of happiness. I guess Newton was right after all.
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