This is no way to start my week. Max can’t seem to walk this morning.

He was in his usual place outside my bedroom door when I got up, but he didn’t move much. He raised his head but didn’t offer to get up. Which is not totally out of the ordinary. We both suffer from sore joints. I figured he’d get up and move on soon enough.

I scratched his head, hit the lamp, and headed for the kitchen.

I prepped the coffee pot and did my old man stretches while the slurping and gurgling noises filled the silence of the house. I poured the first cup and wandered out to the couch on the back porch. I could hear Max coming.

The sound wasn’t right, though. His nails weren’t clicking on the floor. The footfalls were heavy and labored. He was moving like an old man with kidney stones.

“Hey buddy. What’s going on?”

He plopped down hard on the floor, and that’s when I noticed his right front paw. It was swollen like a balloon, twice its normal size.

My first thought was snakebite.

Poor guy. I had to pick him up and cradle him in my arms like carrying a calf, arms locked around his legs. It’s been a while since I carried a 55lb animal. But he wasn’t going down the porch steps and I had to get him in the back floorboard of the truck.

Valley Vet can be like a zoo sometimes. Literally. I pulled in under the shade of a big red oak. Max stood up but he wasn’t offering to get out. I got his leash hooked, cradled him in my arms and slowly set him to the ground. We did a slow walk around the trees. A dog, even one hurting, still has to pee.

Just inside the door there are two matching little yippie dogs, each about the size of an opossum. Max is a calm spirit, yet they are yipping their scrawny little heads off at him. “Yip, Yip, Yip! Yip, Yip, Yip!” Snarl. “Yip, Yip! Yip, Yip, Yip!” Their human is more interested in his phone than he is in calling them off.

I get Max checked in at the front desk and decide to wait our turn out on the front porch. It’s not all that hot yet and there’s a steady breeze. There’s an empty bench. I sit and Max curls up slowly on the smooth concrete. He is licking his paw and I’m feeling stupid for not noticing it sooner.

Across the porch there’s a couple sitting on the other bench with their dog who is not little and certainly not yippie. Dog owners never hesitate to talk to other dog owners.

“That’s a beautiful dog you got there,” she says. “I love his colors.”

“Thank you, ma’am. He’s a good one.”

“How old is he?”

“Dr. Mike says he’s probably about 10 or 12 years old. Hard to know. I’ve only had him five years.”

“Is he a rescue?”

“I reckon you could call him that. He’s a pound dog but I got him from a young college girl in Columbus who didn’t really have time for him. He spent most of his days in a crate.”

“Poor fella. A dog needs space to run and play.”

“Yes ma’am. At least she recognized he deserved better. She cried when she gave him up to me.”

We talked on and on about our dogs for maybe twenty minutes. Their pup is a Labradoodle. Curly in the face and head. Tall and lean. Black as the Ace of Spades with a white blaze on his chest.

The husband chimed in. “We should have got an older dog. More settled. I don’t know what we were thinking getting a pup. She’s high energy.”

She was in constant motion while we chatted. She tugged at the leash. She stood in mama’s lap but was too much to be a lap dog.

Max never paid her any mind. He’s old-dog easy.

We eventually got to talking about work and retirement. The normal stuff of folks with gray hair who hang out at the Vet’s office on a weekday morning.

My phone rang. It was my buddy, Bill, who gave me a few ears of sweet corn last week. I figured he had okra to pick and wanted to let me know.

“What you up to this morning?” he asked.

“Sitting up at the Vet with Max. He’s got a hurt foot.”

“I saw where you’re looking for somebody to proofread your next book. You find anybody yet?”

“I’ve got one lead but nothing solid.”

“Well, I’ve got a friend over in Manchester who might just be the right person for the job. She’s a retired schoolteacher and I know she’s good at the rules of grammar and punctuation and things like that.”

“Sounds like she might be the right person.”

“I’ve already talked to her about it. We sit on a committee together and she’s always editing the documents we create. She catches all the misspelled words and missing commas. Her name is Inna Dunn.”

“Did you say Inna Dunn?” I’m saying this slowly and out loud.

“No. It’s Ida Ann Dunn.”

I repeat it to make sure I have it. “Ida Ann Dunn. Is that right?” Again, I’m being deliberate as I say it back to him.

Then, from across the way, my porch-sitting-dog-owner friend speaks up. “Is that Bill Godowns on the phone?”

I’m a little thrown off. How could she possibly know this?

“Yes, ma’am it is.”

She goes on. “Did you say Ida Ann Dunn?”

I have no idea how that could possibly mean anything to her, but heck. “Yes ma’am.”

“Well, I’m Ida Ann Dunn. You must be Paul Chappell.”

I could have fell off my bench. I could hear Bill laughing from the other end of the phone.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Bill.

“Sure did. You mean to tell me that she’s right there with you?”

“She’s sitting right across the porch from me.”

She introduces me to Mike, her husband.

“Well, there’s your sign. I think you just found your proofreader.”

I honestly think this may be one of the wildest things that has ever happened to me. I’m talking to two total strangers about our dogs. Bill calls to tell me about a person that I’ve never heard of or met before. And she’s sitting not 20 feet from me the whole time.

The attendant comes out to get Max. He hobbles off behind her.

Ida Ann and I exchange contact numbers and have one of those rare “holy cow” moments. She calls it a God-wink. I call it a God-nod. They both mean the same thing.

Dr. Rachel comes out and tells me about Max. It’s a pretty bad bite. “The puncture went through his foot, and we’ll need to keep him a couple days to drain and keep the wound clean. We’ll start him on antibiotics now. You can check on him tomorrow. He should be fine in a few days.”

What a hoot! God-nods and snake bites.

That’s one crazy Monday.