Skip to main content

I’ve been "renting" my neighbor’s dog for $20 a week so I don’t look like a creep when I come home at 3 AM.

Thumbnail
I’m 28, and because of my job, I usually get home around 2 or 3 in the morning. My neighborhood is one of those too quiet places where everyone knows everyone’s car. After a few weeks of walking from my car to my front door in the pitch black, I noticed the curtains in the house across the street twitching every single night. I realized I had become the "suspicious character" of the block.

To fix this, I made a weird deal with my neighbor, an older guy who has a high-energy Golden Retriever. For $20 a week, I rent his dog for a 15-minute walk the moment I get home.

Now, instead of being the "creepy guy coming home at 3 AM," I’m the "dedicated local hero who helps a senior citizen with his dog." The neighborhood group chat went from Who is this guy? to God bless that young man’s soul.

The only problem? The dog has now adjusted his internal clock. My neighbor told me the dog starts sitting by the front door at 2:50 AM every night, wagging his tail and whining. His wife now thinks the dog is "psychic" and can sense my car from three miles away.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So my wife’s going to a gala tonight — as her client’s “date.”

I’m 44 and my wife is 44. She works on an art advisory committee, so attending galas, events, and client meetings is part of her job. She often meets clients for coffee, lunch, or dinner, and I don’t always know the details and that’s completely normal because it’s part of her work. She’s always professional, transparent about her friendships, and I trust her judgment completely. Recently, she mentioned she’s going to a gala with a friend, S. He’s a wealthy client she met about a year ago, and they became friends professionally. She introduced me to him once, and he seems like a genuinely good person. He invited her as his “date” to this gala, and my wife said it’s fine. I did ask her though, if she’s actually going as a “date,” and she just laughed and said, “Date doesn’t always mean romantic.” She said it’s important for her she could get networking and meet new people. Then she smiled and said, “If I get into this gala next time, I won’t need to take that man with me, I’ll take you...

I accidentally started a fake relationship with my dentist’s nephew and now I have to bring him to my cousin’s wedding

I swear this isn’t as insane as it sounds. Or maybe it is. I don’t know anymore. So I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled last month. All four. It was horrible. I cried when they put the numbing stuff in. Not from pain, just vibes. The dentist was this sweet older guy, probably in his 60s, super gentle, gave dad energy. Anyway, after the whole thing I’m in the waiting room with a mouth full of gauze, looking like a bloated chipmunk and trying not to drool on myself. This guy walks in. Maybe 20-ish. Tall, curly hair, kind of goofy looking but in a hot way. He smiles at me and goes, “You look like you fought a squirrel and lost.” I flip him off. With love. Apparently he’s the dentist’s nephew. He was dropping off lunch or something, I wasn’t listening. I was trying to keep my face from leaking. He sits down and starts chatting with me while I wait for my ride. I don’t say much because again, gauze goblin. But I must’ve made an impression because later that night I get a message on Instagr...

The email I sent to the wrong address changed my life

I’d always rolled my eyes at the "happy accidents" people talked about online – until I became one of them. Earlier this year I was stuck at work on a Friday night trying to smooth over a client situation. I drafted a long, vulnerable email to my coworker, venting about the mistake I’d made and how burnt out I was, and hit send without double‑checking the address. A couple hours later, my phone buzzed with a reply from a woman I didn’t recognize. She lived in a different city and politely let me know I’d emailed the wrong person, but she also said my honesty resonated with her. She had been a nurse for 30 years and had just retired. Her words were warm and empathetic; she told me about the night shifts, the feeling of being invisible, and how she’d finally stepped away. Instead of brushing it off, I wrote back. What started as an apology turned into a conversation that unfolded over weeks. We traded stories about our families, our jobs and the things we regretted not doing. ...