Lost Dog

David and I were at the park tonight and after seeing hundreds of dogs running around, we remembered something funny that had happened while living in California. To save our friend involved some embarrassment we will change her name. If this friend, let's call her Laine, reads this post, we love you and replaying this story cracked us up again and made us wish we lived closer!
A couple of years ago our good friend Laine "found" a lost dog. Laine said that while driving through a neighborhood near her home this little dog came running out into the road. Being the pet lover that she is, she rescued this dog from being hit by a car and brought him to her home. The story seemed a little off to me, so I prodded to get more information about how she came to the decision to bring the dog home. After enough prodding I found out that although she had been driving through this neighborhood and she did actually see the dog, the dog never actually ran out into the road. She saw the dog alone in the neighborhood park and stopped to pick it up. I harassed her a bit for "stealing" the dog.
Later that night I told David about it and we devised a plan. Actually, David devised it and I was the actress that helped the plan come to fruition. David created a lost dog poster telling some heartbreaking story about a young boy who was looking for his lost dog. Juan's twin brother had passed away and in an effort to relieve some of his sorrow his parents had given him this dog for Christmas. He named the dog after his twin brother and was devastated that his special dog had gone missing.
Of course most people probably wouldn't believe this story, but we knew that Laine, stricken with guilt, would fall for it. I planned to meet my friend to go out the next day, so before I picked her up I placed the poster on a tree at the exit of her neighborhood where I was sure she would see it. When I picked her up, she told me she had returned the dog to the park. (This did not foil our plans, I think it made our prank turn out even better.) As we drove out the exit I made to sure to draw attention to the lost dog poster. Of course she had to get out of the car to read the poster. She started freaking out and was begging me to drive her to the park to pick up the dog. I told her I would not drive her to the park to get the dog so she could return it to his owner. After a few minutes when I couldn't act any longer and I was doing the laugh/cry combo I told her what David and I had done.
This is an email I got from her a year ago about this experience:
"So last night Ron said something about me stealing dogs and I was like what the heck are you talking about! Then he reminded me of my little escapade of "Borrowing" the little slightly retarded Chihuahua from the park. And then I remembered the HORROR I felt when I read the lost dog poster after I had just unloaded him at the park and the absolute Horror I felt when you wouldn't turn the car around and take me back to the park! It had me rolling on the floor. That was the best lost dog poster!!! And I fell hook, line and sinker for it! My hat goes off to you and David BEST PRANK EVER!"

So the moral of the story is: do not "borrow" other people's animals. David will make sure that you never live it down.