{"id":404,"date":"2005-11-28T18:00:13","date_gmt":"2005-11-28T18:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=404"},"modified":"2005-11-28T18:00:13","modified_gmt":"2005-11-28T18:00:13","slug":"just_another_guy_buying_dog_fo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2005\/11\/28\/just_another_guy_buying_dog_fo\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Another Guy Buying Dog Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, the Girlfriend and I were at PetSmart yesterday, picking up a Christmas gift for her poodle, Rusty. (In case you’re wondering, we bought him a pleather aviator’s coat with a faux shearling lining, very dashing and manly. Hey, he’s a poodle, he needs all the external machofication he can get.)<\/p>\n

I’d just picked up the bag containing the new dog-jacket from the cashier’s counter and was turning to leave when I nearly collided with another shopper. I drew up short and let him pass by without really seeing him. Just another guy in a hurry, I thought, trying to get in and out of the store on a busy day with a minimum of hassle. I’d taken several steps toward the exit before I managed to process my quick impressions into a complete picture:<\/p>\n

African-American (obvious), probably about my age (crow’s-feet around the eyes), vertically challenged in a major way (he rose only to the level of my chest, and I’m only a hair over five-six), and there was something familiar about his face…<\/p>\n

I stopped again and put my hand on Anne’s arm.<\/p>\n

“That was Gary Coleman<\/a>,” I said.<\/p>\n


\n“Who?” she asked.<\/p>\n

“That guy I nearly ran into.”<\/p>\n

She shrugged absently. I nodded in the direction from which we’d just come, where I could see the former child actor ambling into the aisle that was farthest away from us. He disappeared from view just as Anne turned, but she managed to catch a glimpse.<\/p>\n

“It is<\/i> him, isn’t it?” she said.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I think so.”<\/p>\n

“Want to go talk to him?”<\/p>\n

I briefly considered it, but the first flush of celebrity recognition was quickly being replaced with cold rationality. “What would we say to him?”<\/p>\n

“We could tell him how much we admired his work on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century<\/i><\/a>.”<\/p>\n

I laughed out loud, and said that was one Gary probably didn’t hear much. I considered again whether to chase after the man I’d thought was a kid when I first saw him crossing my path. A man who reportedly moved to Utah because he was tired of being “Gary Coleman.”<\/p>\n

“Nah,” I said. “Let him buy his dog food without anybody bugging him.”<\/p>\n

Anne agreed, and we walked out to the car feeling magnificently benevolent for merely being decent. I know we did the right thing by giving the star of an ancient sitcom the same luxury of anonymity that everybody else enjoys every day of the week. But still… I would’ve liked to see the look on his face when I told him he rocked<\/i> as Heironymous Fox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, the Girlfriend and I were at PetSmart yesterday, picking up a Christmas gift for her poodle, Rusty. (In case you’re wondering, we bought him a pleather aviator’s coat with a faux shearling lining, very dashing and manly. Hey, he’s a poodle, he needs all the external machofication he can get.) I’d just picked up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-glass-teat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}