An Anecdote about Seattle

On Saturday, 22 Nov 2003, I was in a local coffee shop, Tully’s, having my decaf latte and reading a book. It was a small shop, on a busy downtown street. This is the part of the city where you might expect people to act the most uptight and walled off.

While I was sitting there, a man came in with a chocolate lab. She was sniffing around, under the trash bin and all over.  A sucker for dogs, I put my hand down to offer it to her to sniff and she pulled her owner over to me.  I was happily petting her and she was happily letting me – but I could tell from the man’s expression that he was torn. He didn’t want to deprive her of my petting, but he really did want to order his coffee.

So he solved the dilemma.  He handed me her leash and went to order his coffee.