Are You My Basketball?

I've rescued dogs in my neighborhood. I've rescued drivers licenses. I've rescued pacifiers and scrunchies, baby blankets and cute red booties. But last night, driving home after dance class, I rescued a basketball. Poor thing. It was just sitting there in the middle of my street, illuminated by my xenon headlights.  Man, they're bright.  The sad little basketball, hoopless and abandoned, white and Nike-branded, glowed like an otherworldly orb.  I viewed it with awe. "What the eff is a basketball doing in the road? I wonder which neighborhood child created such a monumental road hazard." As I pulled into the garage, I realized, oh, for eff's sake, that basketball belongs to the SJG household. That's our stupid ball. It must have rolled out when I backed out of the garage hours ago.  It's probably been waiting for the right moment to escape. No one plays with it anymore. The eldest, the youngest, and all their friends who used to pound it mercilessly into the driveway, they've forgotten all about the Nike ball. So it said, "I'm outta here, bitches," and rolled off in search of a new owner.

Rescuer that I am, enabler of note, I trotted down the street to retrieve the ball. "Hello there, little ball, how you doin'?" The ball just stared at me, which I took as a sign that maybe I was mistaken. Up close, the basketball looked unfamiliar. "This is not my beautiful basketball." I wished it well, set it down gently in the bushes, so that the neighbor-hood child who selfishly discarded it might one day reclaim it, and went home. "I just found a basketball in the middle of the street," I told hubby.  "Was it ours?" "Do we have a white Nike basketball?" "Yes." "Oh, eff, I'll be back."  So then I rescued it for real, and felt so good about myself as a human being.You'll be happy to know the basketball has been repurposed as a giant chew toy.  Just this morning, Dusty dribbled on it, sniffed it and then ignored it, in honor of March Madness. When it comes to basketball, the dog takes after me.