Responsibility

During the month of June I participated in the Souther Nevada Writing Project. It was an enjoyable enough experience and awakened the latent writer in me. I made a commitment to myself to start writing again while going through the experience. The problem being that I could not find the topic(s) that I wanted to write about. I've been mulling around in my mind what it is that I needed/wanted to blog about. The past couple of weeks I have found myself ruminating about the goings on around me. Yesterday, Saturday, August 3rd, I finally focused on the topic I wanted to work with: responsibility.

What brought me to that? Questions about my family. My largest questions are: Do I have to like my family? What responsibility do I have to them? What responsibility do they have to me? And many questions about situations that I find myself in.

Responsibility is defined as:

1. duty: the social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force; "we must instill a sense of duty in our children";
2. province: the proper sphere or extent of your activities; "it was his province to take care of himself", or;
3. a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one's conduct; "he holds a position of great responsibility"

The defining activity that focused me on this topic though was during a trip to the Post Office. I don't go to the regular Post Office as it always has a line of people waiting to do their business. I go to a small City Stop close to my house that has a Post Office included. No lines, no waiting.
I needed to mail a box off to my friend and this was the place to go.

I pulled up to the Stop at 2:15 in the afternoon. If you know anything about Las Vegas you know that at 2:15 in the afternoon it is hot outside. The temperature was over 100 degrees. I saw a lady standing at the handicapped sign in the parking lot. Her two chihuahua's leashes were tangled around the base of the sign. The dogs were panting trying to cool themselves off. They were also trying to jump into her arms in an attempt to get off the hot asphalt. As I pulled in she bent down and started trying to undo the leashes. I parked my car and pulled my package out of the back seat. As I approached I asked her if she needed help to which she responded yes. She asked me to hold the dogs as she unhooked them from the leashes so that she could untangle the leases. Well, I started getting uncomfortable from the heat so I knew that the dogs were very uncomfortable as they had been out in the sun longer than I. I asked her if she could please take the dogs into the shade and I would untangle the leashes. We unhooked the dogs from the leashes, put them in her arms and she walked into the shade with them. As I bent down to untangle the leashes a car drove up. The lady behind the wheel told me that another customer at the City Stop had called animal control and that they were on their way. I thanked her for the news and went back to work on undoing the leashes from the sign. I was able to get them untangled and took them to the lady as she waited in the shade. I asked her where her car was and that I would help put the dogs in the car. She replied that she had walked from her apartment and was going to walk back home. At this time another patron of the City Stop came out and told her that her milk shake was ready. Evidently this lady had tied the leashes with the dogs to the handicap sign while she went in to order herself a milk shake.

At this point I thought to myself--what responsibility do I have to this situation? I thought about what the options were:

1. Bow out now that I'd helped the lady get her dogs out of the heat of the day. She could get on to her business of walking home. I could get on to my business of mailing my package.

2. Have a discussion with this damsel about how to treat animals during the heat of the day. I truly was more concerned with her pets than I was with her.

3. Offer to take them all home and save my breath. She indicated that she lived close by and was going to walk home with her pets.

I chose option 3 as I didn't think the little dogs would make it home during the heat of the day. Included in that thought was that the pads on their little dog feet would probably get burned during that hike. So I offered to take her home reasoning that if animal control showed up and she were around she would surely lose her pets.

She did the right thing (in my opinion) by allowing me to give her a lift to the apartment complex. I did not pass along the wisdom of my years about hot pavement. I wasn't sure that it would make a difference.

In fact, she did live close to the City Stop and we were at her complex within 5 minutes. I dropped her off and went on about my business.

So I ask myself: What responsibility did I have to this situation? I could have certainly walked by her to mail my package. Should I have allowed animal control to handle this? Did I do the right thing by helping her and her pets? My bigger question is about her responsibility to her pets. Should she be allowed to have pets if she doesn't understand about how to treat them?

Did she even consider the consequences and act responsibly to her pets?

I know I did.