‘Hey, do you already have a wife? My mom doesn’t have a husband’

Lucy made a friend tonight while we went to fill my car with gasoline.

“Hey, I like your dog!” cried out an exuberant little blond boy from 30 feet away.

He had just pumped gasoline for his mom’s car and was on his way to the restroom when he spotted us. I greeted him briefly and went about my business. Two minutes later, he was out of the restroom and clearly wanted to meet Lucy, but wasn’t sure what to say.

“What’s your dog’s name?” he asked.

After I introduced him to Lucy, he started telling me about the 11 animals that he and his mother have. He told me that feeding all those dogs and cats was so much that his mother had to help him with it.

He told me his name was Asher and he asked my name. Then he noticed I had a camera, so he asked if he could be in a picture with Lucy.

At first, Lucy was nervous with the stranger. We were in a loud and unfamiliar place, so her head turned every time a truck started or there was a voice on the other side of a pump. But she slowly got more comfortable with Asher.

He petted Lucy and remarked about how soft she was. And he noticed that every time something startled her, she wanted to come to me.

“Lucy really loves you,” he said. “You must be really good to her. I can tell.”

He wanted to take a few pictures of Lucy with me, too, so I sat on the concrete and let Lucy sit on me as he tried to handle my Sony A7R II.

“Wow. This camera is heavy,” he said. “I’ve never seen one this nice.”

He looked through the pictures we had taken and he selected one that we shot on my iPhone so he could send it to his mother, who sat waiting patiently in her car.

I finally told him that Lucy and I needed to go, so he checked with his mom to make sure she got the photo we sent to her. Lucy and I walked over to the car with him. His mom was friendly. She smiled at us and looked at her son with love.

She thanked me for taking the time to talk to Asher and we talked briefly about our love for animals. Asher listened to us chat for a minute and then piped up, as though he had just thought of something.

“‘Hey, do you already have a wife?” he asked very seriously. “My mom doesn’t have a husband.”

I laughed and asked if he was trying to find a husband for his mother. He kind of nodded. His mother seemed a little embarrassed, but she smiled at him, too.

As he went around the car to get into the passenger seat beside his mother, he thought of something else.

“That’s her number where we sent the picture,” he said. “You can call her.”

Then he told me he will be looking for Lucy and me when they come here for gas again.

And Lucy and I got back into the car to head home, happy to have made such a delightful little friend.