Conversation Starter

It was a mistake to try to bring the dog outside. The disorientation occasioned by picking her up to carry her down the stairs has utterly discombobulated her, and she is paralyzed, clinging to the ground as if she's stranded on a steep, slippery slope.

As I sit on the stoop, calming her down in hopes of taking her back upstairs, the guy who walks around the neighborhood asking folks for cigarettes sits down next to me and, surprisingly, starts talking.

"What's wrong with your dog?" he asks, in what may be the longest sentence I've ever heard him speak.