Strollers in Boston. A recipe for death, or at least mayhem.

October 15, 2008

This morning I went through my regular routine of breakfast at the local restaurant, a trip to the post office and the occasional drive by the water to collect my thoughts and plan out my writing day.

On these regular journeys, story and column ideas pop into my head courtesy of the small-city landscape.

SUVs parked poorly. The woman who nearly shuts her toddler’s head in the car door. The six new mothers wandering around town with children in strollers and dogs leashed to those same strollers. Diners at the restaurant shouting to each other across a 2.5-foot table, “she really didn’t embezzle the money,” and random other events.

What struck me most today was the stroller/mother/dog dynamic. These high-tech strollers contain children and are leashed to dogs. Does anyone else see a problem with that?

I’m pretty certain if a life-size Chuck Wagon truck or a wild deer dashed through downtown, these dogs would be galloping across busy streets dragging mothers, infants and strollers through traffic to certain doom.

And if not doom, definitely destruction.

Where did common sense go off the rails? The likelihood of the Chuck Wagon or the deer showing up on Newbury Street in Boston is a fantasy. But a pickup truck with dogs in the back could happen. And the reality of nearly identical mommy/stroller/puppy combos on the other side of the street is common.

Is it natural selection? If so, why didn’t it take hold before these stupid women had offspring? Better yet, why didn’t the breeders of these dogs screen their customers better? It’s akin to selling a bunch of purebred Bernese Mountain Dogs to Michael Vick.

Ultimately, I think I’d rather spend time with the woman who didn’t ‘really’ embezzle, than witness the impending fiasco of overturned baby joggers and mangled flesh.

And that’s what I sometimes get from my humdrum daily routine.

More to come…