An exciting incident in suburbia.

The local dog-walking crowd, a beloved loose society of the friends of man’s best friend, arranged one of our occasional get-togethers in the picnic area of the park on Friday evening.

The wife of my bosom was to join us after she got home from work. Actually, we’d switched our venue and she wouldn't be able to see us in the dark, so I waited on the footpath for her, with the loyal Monty beside me. Also, I wanted to intercept her before she wandered along the bike path, what with that 'groper' character still at large.
It darkened very quickly, as it does in these parts, and at this time of year.

It was quiet too. I waited.

A bike came from the same direction where I’m watching for Anne, went past, with his lights on. The roll of rubber on concrete, a snapping of twig, then silence again.

Then, a scream.

A damsel in distress!

“I’m Coming!” I yell, as run toward the noises in the dark, just the other side of the footbridge, only slightly hampered by Monty, using my legs in a slalom.

AS I gallumph across the blur of moonlight on the bridge, there is the wife of my bosom coming toward me from the gloom of trees on the other side. She must have gone the long way around, through the woods. Blind in her terror, she runs past me.

Monty switches his allegiance to her as she disappears into the gloom in the other direction, interpolating himself into her flight.

And shortly behind her, the guy on the bike who had passed me a few minutes earlier, gingerly trying to explain something.

Apparently he rode past her... something bothered him and he'd stopped to turn, and while extracting his ipod from his ears did not stop to think that he was mirroring exactly the modus operandi of the Ashgrove groper, who cycles past his intended victim about ten yards, quietly turns and…

“I thought I’d hit your dog” he offered by way of excuse
"I didn't have a dog!” countered the wife of my bosom, who had by now returned amid the other folk whom our shouts had brought to the scene. The faulty procedure of needlessly giving information to the suspect was neither improved nor negated by the 35 kilo labrador on its hind legs, attempting to partner her in a waltz.