jerry the human and spot the dog, part 1

once upon a time there was a human named jerry. he had a dog named spot. jerry operated a little cart on the main street in the financial district of a large human city. he sold chili dogs and sauerkraut dogs and dogs with his own special sauce. one day the market collapsed and the economy entered a sustained decline. the young interns and frat boy types who were jerry's targeted demographic were laid off in large numbers. jerry couldn't make it any more. he had to give up his apartment and went to sleep on his grandmother's couch while he pondered his future. his grandmother wouldn't let him keep spot. she said she was allergic to dogs and jerry was in no position to question this. so he took spot to an animal shelter. it was a cold windy night, the prelude to a long hard winter. spot was very well aware of what was transpiring. the transaction was handled by an efficient young woman in a thoroughly professional manner. returning to his grandmothers house on the subway, jerry pondered the fact that spots life had been altered - probably ended - by the stock market. it didn't seem likely that spot had any conception of the stock market - any at all. jerry wondered if there were other things that he knew as little of as spot did of the stock market, and that could affect him as much. when he got to his grandmothers house she was taking two crispy chicken hungry man dinners out of the microwave. he was right on time. part 2