Face-plant

“What happened to you?” asked my friend Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”) as I walked behind my dog into the Master-Tech Car Show east of Canandaigua.
Jim was showing his Camaro.
“Face-plant,” I said. “I fell in a parking-lot last night.”
“You gotta not let that dog pull you around,” Jim said.
“Not the dog,” I said. “I scuffed my foot and tripped.”
People often think my dog pulls me down. I have plenty of practice walking her, so she hardly ever fells me.
And at age-11 she’s no longer lunging after critters.
I was walking my dog to Michael Prouty Park, perhaps a quarter-mile from my house.
As I walked in I noticed Franklin was already there, off-leash, doing his daily business.
“I was gonna go the other way,” I said to Franklin’s owner, but here comes Franklin, so I figgered I better keep coming, lest he follow me.”
I had just got up from the pavement, and blood was dripping from my nose.
Face-down right to the pavement; at least I still had my teeth.
“Blood is dripping off yer nose,” Franklin’s owner said.
He gave me a tissue and sanitizer.
He took my dog so I could look in a mirror.
“Not too bad,” I said. The bleeding was stopping.
So much for our daily jaunt up to the park pavilion, where the dog scarfs potato-chips, whatever.
“I think I’ll go back to my house,” I said.
Franklin had been banished to the back seat of the guy’s pickup, a crew-cab.
Still bleeding slightly I walked my dog back toward our house, Franklin’s owner watching.