please don't call the a.s.p.c.a

I walk out of the coffee shop and over to the bench where I've tethered Fred -- for no more than five minutes and with enough slack on the leash so he can't pretend to hang himself in protest at being left outside and within plain site through floor to ceiling windows so I can see if he tries anyway -- and find him huddled in the lap of a woman I don't know. This complete stranger is shivering in the cold, arms goose-bumped and blue as it seems she's wearing only a short-sleeved shirt despite the forty degree cold. And then I see she does, in fact, have a leather jacket. Only, she's taken it off. And wrapped it around Fred.