Sins of Omission

By Fred
I remember that day in Sister Agatha's class when I learned about sins of omission. An eight-year-boy like me got in trouble often enough without this new idea of getting in trouble for doing nothing.

I believe I sinned again the other day at Casa Tina's restaurant. The little girl at the table next to me dropped some of her food on the floor. It landed with a messy, stinky, loud splat only a few feet from Coach's nose. Normally he would have pounced, but this time he just looked up at me calmly and smiled. The girl's mother was very impressed when I told her that Coach is only eight months old.

"You are doing a wonderful job with him," she said, and I just smiled. Sin #1.

A picture of Coach with his tongue hanging out.
We are walking along the busy streets for practice.

This brought on a typical conversation about the guide dogs, and two other tables joined in with questions. I was so full of myself that by the end of the lunch I thought I'd double down.

"We're working on his go-to commands," I told them as we got up to leave. "I'm going to ask Coach to lead me out of the restaurant, and then I'm going to let him lead me without prompting. So we might be here for a while." I have an audience at this point.

"Find the door," I said to Coach. I fully expected that I would have to cheat a little (a real sin of commission). But Coach walked me right to the door and sat down. Applause.

A moral person would have turned around and admitted that, wow, Coach had never done that before. I just walked away. #2.