A hot day, famously, front-page, Global Warming, gossip hot. No topic so satisfies our garrulity as dramatic weather. “It’s a hot one.” “Yeh, an oven out there.” “You could say that again” (which the speaker will).

Jane had an appointment and I an errand to run, quick and easy, wouldn’t take a minute. “Take a minute” is one of those imprecise non-metronomic delimiters, like “in a jiffy” or “a dog’s age,” which suggest how time feels, not how it inexorably invisibly unforgivably decamps. Clock-time we regulate with “time management,” but what about life-time?

My chore was to pick up a prescription from our local CVS. CVS’ pharmacy team knows us well and are unfailingly cordial. I take sixteen pills a day – for “maintenance” (yes, I’m feeling fine, thanks, all things considered). Jane’s intake is her business, but you get the picture.

Henry was accompanying me as usual. I could have left him home but, a convivial soul, he favors sociability and, truth be told, I’d miss him, bored in home confinement, as much as he’d miss me. He really is my sidekick – my Sancho Panza, Sam Weller, Dr. Watson – that garrulous humorous unpredictable devoted chum who humanizes an obsessed even crack-brained protagonist.

Fetching the prescription – which was ready – wouldn’t take a minute. Yes, it was beastly hot, but I’d leave the car windows open and Henry, though he’d pant a little, wouldn’t mind – much – on balance – awaiting my prompt return.

I’d made my way to the front of the small line at the pharmacy counter. Can’t have been five minutes, longer than I’d hoped, but hey, what’s five minutes. Over the PA: “Will the owner of the black BMW please come to the front desk immediately.”

Our BMW is a stately deep blue, not funereal black, but parked outside the entrance, that could only be me. Horror. Had my brakes slipped, flames erupted? German engineers are supposed to prevent such calamities! We love our BMW, now six, seven years old and in dandy fettle – had it somehow betrayed our trust?

I bolted from the counter without my purchase. Two bulky more-than-middle-aged civilians flanked my car, with the occasional departing or arriving customer looking curiously on. Not much happens in our sleepy little town, which is how we like it. This – whatever it was – constituted a discussable event.

“Is this your car?” the male of the duo growled uncivilly.

I summoned my mettle to confess it was.

He pointed. “You haven’t left the windows open enough. This puppy…”

I swallowed hard. Henry! But no, he was panting a little, looking about him, glad as ever of attention.

“Do you know how hot it is!”

“I was just picking up a prescription. They don’t allow dogs. Wasn’t going to take a minute. Do this all the time.” I’m not sure all these excuses spewed but if they didn’t, they meant to. Then: “What gives you the authority…?” I hate it when I high-horse. Not a Saint Francis moment.

He was a retired cop, and no, he had no authority, but that poor dog, it can happen quickly – no need to indicate what “it” meant – if I opened the doors, they’d wait while I got my prescription.

Obliged to join the line again, I was shaking mad. Jane and I had been watching a video of Britten’s glorious opera, Peter Grimes. Grimes’ enraged refrain was singing in mind: “I don’t like interferers!”

Home, I Googled. “Dogs in hot cars can suffer from potentially fatal heat stroke in as little as 15 minutes.”

Blood drained, fingers tingled. Morality means doing right. Inadvertence is no excuse.