My room at my parents' is in the basement. Our dog at the time, Perdy, was my best friend. At night I would hear her nails clicking on the kitchen linoleum and lay down at the top of the steps, her favorite place to lay.

She passed away shortly before her 10th birthday for unknown reasons (though I'm sure being overweight and poor diet had something to do with it..).

A few days after her passing I was up late one night on the computer (yes, on a school night ) and I heard her walk across the linoleum in the kitchen above and lay down and sigh at the top of the steps as she did so often when she was alive.

This happened every night for three or four days.

Years later after I got Charlie, out of the blue I will find myself calling him "Perdy". And I don't know why, they neither look anything alike, act alike, nor are their names even similar, but I will find myself calling him "Perdy" for no reason at all