TheBanyanTree: Saturday stories

[Laura Hicks]

As a veteran dog owner, I am always prepared for a random dog poop. I keep
poop bags in my jacket pockets, my wallet, my purse, and even in the car.

Of course, when I'm actually walking the dog, I'm nowhere near the car, my
purse and wallet are back at the house, and I'm wearing the other jacket,
the one without any poop bags in the pockets. So I always keep an eye out
for leaves. You just have to hope the poop is a nice firm one, with no
slime or goo, and gently scoop it up with a leaf, then throw it in the
nearest storm drain. I've even been known to pick it up bare handed (my
dogs are healthy, no worms or other parasites, that we know of) and flick
it into the drain, but I only resort to that if there are no leaves, and
the stupid dog manages to drop it onto the sidewalk.

Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com


On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 12:42 PM Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>
wrote:

> (Mo-om, Tobie started it!)
>
> Mostly my Saturdays are pretty normal: coffee, farmer’s market, clean the
> house, walk the dog. Last Saturday, though, one event stands out because it
> was something I’d never before done, not in my whole life. Exciting,
> right!? Never before! See, I was walking the dog—she doesn’t walk, she
> runs, so this has become my exercise regimen—and we’d been zigzagging
> around the big park near our home for twenty minutes, running from tree to
> tree, looking for squirrels and looking a bit deranged to anyone watching.
> It was very cold, and so we needed to cut the hunt short and get home. I’d
> realized at some point that I’d failed to bring a poop bag. I am very
> conscientious and always pick up her poop, even though sometimes I have to
> hunt hard for it—Tansy is a five pound streak of fur, tongue, and attitude
> in a teeny tiny puffer coat. But we’d been running around the park long
> enough that I figured I’d dodged a bullet on the poop front. As we walked
> home, however, she did decide to poop, and not just anywhere—she stooped to
> poop in the front yard of the woman with whom we’ve been doing some dog
> training. (“Dog training” is a euphemistic term for what has been going on
> with this cocky little Yorkie wind-up toy.)  Not only that, but the lights
> were on and the front curtains were open, and I imagined Miss Jillian was
> probably looking out her window, watching Tansy poop in her yard. No poop
> bag, as I mentioned, so I was mortified. I couldn’t just walk away.  I
> couldn’t. It’s a cowardly and unneighborly act to leave one’s poop in
> someone’s yard, especially if you are being observed, which I felt sure we
> were. I had to think, and I had to think quickly and this is what I came up
> with—I mimed the act of picking up dog poop. Pulling something out of my
> pocket in a balled up hand, my back angled to the window. Bending over to
> look for the (tiny, nearly non-existent) poop. Making the sweeping motion
> of picking up a turd, tying a bag, and quickly walking away.
>
> It wasn’t my best moment. When my friend Leanna came over that night and
> asked how my day had gone, I couldn’t resist telling her.  She laughed
> uproariously and so then, of course, we had to physically mime the act in
> the most dramatic way possible, including the old mime-describing-a-wall
> shtick. I mean, we were laughing hard.  When I realized this incident could
> be mined for humor, of course I told my mom the story the next day. She
> laughed even harder than Leanna. She, too, has a small dog that poops and
> could relate only too well to the mix of emotions I had experienced in the
> moment.
>
> And now I’m telling you, because in the end, it was damn funny, and
> because a more normal person might not have gone through with such a
> ridiculous charade, but I’ve never been accused of being normal.  And
> because that was the highlight of my Saturday.
>
> Julie
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
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