Saturday, July 13, 2013

What? A Load of Shit?

     It occurs to me that my children may need a primer course in the definition of poop. You'd think this would be one of their strong suits--between guy jokes and a girl with a puppy, but sadly it is not. 

     As I was collecting nuggets of wisdom from the dog run just a while ago, I envisioned how this treatise might go: A PowerPoint presentation perhaps, but with lousy production values, no color, and the obligatory 1950s voice-over dude. The big white-lettered title banner would read: THIS IS POOP. And though there would be eye-rolling and more sighing than must come from the public gallery in the House of Representatives these days, my offspring would not be surprised at this tactic. I am, after all, the mom who just this week wrote out the grocery list on a two-foot by three-foot dry erase board before announcing, board in hand: "Okay, who's going with me?" (I then snapped a picture of the list with my phone, leaving the board in the kitchen. I do have to live in this town, after all.)

     When a person of let's say teenaged years is asked to clean up the dog run or, in another widely available translation, pick up all the dog poop in said run, one, let's say of the half-century persuasion might expect to walk around the corner of the house and find no poop. This is false logic because there will be poop. We have only to ask ourselves why.

     Some queries I developed: Have cop shows taught you about the "Statute of Limitations" after which a thing is simply no longer of import. After poop ceases to smell or if it disintegrates is it no longer poop? Have the dogs become masters of camouflage? Are they "laying the rails" as it were in such a fashion as to chameleon-ize their means of communication? Am I ignoring the slant of light and asking this job be done at the wrong angle, at the wrong time of day? Or are my children simply incapable of concentrating for the 45 minutes it takes to complete the task? All troubling but I dare say not thought-provoking enough to launch a full-scale investigation.

     My kids might simply not care enough or take the matter seriously enough to do it well. Remember that "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode where Ray knew that if he did a thing badly enough he'd never be asked to do it again? I think that's what happens sometimes with teenaged people...and husbands, but that's another story. And as I collected the artifacts of meals come and gone a good six months ago now at least, I contemplated many things, one of which I can repeat to you here. I have really got to get husband to show the kids how to use the doggie septic we installed last summer and have yet to use. Yes, we have a doggie septic system. Yes, they make doggie septic systems. And yes, we are some of those people who get things and then FORget them. I do not want to learn this lesson because then I'll have to do it too, and I believe I have other things to do already. That's my takeaway from Ray's Sitcom Wisdom. (That, and the communion wafer substitute called "I Can't Believe It's Not Our Saviour" which just cracks me up no end. Oh, and Ray's dad's "What contest in Hell did I win?" when Ray's mom insists that she is a trophy wife.)

     I like to picture myself on a beach whenever it comes my time to pick up the poo. But I love irony. And I do take a turn because it's a big job plus my dad always taught me never to ask an employee to do something you wouldn't do. Every now and again, even as a grocery store manager, he would go to the back room and clean the toilet. I can't exactly preach good Union Values and not instill them in my children through my own practice. Keeps down the insurrections as well. And today I wanted it done properly because I care about my neighbors. Right now one of them has a house on the market, this is the first weekend of their listing, it's been near or past 90 degrees for days, you get the picture (in all its scratch-and-sniff glory.)

     So, lads and lassies (and Lassies), This Is Poo: It can be any color from black to brown to grey to yellow to green, it can be almost any shape from a tidbit to a tart to a loaf to a full-on pie (deep dish), it can be warm or cold, hard or soft, smelly or without smell, it can roll or lie very still, it can become the exact same color as its surroundings, it can hide under grass and pine cones and rocks, it can shape-shift, disappear then reappear, in short, this is some pretty magical shit you're being trusted to care for. Just go to your happy place, the place where, yes, you will find enough soap in all of the world to be able to eat lunch in a few hours, and no, you will not feel the need to sniff your fingers before you do so. (This is where you remind them to take the baggie, plastic bag, or disposable gloves outside with them--or all three if they are Those Kind of Kids.)

     And if the shit really hits the fan, just remind them of the explosive times they gave you a few years back. Talk about some indistinguishable shit! If they knew that what they were doing then was pooping, then they are eminently qualified to be dog poop picker-uppers. No arguing. No discussion. Case (and Diaper Genie) closed!

     

     

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