There was a day, not so long ago, when I found myself walking
beside the row of commercial outlets next to my apartment building. I just had
dinner, chicken fajitas with a side of salsa, and was pretty content with the
world. This cute little boy with a gorgeous father (whose shirt said that he
was a jiujitsu master) was distracting me. He was making weird faces, so I made
weird faces back.
Then
it happened. A soft, squishy sound.
I
just stepped on dog poop.
And good lord, not even the hard, normal kind. It was watery and
gross and well, just plain yucky. There was so much of it that my flip flops
were rendered incapable of shielding my foot. I got crap on some toes.
I wanted to shoot the goddamn bastard who was walking his
goddamn dog with an obviously upset goddamn stomach and who wasn’t civilized
enough to bring a goddamn bag to pick up his own goddamn dog’s crap.
So I walked back up to my apartment and stopped by the parking
area to wash some of the stuff off, fantasizing about ways I could get back at
my obviously irresponsible neighbors.
There ought to be a law.
One fantasy involved me picking up the dogshit, heading to the
perpetrator’s apartment, knocking on the door, and then saying, as soon as he
(or she) opens the door, “Hey neighbor, I just realized you dropped something.
Here’s your shit back.” Then I’ll throw it at him.
(I can set it on fire first for a more dramatic, theatrical
experience).
Something similar happened again a few weeks ago, when JP and I
stepped into our building elevator to head to work. This time a woman with a
jittery, nervous smile was wrangling with a small, restless and frustratingly
excitable dog, which was running all over the small space.
We didn’t mind them at first, and actually thought the whole
thing was adorable, up until the small dog decided he wanted to make the
elevator his own personal toilet, and started peeing all over the place.
Perhaps it was naïve of me to believe that the woman would take responsibility
for her dog’s, well, pee, but she instead just gave a quiet nervous laugh,
offered us a small smile, and stepped out of the elevator as soon as she
reached her floor. I wanted to throttle her.
We ended up going to work slightly smelling of dog piss.
I didn’t know someone had to actually publicly say this, but
guys and girls, here’s the cardinal rule of pet-ownership: pick up after your pets. If you think that’s
gross, or you can’t handle the responsibility, then don’t get a pet in the
first place. You’re just giving all pet owners a bad name. And you’re making us
non-pet owners want to strangle you.
