I encourage my dog go to the bathroom in the yards of neighbors I don't like. No matter what, I'm not going to stop.
And neither is my Doberman pinscher, Silas.
It doesn't take much to get on what I call the "doggie hit list," either. (Yes, for the purposes of this column, I had to slightly clean up the actual name of the list.)
To top the doggie hit list, all it usually takes is a person shouting, "You walking the dog, or is the dog walking you?" from their front porch as Silas drags me down the sidewalk like an afterthought. Then, I stew about the comment for a few days until it consumes me, fueling imaginary neighborhood murder plots.
'Fore you know it, you're on the list.
That means come nightfall, you'll be getting a visit from me and Silas the Poop Fairy.
Ah, that word — poop.
Quite a word, isn't it? Some of you laughed when you read it. Others are surprised I sunk that low. (My apologies to the prudes.) A few people, including my mother, stopped reading somewhere around the third paragraph. But whether anybody wants to admit it — I'll be the first; now it's your turn — poop is funny.
However, my cavalier attitude regarding dog droppings in Laura, Ohio, population 600 — where everybody knows everybody else — is no laughing matter.
In fact, it can lead to neighborhood confrontations faster than you can mutter, "Youwannagoforawalk?"
Like the other day, for example.
There's this creepy house at the edge of town shrouded in mystery — and let's be honest, isn't there always? And village inhabitants are quick to speculate just how many people dwell inside this home (though, technically, I think it qualifies as more of a hovel, actually). I've heard estimates that as many as 18 people live there among three generations.
This house made the doggie hit list because these people have four-million mongrel dogs in their fenced-in backyard that do nothing but incestuously breed with one another and bark — in that order — every single night. All night. Even on weekends.
The other night, Silas and I went on a very Pearl Harbor-esque mission (what, too soon?) to the Addams family mansion, at which time Silas got down to brass tacks in the front yard. I was quite unaware, however, that we had been spotted.
A beer-bellied man with a beard barged out of the house screaming at me like bees were attacking him.
I kindly and very politely informed this man — whom I took as the Uncle Fester of the bunch — that not only were my dog's intentions true, but in fact deliberate for the ruckus his 8 million shelties (in the short span of one paragraph, they all bred again) cause every single night.
It went down like a scene from "The Godfather," as my selective memory recalls.
"What are you doing?" Fester yelled.
"It's a Sicilian message," I said. "It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
Now, I'm sure there's someone out there shaking his head and gasping so loud at my behavior that their monocle just fell out. Whatever, I wish my life was so good that I had time to worry about such trivial things as bowel movements in the backyard.
It's not that I can't pick it up — I refuse to pick it up.
First, I'm a coward with no other forms of retaliation.
Second, I own a Doberman pinscher, so I can pretty much do whatever I want.
Third, I'm lazy, and I generally find the prospect of walking around with a sack of full of poop less than desirable.
But, oh, I'm the bad guy here because I don't pick up after my dog.
You know what? If society at large demands I pick up anyone's or anything's poop, it's not going to be my dog's.
It's going to be my own.
And who cleans up the messes you make? You ever pick up the remains from your trip to the bathroom? Of course not, you hypocrite! You flush, and you must think God comes down and uses a pooper scooper in your septic tank? You think you flush, and it just disappears like a David Copperfield magic trick?
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take Silas out for our nightly walk around town. By the time we get back, I'm sure he'll be pooped out.
To contact Will E Sanders, visit his website at www.willesanders.com or send him an e-mail at wille@willesanders.com. To find out more about Will E Sanders and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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