A saturday story

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

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