Don't Blame the Dog

An Open Letter to the Individual Who Left a Small Carton of Fresh Dog Poop on My Garden Bench on Easter Sunday:

Dear Sir/Madam/Sub-Species:

You are an asshole.

Sunday was such a sunny and pleasant Easter morning that we took to the out of doors to capture some commemorative family photos under the shade of a flowering tree in our front yard.  Under this colorful tree in full bloom, the tulips were peaking and our lawn was at its annual greenest.  What could be nicer than some candid shots of my three beautiful children in their Easter finest sitting together on our weathered wooden bench nestled in this suburban garden? 

 

The anticipatory joy of this Easter tradition was shattered by the discovery of your little box on our bench.  I was suspicious when I observed the overgrown black flies buzzing about in a fecal frenzy, and upon closer inspection, my deepest fears were confirmed.  “Those aren’t sticky buns”, I thought as I read the label on the box.  That’s a trick to throw me off the scent.  “This is unmistakably dog shit.”

The joyous Christian celebration of Christ’s victory over sin and death no longer filled our hearts and minds that morning because our eyes and noses were overwhelmed instead with the image and odor of something dead, something so disgusting that even an animal felt must be expelled and buried.  Our spirits were crushed.  Once the smell and visual memory of that disguised box of doodoo is seared into your brain, not even the power of the Risen Lord can cast that demon out of your consciousness.  In a word – yuck.

We can only assume that it is you who packaged these brown torpedoes as a way of satisfying your own sick predilections.  While it is plausible that a particularly fastidious pooch, like a Jack Russell perhaps, might have learned to make his aromatic deposits neatly into a 3” by 4” by 4” carton, it is unlikely that said beast would have the necessary skills to lift that box onto the bench for all to see and smell.  Only a human, and I use that term loosely in your case, would have the proper motor skills and the utter lack of common decency required for this task. 

I would like to think that your original intentions were noble.  I would like to believe that you carefully scooped the steamy load off of my lawn so that we would not accidentally step into it and unknowingly track the dog excrement through our home.  I would like to think that you intended to return to the scene of your crime to properly dispose of your pet’s output at a later time, but en route you were struck by a car or a bus, or fell into an open manhole and were trapped in a stew of raw sewage, and only this unfortunate and unforeseen event prevented you from fulfilling your moral and legal duty (no pun intended) to clean up the mess.

I would like to think these things but I cannot.  Days later, my sense memory stills causes me to quiver and wretch from thoughts of your thoughtlessness.  The sight and the smell of your unwelcome housewarming gift haunt me still.

Yes, I have personal deep seeded issues with dog poop, but that isn’t what really upset me.  Your act of laziness has ruined the lives of children.  My three have been raised holding onto the slight glimmer of hope that one day I would soften my objection to owning a dog just enough to allow them to steamroll their mother into bringing one home.  Those hopes were finally terminated by the discovery of that rotting pile in a sticky bun box on the splintered planks of our garden bench.  When my innocent little cherubs heard my guttural gag reflex throttle into full gear, they knew that the hope of one day being pet owners was deader than a load of shit on a park bench.  They knew that even the possibility of another fish was wafting away from them on the gentle breeze like the awful stench of hours old domesticated crap.  Three dreams died on Easter, all because you couldn’t carry a plastic bag with you on Rover’s daily walk.  I hope you’re happy.

Someday I will find you, and when I do, you will pay, and not with some meaningless community fine or public shaming ritual.  No.  I will stalk you.  I will don my scariest Gordon’s Fisherman’s rain slicker and vinyl bucket hat, and wait for a dark and stormy night.  Then I will sneak up from behind you with an oversized fish hook in one hand and a sack of canine compost in the other.  As I toss the freshly minted bag of shit towards your guilty face, the last word you hear before the splatter of impact will be mine:

“I know what you did last Easter.”

Sleep tight, dog walker.  To paraphrase my good friend Norm Peterson, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and you’re wearing milk bone underwear.”  Time is short and I am patient.

Not to put too fine a point on it but you are an asshole.

Kind regards,

Your Worst Neighbor Nightmare