We chatted for a bit and she made to leave. Then she turned back. “Hey, are you having trouble with…”
She looked behind her. She leaned in towards me. She lowered her voice. “…
dog doo on your lawn?”
“Oh, yeah. All the time.”
“Any idea whose it is?”
“I have my suspicions.” Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a Great Dane isn’t leaving those raisins in my yard.
She nodded down the street, towards the house where a couple of Shih Tzus live. “There?”
“That’s my guess.”
“That’s so rude,” she said. “We pick up our own dogs’ doo. Why do we have to pick up after her dogs, too?”
“It’s disgusting,” I said, “especially when I find it in my perennial bed.”
“What are we going to do, put a sign up?”
I laughed. There’s a house not far from ours. In the flowerbed, the owners planted a sign: An outline of a squatting dog with the word: NO in bright red. “I’ve been tempted to put a bag of our dog’s doo on her front porch. That’ll get her attention.” Labs, obviously, produce more than raisins.
“Maybe we could wrap up her dogs’ doo like a present and put it on the front porch with a note: I believe this belongs to you.”
We giggled, enjoying making plans for something we knew we’d never do.
“We’ve got to get out sometime,” she said, taking her leave again.
"Yes.” But while she wants to get out
to—to a movie, to the mall, to dinner—I want to get out
of. I want to get out of the suburbs.
Because it’s hard to contemplate life when you’re picking up after the neighbor’s dog.
* * *
Last night, I handed my husband my must-have list. At the top was listed
barn. A barn to house a goat, a cow, chickens, a horse and maybe a pig or two. And then I had to laugh at myself: Cows and chickens and horses made a lot of doo, a lot more than the Shih Tzus at the end of the street.
But my husband didn’t notice. “What’s this?” He pointed to the second item on my list:
Composting toilets. He looked up. “Are you kidding me?”
“We could at least learn about it…”
But he’d stopped listening because he’d gone on to number three. “
Straw bale house?”
“No, it’s not…”
“I’m not living surrounded by straw.”
I tried the name-dropping tactic, the same one I’d used successfully with the
dental hygienist the other day. “One of the three little pigs built a house of straw.”
But my plan backfired. “My point exactly. One stiff wind and it’s all over.”
“You cover the straw,” I told my husband. “With stucco or wood.” I brought up a picture on the internet. “Think about it at least.”
He squinted at the screen. “All right. I’m willing to learn more.”
I smiled. Land and barn. We were agreed. And perhaps a house of straw.
But the composting toilets?
I really don’t think that’s gonna’ happen.
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