I am up to my thumbs in poop.
And I am not talking about the fact that I change two babies’ smelly poopy diapers multiple times a day. No, I’m talking about a whole different pile of poo. Four of them, actually.
Last week, when I took my kids for a walk to the park, I was busily admiring the fall foliage when I rolled the stroller through a pile of doggie doo. A bit later, as I held my daughter’s hand while also steering the stroller across a street, I stepped in a different pile of doggie doo. A little after that, Jack, to avoid running into us, rode his bike into the grass – and through a third pile of doggie doo.
Um, hello? Anyone? There’s a city ordinance that requires you to pick up your doggie’s doo whenever the animal defecates on any property that isn’t yours. That includes the planting strip in front of your house, the sidewalk by the church, and the public park. (It’s called “public” for a reason – because it doesn’t belong to you.) And it’s not just illegal to leave Fido’s poop lying on the ground, it’s also unsanitary and just plain rude. Some poor mother of twins could step in it. Or roll her stroller through it. Or both.
But wait. This story’s not over.
When we got to the park, Jack and I needed to clean off his bike tire because he wanted to ride the bike through the play area, and I didn’t want him trailing dog poop where little kids might put it in their mouths. (I’m pretty low key about what my kids stick in their mouths, but I draw the line at fecal matter. Oh, and cigarette butts. I figure other parents probably have even firmer boundaries.)
We tried using sticks to get the poo out of the tire treads, with only marginal success. Then I had a brain wave: diaper wipes! I put the diaper bag on a nearby picnic table and pulled out our changing pad, where we keep the wipes. We used most of them to wipe the tire off, but I saved a few just in case I needed to change a poopy diaper before we got home. After Jack and I sanitized our hands with the alcohol gel I keep with the wipes, I rolled the changing pad up.
Unbeknownst to me, there was doggie doo on my changing pad. Some of it got on my thumb as I rolled up the pad.
No, I had not set the changing pad on the ground.
That’s right. Someone had put their little drop-kick Pekinese or Yorkie up on that table, let the blasted animal poop, and then not bothered to clean it up.
And now it was on my changing pad. And on my hand.
Lucky for me, I still had enough diaper wipes left to clean the dookie off my changing pad, my hand, and even the table.
Lucky for the dog-owners of Seattle, both the boys kept their poop to themselves till we got home. Otherwise I might have had to leave it on the ground.
Or maybe a table.
