Nobody looks cool picking up dog shit. Whether its in your own yard or on a walk, though, it’s something that’s got to be done.

I just didn’t realize it could be weaponized.

My own dog is a tall horse-like greyhound mix named Pasha and while she and I are normally good neighbors, there was, I will admit, one particularly boozy Christmas season I may have forgotten to pick up some bags I left behind. It was then that I learned how small my neighborhood really is. One morning, on awakening, I found the two bags I had forgotten deposited on my driveway.

I stood there for a long moment, eyes shifting from side-to-side, slowly piecing together what this meant as I let out a prolonged, “Wait a minute.” After that, though, I decided not to pursue whoever had gone to the trouble of doing this. Message received.

This issue of my forgetfulness seemed to find a solution when I found myself in the yard of a neighbor I had never met, picking up after Pasha. I do this quickly as there are a few of my neighbor’s that are very…protective of their property rights. These individuals, usually older, paler and maler, relish chastising anyone they imagine imperiling the sanctity of their lawn.

Buried as we are in the early 21^st century, you never know how aggressive or armed these homeowners might be. So when a neighbor I’ve never met before comes out as Pasha is shitting on their lawn, my shields go up. It might be a coincidence that they pop out just as my dog is squatting down, but it feels unlikely. And, well, no one looks cool picking up dog shit.

On one occasion though, Pasha was doing her business, mere feet from a garbage can, when a woman stepped out from the backyard. Mid-scoop, I was about to apologize, but she interrupted me with a warm smile and a hello.

I replied with a somewhat defensive, “Hello.” I studied her dark hair and middle-aged face behind her round, tortoise shell glasses, looking for any signs of hostility. To my surprise, I didn’t find any. Instead, she bent at the waist, smiling warmly at Pasha, who had just finished fertilizing her lawn, and said, “Who’s this?”

“This is Pasha.” I paused, still taken back by the friendliness, then added, “Say hello Pasha.” Pasha may be a killer of squirrels, foxes, frogs, or anything she deems edible, but she is also a lover of dogs, puppies, adults and children (in that order). As I knew she would, at the sight of a friendly face she sat on her back haunches and waved her front paws in the air as greeting. I know you can’t see this, but take my word for it, it’s adorable.

The woman cooed her appreciation at Pasha’s showmanship and then stood straight to speak to me, asking the usual neighborly questions: Did we live around here? Was Pasha a boy or girl? The usual kind of pleasantries. While I’m not always the most social person, this kind of friendliness beats the hell out of the angry stink from some neighbors, so I smiled and played along. Eventually, we introduced ourselves, me giving my name and she introducing herself as Melissa.

To my surprise, Melissa ended the conversation by patting the top of her garbage can and saying, “Well, if you want to drop that bag in here, you’re welcome to.”

“Really?” I didn’t hide my surprise. If some people were protective of their lawns, almost all of them were of their garbage cans. And who can blame them? A handful of shit, bag or no, sitting in a container that’s baking in the Southern sun puts off a mighty odor.

“Absolutely,” came the smiling and earnest reply. I thanked her and explained I was particularly grateful as her house was about half-way through our walk.

“That’s good to hear,” she said, followed by a goodbye. Then she disappeared back behind her fence.

Having a spot to drop off Pasha’s sometime prodigious loads was every bit the boon I thought it would be. It was, in fact, so handy that whatever residual guilt I may have felt at dropping bags into Melissa’s garbage can was swallowed by relief.

This continued until one day I was dropping a bag into the very same can when a man with eyes as angry as his greying buzzcut stormed out of the house. Not much taller or wider than me, his pugnaciousness was still intimidating, causing Pasha to hide behind my knees. With no other introduction, he yelled, “What are you doing?!”

All of my social anxiety about neighbors, dog shit, and lawns rushed blood to my face, sputtering my reply. This only made the man angrier and more accusatory, reiterating his question until I got out, “Melissa told me I could use her garbage can.”

To which the man befuddlingly replied, “Who the hell is Melissa?”

I blinked and stuttered more until I managed, “The woman who lives here.”

“There’s no one named Melissa in my house!”

“Wait, what?” Keeping a grip on Pasha’s leash, I raised both of my hands as if I were under arrest. “Melissa? About my height, dark hair, glasses?”

The man reddened brightly around the edge’s of his short, angry hair. “What nonsense are you uttering, boy? I told you, no one named Melissa lives here.”

I’ve always been short, and I suppose it was the utterance of “boy” that hit my small-man complex. The rush of blood turned from embarrassment into something that threatened to have us both land on an episode of Cops. I straightened up and took my sunglasses off so Buzzcut could see the crow’s feet around my eyes, and asked him directly, “Do I look like a child to you?”

Whatever prepared script Buzzcut had in his head must not have accounted for this question as he stopped short, his latest forthcoming accusation stuck in his perplexity, instead coming out as a, “What?”

I stepped closer. “I’m not tall, and I realize sometimes this makes people think that I’m younger than I am. So I thought you’d like to know that I am a not a child. And I would appreciate it if you would stop talking to me as if I was one.”

It was Buzzcut’s turn to stutter, and I used that to continue with, “I am an adult. I understand the concept of property rights. And I apologize for any disrespect, but I’m telling you that a woman named Melissa told me I could throw my dog bags out in this trashcan.”

Finding his anger again, he transferred it to his arms, flailing at the offended garbage can. “A bag or two is one thing, but this is ridiculous!”

“What do you mean?”

In response, Buzzcut threw open the can with enough force that the momentum from the hinged lid caused it to fall over. Out of it tumbled a terrible odor and dozens of dog shit bags. It was a weirdly impressive amount, a pile of poo prodigious enough that it might have come from a baby elephant, each bunch of turds separated, but crushed together under their weight and the North Carolina heat and humidity.

I could only marvel before turning back to Buzzcut who, showman-like, had his hands extended to the colossal pile. I stared at it for a long moment before responding, “How much do you think my dog shits?”

“What?”

Buzzcut, I decided, was about as bright as he was calm, so I walked him through it. “Your trash gets picked up once a week, just like everyone else’s, right?” He nodded. “So do you think this dog,” I indicated the rather svelte Pasha, who was not emerging from behind my knees, “could produce that much shit in one week?” Feeling my own indignation begin to emerge from being yelled at in public, I added, “And that I dumped all of it in your trashcan?”

Buzzcut turned back to the pile he had just dumped onto his own lawn. “Well, no, I suppose not.” He began to chew on his lower lip.

When nothing emerged from this mental exercise of mastication, I noted the variety of pouches in the pile. They were all plastic, guaranteeing their longevity in whatever landfill they ended up in, but they were of different colors and sizes, some designed for purpose, others reused from some other purpose. “It looks like everyone who walks their dog by here has been dropping off in your can.”

The former anger of the man moved to pathos with the same speed that he’d come out of his house. “Why would people do that?”

I stared at him, marveling at how he went from railing at me to expecting my sympathy. I considered this before asking, “You shout at a lot of your neighbors?”

The angry red that had dominated Buzzcut’s face faded to a slightly different shade. “Well, I wouldn’t say a lot.”

The way his sentence trailed off made me wonder about the stated magnitude, but instead I asked, “Any of them named Melissa?”

“No,” he answered firmly, before reconsidering and saying, “I don’t think so.”

I watched him continue to chew his lip. I could see him almost making a connection, but that baked in the sun along with the dog shit until I couldn’t stand the smell. “Well, it sounds like you may have hurt someone’s feelings.” Despite everything, I reached down and picked up the cleanest bag I could see, pretty sure it was the one I just dropped in. “Or maybe a lot of people.”

Buzzcut uttered something, but I just gestured for Pasha to head for home. I waved my own bag at the gigantic pile of shit. “Good luck with that.” Buzzcut stood there, his anger drained by the knowledge that I wasn’t his perpetrator, his mouth hanging open enough to catch flies from the dung heap in front of him.

I never did figure out who Melissa was, or if that was her real name. I imagined she might be Buzzcut’s in-law or family member and he was just too self-involved to recognize the description of her and didn’t have the imagination to think she might give me a fake name. Truth be told, I don’t see lots of my neighbors, so it’s possible she lives right around the corner and I’ve just never met her.

If that’s the case, I have an idea of who might have brought my own forgotten bags to my driveway. Running into Buzzcut made me glad I listened to that warning.

See the author’s published work here.

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