That's My Bix!

I have been plagued with poopers this month.

So, somewhere in my neighborhood, there lives a crazy lady with a pet beagle. She’s crazy. I mean it. Crazy. Once, I was outside talking to Eric (my new brother-in-law!) and she was walking down the middle of all the front yards. Now, none of the houses on my street have sidewalks, but most people just walk in the street because it’s a pretty quiet street that’s only three blocks long. Crazy lady? She was tromping down the lawns halfway between the road and the street, with her beagle doing its AAARROOO ARROOOO and pulling at the end of her leash. She was being dragged along and was talking on her cell phone, so we didn’t say anything, but as she passed us, we couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s ass was hanging out. No, not “you wear your pants too low and I see a whale tale” but rather, her sweatpants had fallen down below her ass cheeks and she either hadn’t noticed the cool breeze on her behind or she didn’t want to stop talking on her cell phone long enough to hike up her drawers.

Ever since Crazy Beagle Lady: The Assening, I’ve been giving her the side eye. I mean, she never carries a bag, and second, she always tromps across the yards. How can that not be suspect, I ask you. Also, her beagle takes a SPECIAL INTEREST in our yard. I’m not surprised about this: not only do we live on the corner, we have a fire hydrant, so it is the preferred pee spot for many a neighborhood dog. What’s more, it is the pug’s own personal lavatory, so it’s probably chock full of interesting smells.

So when Avi discovered Stranger Danger poops in the yard, my spidey sense screamed Crazy Beagle Lady. I mean, come on, right?

Esteban told me that I was being unfair to the neighborhood eccentrics and that in general, I’m too quick to judge. This is absolutely true. I’m all about the judging. But it did not change the fact that the Stranger Dangers were of the size and consistency of a beagle perpetrator.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m now dog poop CSI. Gladys Kravitz had nothing on me, baby.

Then, a week or so ago, I was working in my office and heard the very unique AAAAARRRROOOO coming. I watched Crazy Beagle Lady walk through our side yard, letting her beagle do the very obvious “I’m going to poop” sniff. Aha! I thought. I will catch the dirty pooper in the act.

This is where it becomes clear that I’ve had a mental breakdown — I got up from my desk and I went from window to window, tracking her until they disappeared behind our garage. I decided I was being insane, so I was just about to sit down when they reappeared in our front yard, right in front of the open screen door. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to watch the action unfold from the hallway, would it? No, not at all, said the Greek chorus inside my head, forsooth she is the stealth pooper.

I waited to see if my suspicions were correct, and sure enough, that beagle started the hunched posture that indicates that poop is imminent. She stood there, empty-handed, let the dog finish poop-walking (apparently it was a walking pooper, a technique favored for maximum poop dispersement) and then started off down the street. See? I was fucking right! VINDICATED!

“Crazy Beagle Lady just let her dog shit in our yard and didn’t pick it up!” I tattled to Esteban, who always keeps his windows drawn in his badger cave office.

“Did you stop her?” He asked, incredulous.

“No?” I hadn’t realized it was even an option. I was so full of self-righteous excitement that I had basically planned on stewing in my justified side eye for the entire afternoon. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a confrontation. I hate confrontation! I’d much rather just cultivate a simmering dislike from afar.

“Go tell her to pick it up!” he said, and turned back to his computer. Easy for him to say. He talks to our neighbors. I wouldn’t even know their names if he didn’t tell me what they were. They would all just be called things like Hippy Tribe and Racist Old Creeper and The Clampets.

Before I could chicken out, I went to the front door and shouted “Hey, are you going to pick that up?”

She stopped, shocked that anyone was home during the day. “Oh, hi. I always forget to bring a bag, so I memorize where we stop and then come back later.” Sure you do. Because I’ve worked at home for 18 months and I’ve never once seen Crazy Beagle Lady without her dog or holding a poop bag.

“I’ll give you a bag.”

“No, it’s ok. I live just over there. I can come back.”

“Let me give you a few bags so you don’t have to come back.” Translation: please never come back.

I gave her a bunch of plastic grocery bags from our ancient stash (seriously, we’ve been using cloth bags for years and we still can’t get through our cache of plastic bags. I think they’re multiplying) and she made an awkward attempt at picking up after her dog. Her distaste and general ineptness for the task were betraying her that this was not standard operating procedure.

After she left, I realized that I had just signed us up for guaranteed Stranger Danger beagle poops from this point forward. Then I pushed it out of my mind as further damning of humanity, which I really have to stop doing. I should mention that I’m absolutely fine with people letting their dogs poop in our yard. Poop happens. Just pick the shit up. That’s all I ask. Pick up after your dog, because they don’t have thumbs and you do.

The next day, I was dropping Avi off at her doggy daycare.

(For some reason, the doggy daycare dropoff always irritates me. Something about the way people park their cars that sets it off. There’s an overhang drive through and you can fit four cars by the door, or as few as one car if they centered it under the canopy and then left their freaking driver door open when they go into the building (which has happened more times than I care to think about). When it rains, it’s especially bad, as people park their car square under the canopy, basically ensuring that the next person has to park completely out in the rain, because god forbid the front of their car gets wet or they leave space so that people can get to the door without walking in the rain. And yes, this is why I need to stop damning humanity, because shit like this makes me angry.)

So, someone had parked their car in an inconsiderate manner and was walking her poodle into the doors. It was a nice day, though, so I  pushed back my inner hatred monologue and got Avi from her car seat in the back (yes, I know how ridiculous we are) and brought her into the first set of doors. The lady with the poodle was still standing there, coaxing her dog into the doors. This is not unusual, since the daycare is also a grooming place and sometimes dogs are having none of it. Then the smell hit me: the dog was shitting on the carpeting in the vestibule while she held the door open. You guys, she was literally a foot from the outside. Anyone who has a dog should have an inkling that their dog is about to take a dump, or at very least, react in a timely manner by scooping the dog up and taking the dog outside to finish. Not this lady. She stood there, saying “Come on” to the dog while it pinched off a loaf on the rug in the vestibule. Avi, of course, was all “What the hell is going on? I need to sniff this immediately, as this seems to be alien poop” as dogs tend to do.

I pulled my dog back and tried to step around the steaming pile, but the lady sees this and pulls her dog through the second doors into the daycare, letting the door she had been holding start to swing closed.

Over the pile of shit on the carpet.

It started to draw a big smear arc of fresh dog offal across the floor. I caught it and then was trapped there, holding the shit-covered door in one hand and trying to keep my dog from inspecting the crime scene. Meanwhile, the lady went into the daycare and instead of asking for some paper towel or apologizing to the poor, underpaid daycare folks, she just stood there, talking to her dog, leaving the pile of her dog’s crap in the middle of the entryway.

I am not making that up.

I am really trying not to be a bad person inside my head, but I’m pretty sure that things like this are how super villains are created. This might just be my origin story. God help asshole pet owners when I come up with my plan for world domination because you know that they are going to be the first up against the wall.

Then, just this morning, as I was taking our our recycling, Crazy Beagle Lady was walking her dog. She waved and me and I thought “Oh come on, let’s not turn this into a wacky friendship with the amusing story we will tell our friends at cocktail parties, because the friends will be imaginary and the cocktails will be our hands cupped around air that we will occasionally bring to our mouths as if to sip.” I smiled an uptight, white lady smile and waved. She waved back and continued on her way.

Then just an hour ago, I heard the telltale sound of a beagle walking down the street. I looked up. This time it was her friends walking the dog, friends who are similarly crazy and disheveled and similarly tromp across the lawns far closer to the houses than most prudent people would walk. I sighed and watched them watch the beagle shit in our side yard and then they walked away. I went to the front door and said “Hi, could you please pick up after that dog?”

And they shouted back something unintelligible and then kept walking.

I shouted “Do you need a bag? I can get you a bag!”

They shouted back something even more unintelligible and continued walking like total fuckers.

So…yeah. Come on down to Casa Bix, as it is now Ground Zero for poop free for all.

Prediction: The dog days of August will soon have a new meaning.