Day 7: How much poop could a poop scooper scoop

What would you guess takes up a significant amount of my time these days? Driving? Yes, but no. Drinking wine? Yes, but no. Facebook scrolling? Yes, but no. Sex? Do you even know me? Netflix and chill by myself with a glass of wine? Not in November because I'm doing this every night. Love you, Schitt's Creek. (That was a clue.) If you guessed poop-related activities, then DING DING DING, you win a ham sandwich. Poop is the answer. I spend a lot of time on poop these days.

You might ask why I spend so much time on poop. Let me tell you: Dogs poop a lot. Really a lot. I have 2 dogs and somehow they break the laws of physics by producing more poop than the volume of kibble they eat. I can clean my whole tiny yard one day and go out the next day to find anywhere from six to eight fresh poops. If I only clean my yard once a week on trash day, that's 42 to 56 poops to pick up. That's like 30 pounds of poop. From. Two. Dogs.


For all that work, a person needs the right tool. I thought I'd found the perfect poop collector when I only had one dog. Cleverly named the Doody Digger Pooper Scooper*, this sexy bad boy picks up the poop and deposits it straight into a bag strapped onto the other end. I was pretty happy with my purchase until I showed it to my son Drake.

Drake: Have you flipped poop into your face yet?

Me: No! Of course I haven't flipped poop into my face! Why would I do that?

Drake: If you haven't yet, you will. It's designed to flip poop into your face. (His superpower is seeing the potential in all situations.)

Me: I'm not going to flip poop in my own face. You're just trying to make me feel like shit about my wonderful new poop scooper. You're jealous of my Doody Digger.

Drake [patiently]: Mom. Look at how it's designed. You scoop the poop up with that big spoon and then you swing it up into the air so gravity will force it down the tube into the bag. You fling it toward. Your. Face. You're going to hit yourself in the face with dog poop. It's inevitable.

Me: Damn it, Drake. Now that you said that you know I will throw dog poop in my own face! It will be all your fault.

Drake: Don't say I didn't warn you. Try to get a video if you can.

Me: Shut up. I'll never tell you if it happens. Never. My lips are sealed!

Drake. That's probably a good plan. Because poop. In your face. Wait for it.


Me: Shut up. You don't know everything.

I know what you're thinking and I'm not telling. OK, I will admit to a couple of close calls. Not only that, the Doody Digger can't handle anything close to 42 poops. I'd have to change the bag at least three times. Too much work. I use a Four Paws Wire Rake Scooper for Grass. It works all right. Nothing can make scooping that much poop a pleasant job. My yard is basically just a dog toilet. I'm resigned.

But wait! That's not all the poop I scoop. I also scoop cat poop. And now that I have two cats, I scoop twice as much poop. And I have twice as much litter and twice as many litter boxes.

The quandary with litter boxes -- other than the obvious question of why we allow cats to do their dirty business in plastic bins in our homes in the first place -- is where to put the icky litter. I try to use reusable bags at the store whenever possible, so I don't have a large collection of plastic bags from stores these days. It seems ridiculous to buy plastic bags to put doo doo clumps in when I'm avoiding them otherwise. I finally invested $15 in this plastic collection bucket called a Litter Genie that holds about a week's worth of cat litter clumps. And then I found some biodegradable bags to go in it, so I felt better about myself and how I'm saving the planet. (If anybody thought OK, Boomer, go fuck yourself.)

Which just makes you wonder: How much poop goes into our landfills every year? I mean, if my four animals contribute 30 pounds a day (possibly a slight exaggeration), what are all the rest of you contributing? I know all of you have animals and they all shit, although probably not as much as mine do. Nevertheless, that's a lot of shit, Janet! I'd love to compost it, but so far I haven't found a viable solution that doesn't involve a giant hole in my yard and buckets of saw dust. And piles of rotting shit.

(Confession time. For years the houses on both side of me were empty and the yards completely overgrown with waist-high weeds. I would often fling the poop over which ever fence was closer. I figured if anybody tried to come over the fence from either of those yards, he'd have to go through a poop minefield first. Now I have neighbors in those houses so I keep my dog poop to myself. I digress.)

And one more thing. All of them hate a clean .... area. Within 30 seconds after I've cleaned up all the poop in the yard and taken the bag to the dumpster and locked up the garage, one or both of the dogs will give me a guilty look, spin in tight circles until the proper momentum is reached, and drop a soft steaming load on the grass. And I always yell, "What the fuck, dog! Why didn't you do that five minutes ago, you asshole? Do you think I enjoy picking up your poop? Work with me here, you overactive shit machine!" They don't care. They're not even sorry.

And then there's the cats. Same fucking thing! As soon as I scoop the litter and tie up the bag, at least one of them leaps into the clean litter and desecrates it right in front of me. Damn cats.

Oh, and let me decide to take a long, hot bath in my envy-inducing clawfoot tub. That's a sure-fire cat laxative right there. Of course I scoop the litter boxes, which are in the guest bath because there is no good place to put a cat toilet, before I even run the water to get rid of any potential unpleasant odors. Every. Single. Time. One or both of the cats will take a break from sitting and staring at me like they're watching a horror movie (see yesterday's post), sashay over to the litter box, and take a big stinky poop. And then scratch and scratch and scratch to cover that shit up, which only serves to remind me that cats are filthy and disgusting and insist on sleeping on the end of my bed.

As I write this Gandalph is giving his own butt a thorough tongue bath. Don't tell me animal mouths are cleaner than  .... well, anything. That's bullshit, which is one kind of shit I don't have to deal with.

I am not cut out for living with animals.

And as annoying as all of this is, it's nothing compared to what happens when I poop, but that's a post for another night. To be continued .....


* Nobody pays me to write this shit. I do it out of the goodness of my heart. You're welcome.

Day 21: Coralineisms #55

July 21, 2011

Today, in honor of my granddaughter Coraline's 5th birthday, I offer another episode of Coralineisms, words of wisdom from a --drum roll, please --- 5-year-old.

First though, I'll say that she had a pretty good birthday. We ate lunch at the market where I work sometimes, and she had a surprise play-date with her best friend Carlie. The most magical thing happened though when we stopped at a cupcake shop for cupcakes.

We've watched every episode of Cupcake Wars on Netflix. Which is to say, we got a little bit addicted for a few weeks. So for her birthday I wanted to take her to a real cupcake shop. She did get distracted by the cupcakes at Kroger, and we almost bought her special birthday cupcake there, but I persuaded her to wait and get one from a real cupcake store. 

Turns out it was the right decision. We got there and a photographer was doing a photo shoot. I never did ask why. But when they found out it was Coraline's birthday, and probably because she was dressed like a regular princess in a princess dress and cardboard tiara, they asked if the photographer could take some photos of her choosing a cupcake from the case. I was even asked to get in some of those, which I'm sure the photographer regretted. As photogenic as Coraline is, I'm the opposite. Thus the absence of photos of me on this here blog. I digress ...

So then the owner asked if she'd like to actually decorate some cupcakes herself! She brought out a plate of 3 cupcakes (just like round 2 of Cupcake Wars), a bag of frosting, 4 colors of sugar, sprinkle dots, and gummy bears, and she showed Coraline how to make a big frosting flower on the top of the cupcakes like a real professional cupcake baker. All the time the photographer was snapping photos and Coraline was posing her little princess butt off. 

Thank you, Miss Serendipity, for taking time out of your busy schedule to drop some magic right onto Coraline's birth day! It was so much fun! The owner of the shop even boxed up Coraline's cupcakes, plus all the extra colored sugar and the rest of the bag of icing, and sent them home with us. We still bought the 2 cupcakes we'd gone in there for, of course. I ate one of the cakes Coraline decorated, and it was one of the best cupcakes I've ever eaten. You all know I prefer the cookie, but the cupcakes at Twist Cupcakery are almost as good as a cookie. I will definitely be giving them more of my business.

On to the Coralineisms.

Speaking of food

Coraline: Here. Eat some of this soup I made. Eat a big bite. (Offers air soup.)

Me: OK. That was a huge bite.

Coraline: Yeah, that soup is called the soup of sadness.

Me: Soup of sadness? That was kind of mean, feeding me that.

Coraline: No, that wasn’t mean. It hardly has any carbs in it.

Stumped

Me: (raging about something that was probably stupid) I’m really quite at the end of my rope!

Coraline: And am I in the middle of my rope?

Nice Save

Me: I think these new blue glasses might make me look older. Do they?

Coraline: Yes. Yes, they do.

Me: Oh, no! I don’t want that. They really do? The last thing I need is a pair of glasses that make me look older.

Coraline: No. I mean … Oh, no. They just make you look smarter.

Me: A lot smarter?

Coraline: Oh, yes. A lot. A lot a lot.

Things I don't need to know

Coraline: Poops are brown and have little cracks in them, and they don’t taste good. That’s how you can tell it’s poop.

Me: How do you know they don’t taste good? Did you ever taste one? Wait. Just don’t ever taste one.

Coraline: No, but I can tell how they taste by the smell. The smell doesn’t taste good.

Me: Noted.

Oh, ye of little faith

Coraline: Did T Rexes really eat people?

Me: No, people didn’t exist when dinosaurs were alive. People came along something like 65 million years later, after they were long gone.

Coraline: Are you sure? How do you know?

Me: It’s a fact. I just know it’s true. Everybody knows. (Ok, that was a lie, but I simply can't explain those young earthers to her yet. Or maybe ever.)

Coraline: Does T Rex know it’s true?

Me: T Rex isn’t alive now. He can’t know.

Coraline: Then how can you be sure?

Me: Scientists.

Coraline: How do scientists know?

Me: Scientists have ways of telling how old bones are, and there are still some dinosaur bones left.

Coraline: Oh ….. Are scientists still alive?