"Hey, I MADE that."

There’s nothing like carrying your dog’s poop in a plastic bag while you are walking to make one feel like an idiot. As I pass by school kids, crossing guards and other pedestrians, I try to hide the presence of the little fecal purse by being very animated. Perhaps this will divert attention from the little green bag dangling by my side as if it’s a parasitic twin. Olive prances ahead, head held high as if to proclaim, “Where for art my bag of crappeth? Being carried by my loyal subject of course!” As our walk continues, while Olive has her medium-sized brown nose criss-crossing the terrain like a tiny hovercraft, my eyes criss-cross streets lined with Victorian homes, searching desperately for a garbage can on the sidewalk or one that’s accessible to me without being arrested for trespassing. “Cripes. Garbage Day was yesterday. I’m going to have to carry this thing for miles.” Most of the cans are forest green, so they blend into the surroundings. And then, there are the new “charity cans,” bright, Barbie-pink trash cans that support breast cancer. I already donate to a number of cancer charities, but when I see these cans I think. “My God, I’d donate $1,000 just not to have this eyesore in front of my house.” The other morning, I looked out the kitchen window and saw what I thought was a person down the street, just standing idly in front of a neighbor’s driveway like a buoy. “That’s weird,” I thought. Until I take out my binoculars and confirm that it’s not a person. It’s one of these ridiculous garbage cans. Really, isn’t the world we live in today noisy enough without added “visual noise” like this? Olive and I live in a fairly rural area and these pink cans stand at attention at the end of driveways like giant erasers visible from hundreds of feet away. Can you imagine what they’d look like in urban areas? By now, I’m so tired of carrying the turd tote, I feel like just flinging it into the air like it’s a skeet target. And all of a sudden, a nasty-looking trash can, one whose lid looks like it has been seriously nibbled away by squirrel-beavers, stands before me on the sidewalk in front of a home that is either (sadly) occupied by very old people or a band of drugstore cowboys. The house is in grave disrepair. Another few years and it looks like it will have to be condemned. Whomever lives here is neither going to notice or care that I’ve dropped a bag of dogshit into their garbage can. I use just my pinky to gingerly open the rodent-bitten lid, toss the bag in, and gag momentarily before letting the lid drop. Olive just watches. She looks up at me as though I’ve just given away her left kidney. “Don’t worry Olive, you’ll make more.”