Making the best of a stinky situation

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/06/2018 (2992 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There comes a time in ever man’s life when he will hear the voice of reason telling him he has made a mess of his life and needs to take immediate action to clean things up.

For me, that time came on Sunday morning. Here’s what the voice said: “OHMYGAWD! WHAT THE (BAD WORD) HAVE YOU DONE? THERE’S POOP EVERYWHERE!”

For the record, the voice of reason belonged to my wife, and it turns out she was right.

This conversation took place moments after I’d returned inside after spending several moments in our backyard, randomly puttering around in my ratty blue bathrobe and flip-flops and chugging down the first cup of coffee of the morning.

When I turned around to face my wife, she fixed me with “The Look” — and all you guys who currently have spouses will know exactly what I mean — then pointed at my feet, which were still sporting the flip-flops I normally keep parked at the back door.

“You stepped in poop,” She Who Must Not be Named pointed out, and, tragically, a quick glance confirmed she was correct. “And you’ve left a trail of poopy footprints all the way down the hallway.”

Which is when I bravely looked down the hall and, to my horror, realized there were, in fact, a series of faint fragrant footsteps tracing my meandering path from the backyard, down the hall, and into the kitchen, which was where I happened to be standing.

For those of you who do not own dogs, I will politely explain what had happened. It would appear that, by sheer accident, I had stepped in a doggie deposit in the backyard, then unwittingly tracked it along our otherwise pristine hardwood floors.

My wife folded her arms and rolled both her eyeballs, which is something she only does when she is trying to be serious.

“You really need to clean that up,” she declared. “And I mean now.”

I tried to explain it wasn’t my fault, but, and you will have a hard time believing this, my wife didn’t want to hear it.

The thing is, I really was an innocent victim. The problem is, our yard has been a (very bad word) minefield for the past couple of weeks due to the fact we have been looking after four dogs, which is one more dog than our regular quota.

The extra dog, who goes back to his normal home today, belongs to my buddy Bob, who has been away visiting his wife’s homeland, Sweden, where he made a good account of himself at the marathon in Stockholm.

We love Toby, which is Bob’s dog’s name, even though he is a basset hound-beagle cross, which, in non-scientific terms, means he is literally a poop factory. When he is not sleeping or rooting around in the kitchen for stray snacks that may have fallen on the floor, he is patrolling out back and leaving “gifts” throughout the yard.

With four dogs in the house, each of whom has a fully functioning gastrointestinal tract, every single day my wife and I are forced to grab empty grocery bags and then, armed with a red plastic toy shovel, scour every inch of the yard to remove canine byproducts lurking in the overgrown grass. This is the part of pet ownership they don’t mention in the manuals.

When you wander around our backyard, you really need to keep your eyes firmly glued to the ground to ensure you do not accidentally step in something you definitely do not want to step in, if you catch my less-than-subtle drift.

The point is, I had to clean up the floor in the hallway, which I did using an ingenious method that other guys of my gender might want to write down in case they find themselves in a similar predicament — I took a large glob of paper towel, moistened it with water, then dropped it on the floor and, using only my feet, dragged it over the mess that dare not speak its name in a family newspaper.

‘We love Toby, which is Bob’s dog’s name, even though he is a basset hound-beagle cross, which, in non-scientific terms, means he is literally a poop factory’ 

My wife had suggested I might want to use a mop, but she does not have the first-hand experience I do with this sort of manly household cleaning project.

When I was finished, for some reason I felt inspired to do something I’ve been meaning to do for months, by which I mean clean my beloved propane barbecue, which recently has been flaring up like a Hawaiian volcano because it contains so much flammable burnt-on crud.

So there I was in the backyard, sporting shorts, a golf shirt and the aforementioned flip-flops, field stripping my grill, scraping its blackened metal parts, rinsing them with the garden hose, then reassembling them into a working unit.

For the record, I have zero skill when it comes to repairing automobiles or modern electronic devices, but I am more than capable of tearing apart a barbecue and putting it back together faster than Donald Trump can tweet something that makes absolutely no sense.

When the grill was spotless and reassembled, I proudly strode back in the house and trundled down the hall to the kitchen to reward myself with a cold beverage, which I will not identify other than to say its name spelled backwards is REEB.

Which is when, for the second time that day, I heard the voice of reason directly behind me.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” the voice said with obvious annoyance. “YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN. WHEN YOU STEP IN POOP, LEAVE YOUR FLIP-FLOPS AT THE BACK DOOR!”

I glanced down at my feet in horror and was poised to make a smart remark, but I held my tongue… because sometimes it doesn’t pay to argue with the voice of reason.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca