Today was mostly shit. I learn there is no magic poop fairy.
Today has been mostly shit.
Almost from the moment I went downstairs and put the kettle on for the first pot of tea of the day it was shit.
I’d opened the back door and gone out for a bit of fresh air in the yard. The morning was grey and still and the road was quiet, so quiet that I noticed a squirrel scamper down the street opposite and not even bother observing the green cross code as he dashed headlong toward the building opposite our yard. I’ve watched this squirrel often – I say this squirrel but obviously there could have been many individual vermin out jaywalking previously, a morning stroll being a popular squirrel pastime for all I know, and they all do look alike – but usually from the office window. This was the first time I’d been this close. I decided to investigate.
I unlatched the gate and stepped outside.
Into shit.
SHIT!
We live in an end house on a reasonably busy road. Dog walkers use the back street to get to the small park at the end so occasionally there’s a deposit left at the corner of the yard wall. This irritates me and I’ve often had to fill a bowl of soapy water and swill the excrement down the drain. But this morning was different.
The dog walker had cleaned up after his pet, scooping up the poop into a plastic bag, twirling the open end into a sort of loose cable and tying it in a knot. Then the dog walker simply dropped the bag onto the floor.
I had trodden on the bag of shit.
Shit!
I had shit on my shoes. I was a shitty shoed bastard.
I forgot about the squirrel. He’d already scaled the neighbour’s pebble dash and was tormenting the pigeons on the roof – do squirrels eat pigeons, a sort of vermin eat vermin thing? I hope so, that would make a perfect karmic circle of life, wouldn’t it?
I had to scrape the sole of my Doc Marten with a handy twig and leave the shoes on the step until I could properly disinfect them.
What a shitty start to the day.
Later, when I took a morning walk in freshly cleaned and polished footwear, I started to notice shit everywhere. Shit in the back alley. Shit on the path through the park. Shit on every available surface, scrap, or patch of tarmac in LS12.
I started taking pictures. But that was too revolting. Until this…
I thought it was the droppings of some very constipated canine, but it’s actually black grapes.
Sorry for sharing, that was a bit shit.
I was out walking for twenty minutes and encountered fewer than ten people, coming no closer than ten metres to any other human being. In that twenty minutes I counted more than 47 piles of shit, and was never less than 5 metres from a stinking pile of crap.
Okay, I didn’t do any counting and that calculation may not be factually correct, but it’s emotionally true if not scientifically accurate. It feels shit out there. And it is shit.
One of the most noticeable aspects of our new situation is this…
This is everywhere. Even in Headingley!
People are walking their dogs, doing the right thing by bagging the shit, but then leaving it on top of a litter bin that patently will not be emptied any time soon. What is wrong with you people.
People are dicks when it comes to litter. You’ll always get this.
This sort of thing is normal too, but hardly excusable.
And this… well, frankly this is incomprehensible. No idea what that is, but obviously wouldn’t fit in a black bin bag.
But people who deposit their dog shit on top of a taped up council litter bin, what are they thinking?
Do they still believe in the poop fairy? Maybe the council employees who drive around in their white vans picking up the garbage dropped in the street aren’t working right now, but there’s someone who will visit the taped up waste bins and magic away their dog shit? Do they really think that simply placing poop in a plastic wrap solves the problem?
Take your shit home! If you leave a bag of shit in the street, where exactly do you think it’s going to go? There is no magic manure tree to bury it under.
It’ll just hang around until some unfortunate person happens to step on it, and… well, you really do not want to know what that’s like.
It’s shit.