Poop Madness

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POOP MADNESS

It’s 12/21/12: The world didn’t end after all. How about all those suckers who spent millions on underground bunkers?! Fools. December 21st of 2012 and it’s just another day at the Grey Zone.  Well, maybe a little more harrowing than normal.

Linda, a sweet 2-yr old white & brindle greyhound, arrived on Tuesday.

She’s staying with me for a month while her mom sails South America. She seems to be having a little bit of excitement anxiety because she had two diarrhea accidents in the house today.

At 11:00 that night, I let the dogs out in the dog run so I can clean up a pee accident by the back door. It’s more exasperating than normal and I’m painfully aware that my slab has a slight slant every time someone pees on the floor because it ran down the grout and under my amplifier! Moving furniture and a heavy end table and lifting the drapes off the floor is not my idea of a quick cleanup.

I finally finish. I’m sweating, wearing nothing but panties and a tank top. I go to let the dogs in and decide to do one last poop patrol for the night down the dog run, expecting to only be outside a minute or so. With my headlamp strapped on, bright light, bucket in hand, I start down the right side of the run. Halfway down my light catches a large pile of mushy diarrhea that had a paw print implanted in it. OH GOD NO! PLEASE!

“Shit! Please tell me the door to the house is closed?” (the dog-run is accessed through the attached garage. Usually I close the door to the house so the dogs have to wait for me to get back into the house…But sometimes I forget). Nope. Door to the house wide open. I start checking paws of the dogs that were at the door, although some may have already been in. I see that Linda has a paw full of squashy poop. So I grab a leash and get her by the collar and lead her to the hose reel, tethered her to the dog run fence and hose her off. Got her all rinsed off and back we head into the garage to sanitize her paw with Peroxide and antibacterial gel. Done. Got Linda back in. Now I have to go out and clean up that diarrhea mess in the yard. The grossest job in the world! What’s worse though, I step in it. “JESUS GOD ALMIGHTY! Oh man!” I rinse off the bottom of my Croc (yes, I wear Crocs. All the time. Love ‘em. And I don’t apologize for it) and hose the grass until every bit of the liquidy fecal matter is watered deep into the ground and the water runs clear.

I go up to the garage and grab the bucket of bleach water that had been soaking two OTHER pair of Crocs that had managed to walk in something icky. I finish rinsing those two pair and I’m pouring out the dirty bleach water so I can fill the bucket with fresh water and bleach and start disinfecting the pair on my feet. I’m just about to take off my ‘diarrhea Crocs’ and dunk them in the bucket when what do I see? A chunk of poop floating into my clean Croc that’s sitting on the bricks of the hose-reel pad.

“WHAT THE FUCK??” I shine my light down and don’t you know, I’m standing in MORE POOP! One of the dogs had obviously dumped on the bricks instead of the grass, a very rare occurrence. Unbelievable! So now I’m hosing down the fucking bricks. Mind you, I’m out here and, for once, it’s actually cold in Austin Texas. It’s cold and windy and of course, because again, I’m only wearing panties and a tank top, we’re expecting a freeze overnight.

After what seemed like hours, I was finally finished. Big sigh. Everything is cleaned up, the water is turned  off, the hose is rolled up, the poop-bag is tied up. With bucket in one hand, poop bag in the other, I looked up to the sky and said “Dear God, please let this be the end.”

I literally take two steps, headlamp shining down and there it is: another circle of mushy poop. I just screamed. Loud. “Arrrrgh! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? OH. MY. GOD.”

I drop everything, go back to the hose reel, unwind the hose to wash this latest smooshy shit into the ground. Since it faces the opposite direction of the way the hose unrolls, I first have to walk the hose down the dog run so it will drag up to this newest shit spot.

I finish watering that into the ground, grumbling the whole time because I am freezing to death and I start to walk the hose down the run to straighten it out so it’ll wind up nice and tight. But even after straightening it out, the hose is not cooperating and it’s kinking. I yell, “Why does everything have to be so fucking complicated?” Just then I hear my next door neighbor start chuckling. “Hi Michele. You okay over there?” Apparently he was outside for a post-midnight pipe smoke.

Jesus, can it get any worse?? Ay-yi-yi

In the middle of that night, in the wee hours of the morning, I was awakened by one of the dogs whining to go outside. Walking out into the living room I see that poor Linda had had yet another diarrhea accident, this time on the pee pad that I had laid down between the kitchen and living room next to the couch, the spot of a previous pee accident. Which at first seemed like a blessing that she hit the pad but the pad isn’t made for diarrhea accidents so it was actually harder to clean up. Don’t ask me why. It just was.  Actually, these pee pads are not the disposable kind. They are large (39”x54”) “Rest Right” underpads designed to be used for human beds, under the bedding sheets. They are a plush cotton-fabric feel with a plastic backing that keeps the mattress (in my case, the floor) dry if someone has a pee accident. And then they just go in the washer and Voila, you have a nice clean pad to use again.

I usher all the dogs outside, steering them around the poopy pad, so I could clean that mess up. Apparently I hadn’t closed the garage door all the way shut because in bounds Linda. She loves being next to me all the time so of course she bounces over to me. I’m putting up my hands to stop her. “NO, no, no, no….stay back!”

She turns to go the other way and don’t you know she drags her paw through one of the drop mounds. “Seriously??” So now I’m not only dealing with this pad full of diarrhea but I’m following Linda to catch her before she gets very far and then wiping up and sanitizing every poopy paw print she made on the tile. I corralled her in the kitchen behind a baby-gate and get her all cleaned up. I get as much mushy poop off the pad, into a zillion paper towels and drop them dripping into a plastic shopping bag. I tie that up, loosely fold up the pee pad and head outside in the freezing wind to rinse the pad clean enough so it can go in the washer. Again, outside, in nothing but my tank top.  It’s now 3AM.

Now can people understand why I say this shit can only happen to me? And can I finally say Goodnight now?

©Michele Truhlik, Dec2012