A Gift of Nature?

When I went out to my car recently I instantly saw something orange sitting on its roof.

A large autumn leaf perhaps?

Ah, nature’s gift!

But as I got closer I could see that it was plastic bag. One of the ones The Oregonian gets delivered in.

But inside, thank you very much, was...there’s no way to say this politely...DOG SHIT!

Strange, is it not, where such incidents take one’s emotions and thoughts?

Anger was my first reaction. But that was brief, replaced by a darker notion that this might be some kind of vendetta. I write an on-line newspaper (The Hillsdale News) and perhaps someone had taken offense at a story? It’s been known to happen.

I sat with that low-grade paranoia for a while but with time we didn’t sit right.

I mean, if this person wanted to be really nasty, why leave the contents in the bag? It could have been emptied, and even smeared, on my car.

My next evolution was to shed the paranoia and simply see the bag and its contents as a request to dispose of them.

Some neighborhood dog owner didn’t want to carry this nasty little parcel all the way back home and so left it with me.

Hey, it might even been a sign of trust. “Good ole Rick, he’ll identify with my dilemma.”

I considered that pretty presumptuous, but at least I was thinking positively. Paranoia was gone. Anger had become disgust.

Then I imagined another scenario, one I’ve been in myself.

Here’s some innocent like me out walking and he (or she) sees that a dog owner has left this orange parcel in the street where eventually a car will run over it and, well, you know....

So this good samaritan picks up the bag, but really, REALLY doesn’t want to carry it home.

I mean, did this leisurely walker ask to be stuck with a bag of dog shit?

So, knowing me to be a kindly, understanding soul who will, after much consideration, figure out the dilemma, the pedestrian drops the bag off with me in a very visible location, the roof of my car.

Again it’s presumptuous, but, I suppose, in a good way.

The bag is now in my garbage moldering away until the next garbage pick-up on Monday.

I still don’t get why certain dog owners carefully clean up after their defecating pooches only to drop the bagged excrement here, there and everywhere.

A scold’s brief lecture: if you own a dog, take its crap home with you and leave the neighborhood as you found it.

Oh, and spare your neighbors from going through these emotional, mental and moral contortions.

Believe me, life is way, way too short.