When I was little I had chores. One of the most memorably disgusting ones was cleaning the dog pens.
We kept hunting dogs, mainly short haired pointers and Dad had made them an enclosure consisting of two separate pens that the dogs could move through freely.
I really hated cleaning up dog crap.
Good thing was though, the dogs crapped only in one place in that little maze dad made them. Not through any credit to us humans you understand. The dog houses and feeding bowls were in one pen and the dog latrine was in the other pen. The dogs we had used that one pen, usually relegating their business to one corner.
This made my job easier for two reasons, the area of clean up was kept to a minimum and the chances of inadvertently stepping in dogcrap was less likely.
No matter how many generations passed through those pens, or the number of dogs we had at the time, they all crapped in the latrine side. Ach, well that’s not exactly true, occasionally we had the odd dog who didn’t seem to “get it”. Given that dogs’ lives are all about smells, while shoveling the stuff, I figured that’s how generations of dogs knew what to do.
After contemplating that Lucky, the new dog, must have a bad nose hence wasn’t going to be worth much as a hunter, I came in the house one afternnon, fuming. Thoroughly disgusted, both with the dirty job, a nose full of dog crap smell, and dog crap between my toes, I complained to Dad.
The way he explained it to me was like this, “It’s a really stupid damn dog who shits where he lives.”
So Saturday I was coming home from a very pleasant, sweaty hour of tennis, thinking I might be a bit stinky and while waiting at a stop light I noticed a young woman, reasonable looking in all aspects, stroll over to the bus stop bench and start a smoke. She casually unwrapped the little small cigar and without even a pause, peeled the plastic and paper, threw it at her feet. Next she crumpled up a coke can.
If I could have jumped out of my car and grabbed the trash I would have, it made me so mad.
Now I can understand it if you do something out of ignorance, say for instance like throw away those curly fluorescent light bulbs that save 75 per cent more energy but which contain mercury (which means you should dispose of them more carefully).. But who doesn’t know that throwing trash at your feet, littering, is well, honestly, isn’t it a bit like, well you know…shitting where you live?
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
Mark Twain
Happy Monday, ya’ll.
