On Dog Poop

Tonight, after dinner, I headed out with Noah for our tot lot. On the way there, we stopped at his favorite neighbor's house. A middle-aged woman with children close to my age who he knocks for daily. She opens her kitchen window then Noah stands below it yelling and carrying on with her. Tonight she gave us homemade Pakistani food for Ash. It was a good start to a normal evening outing.

We headed over to the tot lot and Noah immediately saw two little girls he knows. They're around 5 and 6. The three of them began to play together and one of them had a ball that Noah became very fond of. Somehow, a game began where one little girl would try to play keep away from the other and they would chuck the ball far away and yell for Noah to get the ball first. He was laughing, they were laughing, I was nervous. There's a lot of grass near the tot lot, but there's also cement so I ran alongside Noah the whole time with my arms low ready to catch him if he fell.

He didn't fall, but as we ran through one part of the grass, I smelled something. I looked down and saw that one of our unthoughtful/lazy/dog-owning neighbors had let their dog poo in the tot lot park. There's a couple of problems I have with this. 1.) There's ample non tot lot greenery all over our town. 2.) There are bags provided everywhere even in the middle of the woods that say they are to be used to clean up poop.

Then I noticed the poop was smeared. One of the children or all of the children just ran through the poop. I saw it immediately skidded across the knee of one of the girls. Then I looked down as Noah stomped on my foot. His brand new Stride Rite shoes were covered in dog poop.

The smell was rancid. I immediately told Noah that we needed to head home because we had poop on us. He didn't like this one bit. Just as I began to explain to him that we should head home some of his favorite junior high girls showed up. The same girls that earlier today convinced an entire bus of junior high kids to yell, "Hi Noah!" out the bus window as they passed a different park we were playing at.

"Hi Noah! Hi Miss Amanda!" They shouted in unison.

I decided I needed a strategy to pick Noah up and pop his shoes off so I could contain the poop before it spread.

Noah was not having it. He kicked and screamed and so I let him down. He ran from me as all of his friends stared at him in shock. They've known Noah about 20 months and never seen him crying and yelling. He ran faster and faster until he ran head on into a plastic play area of the park.

He started to cry. I grabbed him to hug him and to see if he was okay immediately. He looked at me then cried harder which let me know that he wasn't physically hurt, he was embarrassed he'd smacked into the playground in front of his friends. I gave him a big hug and began to walk away from the park.

Everyone at the park stared at us with open mouths, jaws dropped.

Noah began to freak out because he wasn't ready to go home. I tried to explain that we needed to head home because it was late and we could go back tomorrow.

That's when poop began to fly everywhere. Noah flailed his his arms and legs. Poop hit my hoodie, my pants, my hands, maybe my hair and his pants.

We headed home, I popped his shoes off outside and mine. Then I rang our bell so Ash would come to the door. When Ash got to the door and tried to pick up Noah's shoes, I explained they were covered in poop and that Noah's pants needed to come off and my clothes so I could wash them.

I threw everything in the wash, and Ash took Noah up for a bath, but Noah was upset because he thought I had brought him home from the park because I was mad. So they found me in the laundry room and I gave Noah a big hug and kiss and then he went happily with Ash to take a bath.

I headed back outside and started picking the poop off of Noah's shoes with a stick. That's when Noah's friends came up. "Hi Miss Amanda." They all sat down with me on the ground as I tried to clean the poop off. We spent the next 20 minutes telling jokes. I told them, I wanted to smear poop on the owner who let their dog poop in the park. Then I told them about how Noah pretends to fake snore in the car so I will think he's napping so he won't really fall asleep, and then when I go to take him in the house he yells, laughs and waves his arms like he's saying surprise. We talked for a while, laughing heartily outside, and finally I gave up and decided to put the shoes in the wash too.

Noah's brand new shoes look brand new again. And my old running shoes look good as new too. But even though I've washed our clothes and both of us have showered, I still smell that horrible, lingering dog poop smell.