Taking my youngest to school this morning and walking my dog at the same time (two birds, one stone) – I did the usual thing and took with me one pooh bag (responsible owner) which I guess is always a risk – but dogs don’t usually do multiple poohs, right?
Early in to the walk and my bag is called upon. It’s on the pavement – so the retrieval is easy but I am still mindful not to make any mistakes and ruin my day with pooh on skin. In this I am successful and on we go but now with my eyes peeled for ideally a pooh bin, then an actual bin and as a last resort, possibly a skip. A house close by is having a basement put in – so I think about a detour and giving them some shit on behalf of their neighbours who let’s face it, must hate them.
But then I come to an ordinary bin and I make my pooh deposit – my son is relieved and he will now walk with me again because I am now less embarrassing. So all is well.
But on my way home from school, my dog suddenly assumes the familiar crouch position and I think, ‘shit, I am out of bags’ – and I happen to be on one of Surrey’s wealthiest residential roads.
There are cars driving by (Range Rover Sports in the main) and I can feel disapproving stares at the somewhat familiar man who is shitting (by proxy) on their street.
Thank goodness it happens to be their recycling day and I fish around in a few green boxes outside the electronic gates of the local arms dealer or Forex trader (same thing really). Bottles of Chablis are neatly stacked and offer me no options. But fortunately this particular house must have a cat because in another green box are little gold metal trays that have been thoroughly washed out (by a maid?) and these present me with my best option. I use two empty cans to scrape up my dog pooh.
And then I leave both containers (one empty, one now full) on the pavement next to the green box and I quickly get on my way.
And I think about the consequences. Because there is not a chance that the council refuse men will take a tray of pooh away with them. They make provision for plastic, glass, paper and cardboard and food waste – but not food that has passed through a dog.
So in all likelihood – this resident is going to have all of their recycling removed with the exception of a single can of posh cat food that is now full of dog shit.
The owner will be confused and disgusted in equal measure and will want to know what sort of degenerate could do such a thing?
From the amount of Chablis, maybe they were still celebrating Miliband’s defeat with his mansion tax – and if so, then this pooh incident might have taken the gloss off their fun.
So let this post be my apology to them – and my assurances that it will never happen again – unless my dog ever takes a third pooh one morning but the chances of this…