8. Letter to the Editor

To Whom it May Concern:

I live in the campus historical district and work in my yard as much as possible. On Monday night, as I tended to gardening duties, I rounded the corner of my house to see a neighborhood woman standing on the sidewalk talking loudly on her cell phone, as her enormous dog pooped in my yard with the veracity of Ed Anser after an especially magnificent chili dinner.  As the dog finished and they began to walk off, the woman then noticed me, standing there mortified. It was then and only then that the woman stopped, and rather off the cuff said, “Sorry. Do you have a bag?”

I looked at her, like she was Monty Hall from Let’s Make a Deal, and said, “No, actually I don’t have a bag on me right here, standing out in the middle of my yard.”

With a shrug she said, “I’ll come back and pick it up,” and lopped off with a cutsie wave and a rather sadistic smile.

          A number of things came to mind. The first was that maybe this naïve neighbor woman had been sold this dog by a passing gypsy maven who had promised her that it was a magical dog that never did poop –and this sad, clueless woman only  found out that she had been taken by the gypsy while standing there in my front yard. Or my second thought was that maybe the dog had begged and begged his kindly clueless owner to be taken on a walk and promised not to poop as the lady was inexplicably out of all forms of bags or bag-like material, but then, there just in the middle of my freshly mowed and edged yard, he could just not stop himself. Or thirdly, maybe this boorish neighbor woman was just an irresponsible dog owner.  I thought about all of these possibilities as I realized, ironically, that this was not the first time that this has happened, with the same woman and the same dog, but different poop.

          And that poop is still out in my yard. And it’s been four days.

          I am now coming to the terrible realization that I fear my friendly neighbor woman is not going to return to perform the removal act that she promised me.  

          At this point I ask that this courteous neighbor woman to please return to my house, as I would like to exchange information with her. My reasoning is that since she clearly knows my address, yet I do not know hers, I would like to find out her home address so, at my convenience, I can return the favor by going over and pooping in her front yard.

Yes, that would be excellent.

                                                          - Concerned Neighbor Michael Stiles

                                                                                146 Tahlequah