On the eighth day...

This turd is not a local finding, but “a strange
sort of copros” that recently appeared on a
driveway in Los Gatos, CA, whose owner [of the
driveway] sent me the photo to see, “given
[my] expertise,” whether I could “id the
originator” – I could not.

Of the Poop Patrol

By Moristotle

I don’t think I knew, when I published “Unique new evidence for divine intervention” on December 22, that “the Poop Patrol” might become a daily thing. But for one week and a day, anyway, it has, and I have filed daily reports on both the official and the unofficial Facebook group pages (official by virtue of the approval and moderation of the community’s homeowners association’s board of directors).
    I have also included these reports (except for this morning’s, which I will include below, at the bottom) as comments on the divine-intervention post. But on top, ahead of it, here are the other reports (strictly on a need-to-know basis – or it will kill you if you don’t read what follows):

December 23: Wonders continue! By the time Siegfried pooped this morning, I had already collected four piles of poop, on the high-number end of our own [600] block. Five piles and counting. None for two blocks, and then three more in the 900 block, already one more than the record prior to yesterday’s doubling of that record. Then, in the half-way block that borders The Green, four more, bringing the total to 12 and forcing me to reconsider how to carry the collection bag, because it was becoming so heavy that managing my cane had become not only uncomfortable but also dangerous, given that its purpose, after all, is to help me not fall down and break a bone! So...I removed the collection bag from the cane handle, took Siegfried’s leash off my leash hand, and put that hand through the collection bag’s loops before putting the hand back through the leash loop.
    Note also that I was able to report in the preceding paragraph how many piles I found in which blocks. Another “wondrous” gift of doing the “poop patrol” (and reporting on its adventures) was its providing motivation to use my memory to keep an accurate count, etc. We read, do we not, that old people either use their memory, or lose it? (And the same goes for other things too, of course.)
    Okay, so far so good. At the end of the 1000 block, where the circular part of the street intersects itself coming in from the country road, I decided to go right and hit the 200 block (for the first time since starting the poop patrol), with the intention of going to the end of Norwood Court north and possibly seeing a member of the Al-Bjaly family. But, alas, no one was in evidence there. Never mind, maybe one of them will read this and know that I was thinking of their family. Anyway, no poop on this side trip, which is good, after all!
    Back to the 300 block and past the house of the couple who were loading up to move yesterday, then on to the 400 block at the main entrance of our community. No poop there either (which is good), so Siegfried and I were still at 12 piles in the collection bag, which was proving much more manageable dangling from my leash hand.
    Well! The 500 block provided four more piles (16 total), including another humongous one in roughly the same spot as yesterday. I think I’m seeing a pattern here! At the end of that block, Siegfried and I were back at the starting-number end of our own block, with only a couple of hundred feet to go before crossing the street to enter our garage.
    But this wasn’t too short a stretch to yield yet another four, for a total of 20, surpassing yesterday’s new record by six. The Lord doth provide!
    Either “the Lord provides,” or my eyesight is improving. I did note today that a number of the piles I picked up were not new; that is, I had missed them on previous days.
    At some point on today’s patrol, it occurred to me that maybe there’s a recurring column here: “The Poop Patrol.” But who would be interested in the (presumably) ongoing adventures of a poop patrol?...Unless I might possibly discover something that became forensic evidence in a murder investigation or something? Maybe there’s something in this for W.M. Dean after all. Do you suppose he could try his hand at another novel, and maybe even complete this one?

Christmas Eve: It was nippy this morning, and I had dressed thinking it was warmer, so Siegfried and I hustled along, heading north on Collington Drive. Or I tried to hustle, but Siegfried kept stopping to put his nose into the grass or up to a cable box. That might make you wonder, does Siegfried find most of the piles of poop, or do I? I find, I’d say, more than nine out of ten. Only occasionally does Siegfried put his nose to a pile.
    At the STOP sign before the 200 block, we turned right onto the 1000 block, and went to the other end of The Green block, where we turned right again and walked along the curb on The Green’s south side (the odd-numbered side of Haywards Lane). As it turned out, we had already found all of the poop we were going to find today, three piles, one each in the 500, the 300, and The Green block. Though we were walking as fast as an old man with a cane and a curious dog on a leash can, I doubt that we missed any piles, unless they were tiny. And who knows? Maybe I’d finally seen yesterday, and collected, all of the aged piles along the sidewalks of the indicated blocks. That’s good, that’s progress.
    And I realized this morning that I might have had another motive for collecting poop, especially for occupying my mind to make memories of how many piles I found where: to avoid thinking of all the shit going on in the White House and the Congress.

Christmas Day: FIFTEEN piles, THIRTEEN of which were collected on Hastings Drive (one of which was already bagged in one of those station-dispensed little black black bags, just like I used this morning to “scoop”– at least, I assume the bag contained poop).
    Siegfried and I hadn’t walked down Hastings for a while and, indeed, a few of the 13 piles were vintage.
    The other two piles were collected, one each, in the 500 & 600 blocks of Collington Drive. The latter of these, though, wasn’t exactly a “pile,” but like the shit in the White House, more of a diarrhetic purge. And, appropriate for the political comparison, this poop was on the sidewalk, where people walk. I feel for the poor dog, but not for the rich shit in the White House.
    Can we have a Merry Christmas anyway?

December 26: I had to go to RDU this morning to meet some arriving house guests, so Siegfried and I took an abbreviated walk, 200 feet up to Sutton Place, over and around The Green, then back home. Still, we collected five piles of poop, four of which seemed to be post-Christmas: one each on the 600 block of Collington Drive, the 400 & 300 blocks of Sutton Place, and two piles on The Green block.
    But there was a bonus. My guests and Siegfried took an afternoon walk, and, after I spotted a fresh pile (on The Green block) and one of my guests said, “Oh, you wanted us to tell you when we saw some poop? I saw a pile back there” (we didn’t go back), we did find one more, rather decomposed. (Funny somehow, but it’s MUCH more satisfying to collect a healthy-looking FRESH pile.)
    Two total for the walk, seven for the day’s work of the Poop Patrol.
    Note: Well, it appears that my reports for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were removed by a moderator [on the community’s official Facebook group page], likely because of my political allusions. Having learned my lesson, here are those reports, WITHOUT the allusions, [as indicated in brackets]:

[Bowdlerized] Christmas Eve: It was nippy this morning, and I had dressed thinking it was warmer, so Siegfried and I hustled along, heading north on Collington Drive. Or I tried to hustle, but Siegfried kept stopping to put his nose into the grass or up to a cable box. That might make you wonder, does Siegfried find most of the piles of poop, or do I? I find, I’d say, more than nine out of ten. Only occasionally does Siegfried put his nose to a pile.
    At the STOP sign before the 200 block, we turned right onto the 1000 block, and went to the other end of The Green block, where we turned right again and walked along the curb on The Green’s south side (the odd-numbered side of Haywards Lane). As it turned out, we had already found all of the poop we were going to find today, three piles, one each in the 500, the 300, and The Green block. Though we were walking as fast as an old man with a cane and a curious dog on a leash can, I doubt that we missed a pile, unless it were tiny. And who knows? Maybe I’d finally seen yesterday, and collected, all of the aged piles along the sidewalks of the indicated blocks. That’s good, that’s progress.
    [allusion removed]

[Bowdlerized] Christmas Day: FIFTEEN piles, THIRTEEN of which were collected on Hastings Drive (one of which was already bagged in one of those station-dispensed black ones, just like I used this morning to “scoop”– at least, I assume the bag contained poop).
    Siegfried and I hadn’t walked down Hastings for a while and, indeed, a few of the 13 piles were vintage. The other two piles were collected, one each, in the 500 & 600 blocks of Collington Drive. The latter of these, though, wasn’t exactly a “pile,” [allusion removed], more of a diarrhetic purge. And, [allusion removed], this poop was on the sidewalk, where people walk. I feel for the poor dog, [allusion removed].
    Here’s hoping you’re having a Merry Christmas anyway!

December 27: Since Siegfried and I found poop on almost every block we traversed this morning, I can – by noting their locations, in order – tell you our route: 5 in the 200 feet of the 600 block of Collington Drive northward from our house, 3 in the 500 block, 2 in the 400 block, 1 in the 300 block (11 so far – Youie-e-e! ),1 in the 1000 block, and 1 final one more in the 300 block of Sutton Place. 13 total.
    While you can trust my numbers as honest and true, you should be aware of the following variable affecting my count: sometimes – and two times this morning – several poop piles lie close together, and the poop looks of a similar age and quality (without aid of magnifying glass and better vision than I have), so I have to guess a bit as to how many distinct acts of dog-pooping produced them. C’est la vie!
    For your pleasure (hopefully), I have posted a short story, “Walking the Dog,” by my nephew Steve Glossin (U.S. Army retired, living in Bavaria, Germany).

December 28: Only one pile this morning, but it was HUGE, and frozen solid into the lawn above the sidewalk in the 300 block of Sutton Place [in the yard of a property whose address is on the odd-numbered side of Haywards Lane].
    At 19 degrees F., Siegfried & I didn’t walk far, and we didn’t walk slow. I’ll even admit (full disclosure here!) I didn’t really even want to spot any poop, and I might have missed a small pile or two. But THIS ONE was a little mountain!!
    Keeping with the dog theme, I share a story about dogs I’ve known. Enjoy! Wally moved to Collington Farms with us in July 2008, but he passed away in March the following year. We miss him, and I occasionally even call Siegfried “Wally.”

December 29 [this morning]: Siegfried found the first pile of poop this morning, and I would have missed it otherwise. Good boy! But I found the next one, uttering, “Oh, shit!” for some reason – perhaps because the pile was sitting on the sidewalk. And it really did seem to be “sitting,” a round ball with manifest pride. Two steps further, in the grass on the road side of the sidewalk, an identical ball, which I decided must have been part of the same poop-act. “Geez, Siegfried, I’m sort of picking this poop pile up twice,” I said, as I removed my glove again and retrieved the scooper bag from my coat pocket. “Someone may have kicked it.” Glove back in pocket of the jacket under my coat, scooper bag stowed away, and three yards more along the 600 block of Collington Drive (we were headed east), bingo! “Oh, no, Siegfried! More of the same pile!” I was sure it was the same; the turd sections were too similar to be from different dogs, or even different poops of the same dog (in my opinion) – they were identical. “This is the last time I want to bend down for this pile, Siegfried,” who, of course, may not even have been listening, his main sense organ, his nose, was busy sniffing historical evidence in the curb strip.
    And that WAS the last evident section of that “pile,” and the last pile discovered in our first block. I was wondering, as we entered the 700 block, whether today might be the first time since we began the Poop Patrol (on December 22 that we found a poop pile in the (very short) 700 block. Yes!, and only about three feet along in the first (and only) yard with an odd 700 address! Number three for today, on this slightly warmer morning, about 25 degrees F (at around an hour and a half later than yesterday).
    Because we were expecting someone to arrive at our home at 10:00, we turned onto Hastings Drive for a shorter return to our own block. We found five piles on Hastings, for a total of eight piles on the round. The first was distinctive as being three little turd sections with a coating of white, like frost (or hardened powdered sugar!), almost touching a mailbox post. (I suppose it could have been a homeowner’s subtle message to the USPS delivery person: “Eat shit!”) The fifth was also distinctive as being the first poop that had been piled (presumably by the dog) on someone’s basketball stand. A dog leaving you a message, KC?

Copyright © 2017 by Moristotle