Poop Toss

When Zack was little we had a wonderful woman come to the house and watch him every day. Sylvia was in her sixties and she was as sweet and nice as could be. It meant a lot that we could have him stay at home, and we always felt that he was in good hands.

One day Sylvia brought over a little rake so Zack could get out back and make like he was doing yard work. It was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. Then me and Alex found another use for the rake.

I don’t know how, but we discovered you could scoop up dog poop with the little rake, and wielding it like a lacrosse stick, hurl it over the fence against the barn next door. It would strike with a thud. What we found especially delightful was when it stuck to the wall of the barn. This depended on a number of factors, including temperature and freshness.

Did Zack tell her what we were doing or did she put two and two together, noticing the poop on the rake and the poop on the wall? We’ll never know, but when Sylvia found that we were using Zack’s little rake to catapult crap from the yard, it didn’t go over real well. She wasn’t crazy about Alex, so it didn’t matter to him, but after that things were never quite the same between me and Sylvia.

What’s the point? I’m not sure, but nine years later it still makes me feel bad. She did something special, and in turn, we did something stupid —and if it weren’t too late to apologize, I would.

4 thoughts on “Poop Toss

  1. .. and the barn owner gets, what ? Suburbia’s version of Jackson Pollack flinging a masterpiece against their barn ?

  2. Karma intervened several years later.

    When they were ripping down the barn, the wall facing my yard collapsed, demolishing the fence and taking out one of my favorite trees.

    Yes, I have favorite trees, but I try to treat them all the same.

  3. I have had a similar experience with poop, only it
    wasn’t a poop-toss game so much as it was a matter of invading the privacy of a tiny, wizened lady in Nepal as I walked through her
    countryside. She sat under the bridge in the noonday sun patting poop into 5″ cakes to be
    used, after drying against the side of the barn, to fuel an open fire. I, frankly, thought it was the
    picture of the year, and in spite of her waving me
    away, I snapped that picture – I have not forgotten my action and wish I had not embarrassed her in that way. P.S. I am sorry about your tree, but nature has a way of getting
    back at us, doesn’t she?

  4. Interesting story…

    Imagine what it would be like having foreign visitors wandering through the neighborhood taking pictures of us. I’d probably feel odd if they wanted a shot of me cutting the lawn, or doing some other mundane job.

    She must have thought it odd that something so mundane

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