Tag Archives: bad ideas

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.