‘Graffeces’--Today’s Urban Problem
A stranger emerged from the just-sold house next door while I was pulling a trash can up my driveway. He smiled and introduced himself as the new owner.
“You’ll really like living here, because it’s a great neighborhood,” I told him. Then I remembered the shovel in my hand. “Well, except for the jerks who let their dogs use your yard.”
I had just finished scooping up three fresh deposits from around my mailbox post. It was not the first time. At least once a week, my wife and I discover that the poop fairy has gifted us with some nasty new lawn ornaments.
I realize that picking up piles is not a problem on a par with streetside prostitution, sidewalk drug dealing or drive-by shootings. But suburban “graffeces” scofflaws who let their Spots go squat in other people’s lots are as inconsiderate and infuriating as gang taggers. They know they are responsible for defacing property and that someone else will have to clean up the messes they leave behind.
The most flagrant offenders are dog owners who do not even bother with the pretense of carrying a “doggie bag” when they go walking. They are not under any illusion that what emerges from their charges simply vanishes into thin air before touching the ground. They know that somebody else will have to deal with their pet’s waste and that’s just fine with them.
What would be a fitting punishment for such lawn-loitering louts? How about 15 minutes of rolling back and forth on my front yard, wearing nothing but blindfolds and their best clothes?
Ah, if only justice were so sweet. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where police officers can take samples of dog-dropping DNA, establish matches to specific mutts, find cross-references to their owners, and show up at homes brandishing rifles, handcuffs and leg irons.
I hate the idea of having to put up a fence just because a few rude slobs in my immediate vicinity refuse to curb their dogs. Fences are expensive, they make already tiny homesteads look even smaller, and they convey an unfriendly fortress mentality.
But now that ours is one of the few unfenced yards left on this street, the daily dilemma here is getting worse by the day. Unless my wife and I want to open a fertilizer business, we know that we had better get busy building a Bowser barricade.
That means there soon will be even less open space in our neighborhood. But when “No. 2” gets to be this big a problem, it’s time to start looking out for No. 1.
