You Goddamn Kids Get Off My Lawn

Little bastards. I was this close to finally sitting down and writing a lovely post about my date night with  Zoe, how last Saturday it was just the two of us, at my favorite Mexican place, basking in the adoration of other diners who gazed upon her lovely 8.90-month-ness and my what-a-great-daddy, spending-time-with-his-little-baby-ness. I even had this lovely line about how when you gaze upon your kids, you experience all time at once, the past, the future, the here and now, and these two teenaged motherfuckers went and shit all over my moment. Actually, specifically, their mangy little chihuahua shit all over my moment. And my lawn.

I'll rewind. Beth's heading out the door to the doc's, Zoe's asleep, bingo, window of writing opportunity. I sit down at my desk. Our office, such as it is (breakfast nook separated from the rest of the house by Ikea rice paper screens), has a window that faces the front yard. Nice view. Palm trees, often swaying in the cool Pacific breeze. It's medative. That's a made-up word, credit belonging to my father-in-law. Means what it sounds like. Anyway, I'm looking out the window, I see the swaying palm trees, the back end of Beth's car as it sits halfway out of the garage...she can't get out because there is a bike parked in front of our driveway. The owner of the bike,  a teenage girl who lives down the street, is watching her dog, the aforementioned chihuahua; the tiny, ratty refutation of natural selection is sniffing around the yard. It's going to shit in our grass. It's going to shit in our grass. My mind bifurcates: one half thinking "Say! We have a dog! But when we walk him, he's on a leash! This one - not on a leash! And when we walk our dog, we don't intentionally let him shit in other people's yards! This one - yes, I do believe his sphincter has fully dilated! And when our dog shits, we have plastic bags that we use to pick up said shit! This teenager - nope, no bag!", the other half  processing the brief conversation that Beth had with Teenage Girl (Beth: "You're gonna pick that up, right?" Teenage Girl: "Um, Yea-ah!" I can hear the sneer. Me (sotto voce) "...with your bare hands?")

Teenage Girl moves bike, Beth backs out and drives off, dog continues shitting in yard.

Now, when you have kids, you change the way you interact with them. You realize that being a kid is tough these days. You think back to when you were that age, and how hard and overwhelming life seemed to be, no easy choices, everyone - parents, teachers, friends - pulling you this way and that, no one giving you any respect, the future dark and murky. You try to be sympathetic in your dealings with them. Because the love you have for own kids, well, it's a living thing, spreading its benevolent tendrils out to reach all children everywhere.

(Notice I said "you". Not "I".)

I walk over to the window.

"Hey! You're gonna pick that shit up. Right fucking now. And don't let your dog shit in my fucking yard again." (I didn't yell. More like a Christian Bale in The Dark Knight tone. And as luck would have it, I'm wearing my Bruce Lee t-shirt. You know, the one with the picture of The Dragon himself, sporting the caption "I Was A Badass, But Even I Didn't Let My Fucking Chihuahua Shit On Jason's Grass")

I got a reply in that Teen Girl Voice. You know the one. The As If Voice. The What-EV-UR Voice. "I don't HAHV a BAHG. I HAHV to go BAHK to my HOWS and GUT one."

"Yes. You fucking well have to." I'm the goddamn Batman, I almost added.

So she skulks off on her bike. And leaves the chihuahua. He's still hunched over. Perhaps he's constipated. I consider tossing the poor backed-up pup a hunk of cheese, perhaps stuffed with an Imodium. Teach that Gordita-eatin' Chalupa-fartin' cur a lesson in intestinal control. She returns a couple of minutes later with a plastic bag and a friend, another surly teenage girl, in tow. Her job, it seems, is to glare at me while Chihuahua Girl picks up after her charge. I return her look with one of my own. I call it Blue Steel. Fecal retrieval work done, the two pedal off.

Later when Beth got home, she decided that we should get something to prevent this from happening again. She Googled "dogs + keep off the grass + signs". I Goggled "moats+land mines+Barrett sniper rifle".