An Apt Metaphor?
On my way home from the grocery store this morning, just steps from my front door, I felt that unmistakable squish—the one that can mean just one thing.
I had just stepped in dog you-know-what.
And it was, you know, fresh you-know-what, because it hadn't been there when I headed out to the grocery store 20 minutes earlier.
And it wasn't exactly a petite pile. This was definitely not the work of a chihuahua or one of those teacup poodles. In fact, I think the pile may have been bigger than one of those teacup poodles.
(Not big enough for me to see it with my hands full of groceries and my head under the hood of a sweatshirt, but big.)
Now people in this neighborhood tend to be quite conscientious about picking up after their pooches—unlike in, say, Amsterdam, where you pretty much have to walk with your eyes fixed on your shoes if you want to have any hope of reaching your destination unscathed—so I was pretty surprised by the whole thing. Surprised and really, really ticked off.
It's a good thing that no one caught the next few minutes on video, or YouTube viewers around the world could right this very moment be watching me a) swear LOUDLY, b) stomp and scrape my foot on the mound of leaves outside our door, to minimal avail, and c) hop into our building on one clogged foot while carrying the groceries in one hand and the offending article of footwear in the other.
Then I spent no less than 30 minutes in full-on shoe-salvage mode, employing Q-tips, toothpicks, water, paper towels, and two different spray cleaners.
Because the clogs I was wearing do not have flat-construction soles.
Of course they don't.
They have lots and lots of nooks and crannies.
Into which dog you-know-what is easily wedged when the clog-wearer goes straight to the stomping and scraping step and bypasses the thinking process altogether.
And I could not help but feel, as I diligently picked actual crap from the sole of my shoe, that the universe was trying to speak to me, to send me some sort of message or teach me some kind of lesson.
Like that I may have gone through—be going through—a lot of crap this year, but that with a little effort and a lot of patience, I'll emerge without any lasting damage.
Or maybe that I should just watch where I'm going and keep the foot-stomping to a minimum.
That works, too.
I had just stepped in dog you-know-what.
And it was, you know, fresh you-know-what, because it hadn't been there when I headed out to the grocery store 20 minutes earlier.
And it wasn't exactly a petite pile. This was definitely not the work of a chihuahua or one of those teacup poodles. In fact, I think the pile may have been bigger than one of those teacup poodles.
(Not big enough for me to see it with my hands full of groceries and my head under the hood of a sweatshirt, but big.)
Now people in this neighborhood tend to be quite conscientious about picking up after their pooches—unlike in, say, Amsterdam, where you pretty much have to walk with your eyes fixed on your shoes if you want to have any hope of reaching your destination unscathed—so I was pretty surprised by the whole thing. Surprised and really, really ticked off.
It's a good thing that no one caught the next few minutes on video, or YouTube viewers around the world could right this very moment be watching me a) swear LOUDLY, b) stomp and scrape my foot on the mound of leaves outside our door, to minimal avail, and c) hop into our building on one clogged foot while carrying the groceries in one hand and the offending article of footwear in the other.
Then I spent no less than 30 minutes in full-on shoe-salvage mode, employing Q-tips, toothpicks, water, paper towels, and two different spray cleaners.
Because the clogs I was wearing do not have flat-construction soles.
Of course they don't.
They have lots and lots of nooks and crannies.
Into which dog you-know-what is easily wedged when the clog-wearer goes straight to the stomping and scraping step and bypasses the thinking process altogether.
And I could not help but feel, as I diligently picked actual crap from the sole of my shoe, that the universe was trying to speak to me, to send me some sort of message or teach me some kind of lesson.
Like that I may have gone through—be going through—a lot of crap this year, but that with a little effort and a lot of patience, I'll emerge without any lasting damage.
Or maybe that I should just watch where I'm going and keep the foot-stomping to a minimum.
That works, too.
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 5:34 PM
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