I woke up this morning, got ready for work, said a few brief words to my roomie, Amy, and then walked out to my car. En route, I paused to look at the pumpkins I carved on Friday. They're looking pretty rough; high temps have accelerated the rotting process. Oh well, that's why we bought two pumpkins each, so we can carve another gourd later in the month, closer to Halloween.
I walked across the lawn a couple of times, looking at the pumpkins from different angles, before finally acknowledging that I had to go to work. Crap.
So, I was sitting here at work, sifting through a sea of e-mail, when I noticed a smell. It was a subtle smell, one of those smells you notice briefly, but then it goes away, but then it comes back. Before long, I started to realize that the intermittent smell was probably an indication of something malodorous on my part.
I recognized the smell, which is to say I remember smelling the smelly smell from sometime way back in my memory banks. And, I mean wayyyyy back in my memory banks. I was in 9th grade, I believe, sitting in front of a Macintosh computer during my first class of the morning: keyboarding. Perhaps one of the reasons I recognized the smell so quickly today was because I was, once again, sitting in front of a computer and keyboard when the smell first tickled my nose.
I was sitting next to one of the hottest girls in school at the time. She was a senior, with the most fantastic set of breasts ever to adorn a female chest without requiring artificial augmentation. I spent most mornings sitting next to her with the most raging boner imaginable. It made me a very self-conscious typist.
Well, that one morning, as I tried to make my lascivious yearnings less obvious, I noticed a subtle, sweet yet sour smell permeating the air. The smell would be there, and then it would be gone, and then it would be back again. As I sat there, sniffing the air like a dog catching the scent of game, the hot girl sitting next to me started doing the same. She smelled what I smelled. The only question that remained was what the smell actually was.
Gradually, I narrowed down the source of the smell, and I couldn't escape the conclusion that the smell was coming from me, although I had no idea from where. It was driving me crazy. Finally, I shifted in my seat and crossed my left leg over my right knee, and the once-subtle, on again/off again smell suddenly became an assaulting odor.
And that's when I finally saw the massive squish of light brown dog poop on my shoe.
There's no dignified way to discover dog poop on your shoe. When you first see it, you recoil in horror, and you want to get away from it, but you can't, because it's ON YOUR SHOE. It's practically attached to you. You ARE the poop! So, there I sat in typing class, with the hottest girl I'd ever known in my existence sitting next to me, and I was poop boy. Oh, yeah, THAT'S attractive.
I finally raised my hand and asked to go to the bathroom, and I was excused. I exited the classroom, carefully walking on my left heel to avoid any possible poop tracks. I scanned the classroom floor for any poop tracks I may have made on my way into the room: there were a couple of smears, but nothing that would implicate me directly. I heel-stepped my way to the bathroom, where I removed my shoe and washed it under the sink. Crisis averted.
Fast-forward to today. As I typed, that faintly familiar odor came back, once again, to tickle my nostrils. This time, however, I recognized it almost immediately. Instinctively, I lifted my left foot, and there, just like old times, was a massive squish of light brown dog poop. I swear, it came from the same dog as all those years ago and, if not, it was certainly related.
At first, I tried to dislodge the poop using a paper clip, but that was a messy and, quite frankly, a disgusting way to go about it. Eventually, I opted to heel step my way to the bathroom, where I removed my shoe and washed it under the sink. Thankfully, no one came in while I cleansed my Sketcher.
No morning that starts with dog poop on a shoe can mean a good overall day.
Posted by Ryan at October 21, 2003 10:33 AM
Stumble It!
