There was a magical moment of communication between my wife and me a few weeks ago, the kind of deep unspoken negotiation that would make an empath weep. With nothing more than three looks back and forth–mine increasingly wavering, hers increasingly sharp–it was decided that I should be the one to clean the dogshit off our toddler’s shoe.
The aftermath–which involved an old toothbrush, twenty wipes, and language saltier than Satan’s cock–is what makes me so interested in today’s NY Post report on “mutt minefields” in New York City. They apparently parsed, by neighborhood, the number of Sanitation Department summonses given out for not picking up your poochpoop, and came up with a top violator:
Watch your step in Washington Heights.
The upper Manhattan neighborhood ranked first — or worst — in the borough for dog droppings, according to a database of pooper-scooper violations provided to The Post by the Sanitation Department.
…
The prize for the crappiest borough went to The Bronx, where 202 violations were issued last year.
But that was down 44 percent from 2008.
Rude dog walkers were slapped with 134 summonses in Brooklyn, and 18 were ticketed in Staten Island.
But stepping in dogshit is–and I say this without a trace of hyperbole–like childmurder. You can talk statistics all you want, but really, one time is too many.
Plus: these numbers don’t reflect what’s really happening out there. In order to get one of these $250 tickets, you have to be actually caught in the act by a “sanitation enforcement agent”. Who are these agents? Are they undercover? Do they wear those green jumpsuits? I like to think they they are NYPD detectives who were caught doing naughty things, like being hitmen for the Luchese family, and got busted down to dogshit agent as punishment.
Either way, what are the chances that you actually get caught doing this? Habitual turd-leavers are, in my experience, incredibly evasive. They are practically phantasms. In two years of coming in and out of my apartment at all hours of day, night and morning, I have never caught the individual who leaves a tiny crappile (I’m guessing they’ve got a Bichon Frise) in front of our stairs. Good luck calling 311 and asking for a stakeout.
The worst part: Winter approaches, promising again to sap the willpower of dog owners, who seem to think that if a turd lands in a snowbank, it must remain there until Spring. Crap.
Published by Nathan
Nathan Thornburgh is a contributing writer and former senior editor at TIME Magazine who has also written for the New York Times, newyorker.com and, of course, the Phnom Penh Post. He suspects that he is messing up his kids, but just isn’t sure exactly how.
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There was a magical moment of communication between my wife and me a few weeks ago, the kind of deep unspoken negotiation that would make an empath weep. With nothing more than three looks back and forth–mine increasingly wavering, hers increasingly sharp–it was decided that I should be the one to clean the dogshit off our toddler’s shoe.
My favorite part of this post is its title. Well-played. Here on the other coast, we face a similar problem with neighborhood dog owners who are passionate about their pets’ Right to Crap Anywhere, yet who don’t seem too interested in cleaning said crap up.
Dagnabit.
Yes, apparently dogs crap all over the country. But there’s a particular insanity here in NYC that makes everyone who lives in crate-sized apartments want to get a dog. And great piles of irresponsibility follow.