"One Thing I Never Thought To Do With A Styrofoam Cup"
I am not one of those modern era pet owners.
I am trapped in a metaphorical time rift of animal companionship. In a bygone era that has traveled the same tragic road of retirement as smoking rooms in hospitals and airports, as George Lucas’s genius, as those tiny little backpacks from the nineties. Gone the way of horseless carriages, the telegraph, RC Cola, Atari, Zima, parachute pants, and, what I erroneously believed would be a timeless phrase, “What the dillio?”
If you were to look at me on any given day, I might appear to be any normal human being living in the late part of first decade of the new millennium.
My hair has that deliberately unkempt look to it appropriate to the fashions of the day. My cell phone has a camera, and I can text message without looking at the keys. I own an MP3 player and a laptop. I drive a Honda and make a conscious effort to be informed on the issues of the day, whether or not I care about whether the rainforest is being shredded into pulp for four-ply toilet paper or that the stock market in which I have no money invested in is tanking. It’s important to people today to be socially and politically aware, so I do my best. I even frequent the Starbucks on occasion, but when confronted by someone who claims to have witnessed me purchase overpriced coffee from aforementioned establishment, I will fervently deny it and suggest that they have me confused with some other under-statured Jewish lesbian in an Army combat uniform.
So by all outward appearances, I am any young woman you might pass on the street without giving so much as a second glance. While in truth, when it comes to my pets, I am trapped waning years of the 1900’s, much the same way my father is still locked away in some dank, musty smelling closet of the late 80’s.
If you were to see my father walking down the street, you would probably think to yourself, “There goes a fifty-something business man on his way to lunch or the courthouse or to a cheap motel room to have sex with his secretary.” You would never suspect there was anything unseemly or shameful about his person.
But place that same man on any family trip or vacation, and he is inevitably sucked into the unsightly past. Suddenly, this upstanding, well-known attorney becomes “that man,” the one you’ve seen flipping through postcards at the souvenir kiosk in the airport or reading aloud from a travel guide to whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to be seated next to him on the plane. He is the man who apparently thought it was a good idea to wear socks with sandals. And not just any socks, but black socks with ragged brown leather sandals, pulled almost up to his knobby knees and the hem of his khaki shorts. He wears an oversized t-shirt and no belt and a large, shapeless ballcap embroidered with the name and establishment date of some other city he has vacationed to.
But the crowning achievement to this outfit that has violently chucked my father back to the 1980’s, is one glittering gem of fashion marvel that I wish had never been invented. The fanny pack. I suppose it could be worse. He could be wearing a t-shirt that says “baby killer” or “Fiftieth Annual KKK Barbeque.” Or even worse, the fanny pack could be hot, neon pink.
But it is simply horrid enough that it is in and of itself, a fanny pack. A black, leather fanny pack he purchased while on vacation twenty years ago and has yet to retire. I hate his fanny pack. Rather than let it sag limply where it might possibly be mistaken for an unattractive belt, he stuffs it full to bursting with boarding passes, maps, pens, bubblegum, a change of socks and underwear, a comb, and travel set of eating utensils.
I think what bothers me most about my father’s fanny pack, more than the mortified stares of other travelers as he unzips his fanny pack for his boarding pass or the way scandalized mothers cover the eyes of their small children as my father walks by, is the fanny pack itself. The body is skillfully crafted from a soft supple leather, hand-stitched, my father proudly claims. While the straps are still the cheap canvas sort with the annoying plastic clasp. It’s as if this particular fanny pack, in a fit of pleading desperation, is trying to be something it is clearly not. Like a peasant dressing in the elaborate silk and finery of the aristocracy. Or Julia Roberts trying to shop at that posh clothing store in LA in the movie Pretty Woman.
I am offended by the audacity of his fanny pack every time. How dare it try to be something it is so clearly not? I am like the wealthy snob at the Country Club, turning my nose up at the most recent member, someone who has clearly just acquired wealth rather than be born to it. The new member may have the money, dress in all the trappings, drive a new sporty car, but that does not make him one of us. No matter what fancy material it is made out of, or how expensive or finely made it was, it will never be anything but a cheap, tacky fashion mistake. And how dare it try to be anything else.
In my humble opinion, there is nothing more unattractive or dated than the fanny pack. How anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place is one of life’s great mysteries. If you are looking for a fashion accessory that will immediately make you eligible for the senior citizen’s discount, try a fanny pack.
On the unfortunate occasions that I happen to be traveling with my father, I sheepishly explain to people that we wanted to take my dear father on one last trip before the dementia takes hold permanently. Either that or I lapse into Portuguese every time he speaks to me so no one will think that we are related.
But once he has returned from vacation, the fanny pack and black socks are carefully packed away, traded for his normal suit and tie and once again he becomes any man.
But sadly enough, it should not be for me to judge. Because in the same way my father is trapped in a fashion crisis of the eighties, I am the same way when it comes to my pets.
The litter box my cat uses is little more than a cheaply made plastic rectangle filled with the litter that comes in a paper bag, the kind of litter that doesn’t clump. In fact, I don’t even use a liner. Her food dish is an old custard cup and she drinks water from a Tupperware bowl. The same can be said for my dog, who eats and drinks from two opaque mustard Tupperware containers from the seventies, an heirloom from my mother. There are no fancy bowls decorated with paw prints or fishes, or water bowl that filters the water. No clumping litter with little blue crystals or a self-cleaning litter box.
I still walk my dog on a leash. As dated as that is in this day and age, trust me, your dog would thank me if he or she were to ever cross paths with the ferocious Doodle Bug. For the same reason, I do not take her to dog parks, nor do I attempt to ride my bike while she jogs alongside me. Although that last one is more for my own selfish fears than anything. Ever since I was a small child I’ve had a deathly fear of being dragged on my bike into traffic by a small corgi mutt.
I refuse to put any form of clothing on any of my animals. If my dog gets cold, instead of putting her in a ridiculous sweater, I take her inside. If it is Halloween, she goes as a dog wearing an old collar that was once royal blue but has faded to a dusky sky blue, with a little bone shaped tag engraved with my address instead of fancy microchip.
All of my animals were free, strays that have claimed me as their own. I have never paid for an animal. My dog is simply a mutt. She isn’t a “designer breed” or the product of a puppy mill. In fact, if I were to actively go out and find an animal of my own, I would never own a single pet as all of my pets have, instead, found me. Wandered up onto my porch, darted out in front of my car, or sprayed my laundry basket with urine.
In my era of dog ownership, it was completely acceptable to leave your canine’s feces where they fell. Not so anymore. It is customary in this new millennium to follow behind your dog with a plastic bag or shovel contraption and pick up his or her little piles of dirty and dispose of them in a trash can. This, evidently, was another memo that I failed to get.
I don’t pick up my dog’s feces. In fact, were I to start doing so, it would take away my most treasured method of revenge against my neighbors. I would have to find a new way to passively aggressively alert them to my obvious displeasure. A year ago, one of my neighbors had a huge party in his yard with a live band playing so loud it made my house vibrate. On a Wednesday until four in the morning. I had to be to work in the next morning by six. Ever since that party I have walked my dog to his yard so she can shit. So if he ever feels to have a party again until the waning hours of dawn on a night I have to work, his guests will be stepping in piles of my dog’s shit.
I suppose if I were not stuck in the last century, I might pick up my dog’s crap or put a little sweater on her or even buy a food bowl embossed with glittering bones. There are times when I am walking my dog on her leash that I am certain other dog owners are looking at me and seeing me not as I am, but rather dressed in a tweed sport coat with a top hat and pocket watch. But as it is, I saw something today that made me eternally grateful that I am locked away in my time rift.
I was driving, as I do for work every day that I deliver flowers for the small, family-owned flower shop. On this particular day, my boss, the woman who raised me, was driving with me since we had a particularly large order to deliver. To avoid traffic and save time, we had opted for a short cut through some neighborhoods that rented almost exclusively to college students that attend the local university.
As we drove by, my boss and I saw something that neither of us is ever likely to forget. I imagine I’ll tell my grandchildren about it one day, seated from my rocker, and I am sure they will regard me with the patient amusement that young people have for an older person who has obviously never let go of the past.
As we passed one particular house, its roof in obvious need of replacement and both the trash and recycling cans overflowing with alcohol bottles and empty cases of beer. It was not remarkable from any other house on the block save for the young woman crouched in the front yard.
At first glance, I noted she was attractive, pretty even. Her curly, coffee brown hair had been hastily restrained with a clip but errant locks still fell in her face. She wore a skirt that most people call “vintage” but I still call second-hand. Coupled with the skirt was a contemporary tight pink polo shirt that made the skirt all the more vintage or second-hand. She exuded the presence of a progressive college student, an artist determined to change the world, and I will admit my curiosity was peaked. Until I noticed why she was crouched in the yard.
I hadn’t noticed the dog because frankly, I’d been more preoccupied with the strange girl than why she was crouched on a lawn that might have been mowed once two summers ago. As my eyes took careful note of the dog, I noticed that it had the unmistakable stance of a dog preparing to defecate.
And that is when I realized exactly why she was crouched and what she was doing. In one hand, she had a disposable Styrofoam cup, the plain, bland white variety one might purchase by the hundreds at any grocery store. With a slender, delicate artist’s hand she held the cup aloft under her defecating dog’s posterior region, presumably to catch the turds as they fell.
This seemed a bit excessively preemptive to me. It was no longer enough for this young woman to simply scoop up after her dog, she had to catch the feces before it even hit the ground. Witnessing this event sent my mind racing with questions.
Did she come up with this idea of catching her dog’s crap in a paper cup as it shit on her own, or did she get the idea from someone else? Would simply catching it as it fell from her dog’s ass be enough, or would she eventually take it a step further and begin digging it out on her own? Did she have a stack of Styrofoam cups by the door, bought specifically for the purpose of catching feces? Did she use a cup more than once, recycle it perhaps to use again? Did she have a lover, a boyfriend or girlfriend that had actually witnessed her catching poo in a cup?
I couldn’t imagine the answer to the last question being an affirmative. Because if I ever had a lover that I had seen catching turds as they were shat out, that is all I would ever see them. The image would be permanently singed into my memory, and in my head, she would always be holding that little white cup.
I am still stunned speechless, flabbergasted by the progression of how times have changed from when one could simply take their dog for a walk, with little concern to where their dog’s shit would fall to the present where it is now necessary to take a Dixie cup with you to deposit still steaming crap nuggets before they even touch the ground.
I suppose this is the way my grandparents feel about computers or cable television. And my grandchildren will treat me much the same way as I treat them. Instead of “No, Granny, this is the save button. You click it like this.” They will say to me, “No, Gramma Jay, you hold the cup and tilt it like this so the crap rolls to the bottom of the cup.” And they will smile patiently and roll their eyes when they think I’m not looking, amazed that I cannot accomplish so simple a task.
And I will reply the way my Granny says: “I don’t know why I need to check the dot coms anyway. I lived my whole life without the interwebs, I can’t imagine why I’d need to learn it now.”
Only, I will say, “I don’t know why I’ve got to learn to catch dog shit in a cup. I’ve lived my whole life leaving shit where it fall and it never hurt me one bit.”
But that is simply how things are. The young look to the old with a sense of amusement for quainter times. Time always changes things irrevocably, violently and sometimes it is all we can do not to be left behind.
But this is one of those instances where I am glad I have been left behind. The past is warm and comfortable and familiar while the present is too scary and new and asinine for me to venture into. I don’t think my pets suffer for it, but I could not tell you because mine do not talk to me. Perhaps if I were to dress my dog up and treat her like a little person, like most people do, she would learn to speak to me and would be able to tell me whether or not she preferred I behave like an ignorant old-timer or a new age asshat.
Perhaps I am a throwback to another time, but I think it is necessary that I purchase a top hat I can wear whenever I walk my dog on her leash and let her shit in my inconsiderate neighbor’s yard.
.
I am trapped in a metaphorical time rift of animal companionship. In a bygone era that has traveled the same tragic road of retirement as smoking rooms in hospitals and airports, as George Lucas’s genius, as those tiny little backpacks from the nineties. Gone the way of horseless carriages, the telegraph, RC Cola, Atari, Zima, parachute pants, and, what I erroneously believed would be a timeless phrase, “What the dillio?”
If you were to look at me on any given day, I might appear to be any normal human being living in the late part of first decade of the new millennium.
My hair has that deliberately unkempt look to it appropriate to the fashions of the day. My cell phone has a camera, and I can text message without looking at the keys. I own an MP3 player and a laptop. I drive a Honda and make a conscious effort to be informed on the issues of the day, whether or not I care about whether the rainforest is being shredded into pulp for four-ply toilet paper or that the stock market in which I have no money invested in is tanking. It’s important to people today to be socially and politically aware, so I do my best. I even frequent the Starbucks on occasion, but when confronted by someone who claims to have witnessed me purchase overpriced coffee from aforementioned establishment, I will fervently deny it and suggest that they have me confused with some other under-statured Jewish lesbian in an Army combat uniform.
So by all outward appearances, I am any young woman you might pass on the street without giving so much as a second glance. While in truth, when it comes to my pets, I am trapped waning years of the 1900’s, much the same way my father is still locked away in some dank, musty smelling closet of the late 80’s.
If you were to see my father walking down the street, you would probably think to yourself, “There goes a fifty-something business man on his way to lunch or the courthouse or to a cheap motel room to have sex with his secretary.” You would never suspect there was anything unseemly or shameful about his person.
But place that same man on any family trip or vacation, and he is inevitably sucked into the unsightly past. Suddenly, this upstanding, well-known attorney becomes “that man,” the one you’ve seen flipping through postcards at the souvenir kiosk in the airport or reading aloud from a travel guide to whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to be seated next to him on the plane. He is the man who apparently thought it was a good idea to wear socks with sandals. And not just any socks, but black socks with ragged brown leather sandals, pulled almost up to his knobby knees and the hem of his khaki shorts. He wears an oversized t-shirt and no belt and a large, shapeless ballcap embroidered with the name and establishment date of some other city he has vacationed to.
But the crowning achievement to this outfit that has violently chucked my father back to the 1980’s, is one glittering gem of fashion marvel that I wish had never been invented. The fanny pack. I suppose it could be worse. He could be wearing a t-shirt that says “baby killer” or “Fiftieth Annual KKK Barbeque.” Or even worse, the fanny pack could be hot, neon pink.
But it is simply horrid enough that it is in and of itself, a fanny pack. A black, leather fanny pack he purchased while on vacation twenty years ago and has yet to retire. I hate his fanny pack. Rather than let it sag limply where it might possibly be mistaken for an unattractive belt, he stuffs it full to bursting with boarding passes, maps, pens, bubblegum, a change of socks and underwear, a comb, and travel set of eating utensils.
I think what bothers me most about my father’s fanny pack, more than the mortified stares of other travelers as he unzips his fanny pack for his boarding pass or the way scandalized mothers cover the eyes of their small children as my father walks by, is the fanny pack itself. The body is skillfully crafted from a soft supple leather, hand-stitched, my father proudly claims. While the straps are still the cheap canvas sort with the annoying plastic clasp. It’s as if this particular fanny pack, in a fit of pleading desperation, is trying to be something it is clearly not. Like a peasant dressing in the elaborate silk and finery of the aristocracy. Or Julia Roberts trying to shop at that posh clothing store in LA in the movie Pretty Woman.
I am offended by the audacity of his fanny pack every time. How dare it try to be something it is so clearly not? I am like the wealthy snob at the Country Club, turning my nose up at the most recent member, someone who has clearly just acquired wealth rather than be born to it. The new member may have the money, dress in all the trappings, drive a new sporty car, but that does not make him one of us. No matter what fancy material it is made out of, or how expensive or finely made it was, it will never be anything but a cheap, tacky fashion mistake. And how dare it try to be anything else.
In my humble opinion, there is nothing more unattractive or dated than the fanny pack. How anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place is one of life’s great mysteries. If you are looking for a fashion accessory that will immediately make you eligible for the senior citizen’s discount, try a fanny pack.
On the unfortunate occasions that I happen to be traveling with my father, I sheepishly explain to people that we wanted to take my dear father on one last trip before the dementia takes hold permanently. Either that or I lapse into Portuguese every time he speaks to me so no one will think that we are related.
But once he has returned from vacation, the fanny pack and black socks are carefully packed away, traded for his normal suit and tie and once again he becomes any man.
But sadly enough, it should not be for me to judge. Because in the same way my father is trapped in a fashion crisis of the eighties, I am the same way when it comes to my pets.
The litter box my cat uses is little more than a cheaply made plastic rectangle filled with the litter that comes in a paper bag, the kind of litter that doesn’t clump. In fact, I don’t even use a liner. Her food dish is an old custard cup and she drinks water from a Tupperware bowl. The same can be said for my dog, who eats and drinks from two opaque mustard Tupperware containers from the seventies, an heirloom from my mother. There are no fancy bowls decorated with paw prints or fishes, or water bowl that filters the water. No clumping litter with little blue crystals or a self-cleaning litter box.
I still walk my dog on a leash. As dated as that is in this day and age, trust me, your dog would thank me if he or she were to ever cross paths with the ferocious Doodle Bug. For the same reason, I do not take her to dog parks, nor do I attempt to ride my bike while she jogs alongside me. Although that last one is more for my own selfish fears than anything. Ever since I was a small child I’ve had a deathly fear of being dragged on my bike into traffic by a small corgi mutt.
I refuse to put any form of clothing on any of my animals. If my dog gets cold, instead of putting her in a ridiculous sweater, I take her inside. If it is Halloween, she goes as a dog wearing an old collar that was once royal blue but has faded to a dusky sky blue, with a little bone shaped tag engraved with my address instead of fancy microchip.
All of my animals were free, strays that have claimed me as their own. I have never paid for an animal. My dog is simply a mutt. She isn’t a “designer breed” or the product of a puppy mill. In fact, if I were to actively go out and find an animal of my own, I would never own a single pet as all of my pets have, instead, found me. Wandered up onto my porch, darted out in front of my car, or sprayed my laundry basket with urine.
In my era of dog ownership, it was completely acceptable to leave your canine’s feces where they fell. Not so anymore. It is customary in this new millennium to follow behind your dog with a plastic bag or shovel contraption and pick up his or her little piles of dirty and dispose of them in a trash can. This, evidently, was another memo that I failed to get.
I don’t pick up my dog’s feces. In fact, were I to start doing so, it would take away my most treasured method of revenge against my neighbors. I would have to find a new way to passively aggressively alert them to my obvious displeasure. A year ago, one of my neighbors had a huge party in his yard with a live band playing so loud it made my house vibrate. On a Wednesday until four in the morning. I had to be to work in the next morning by six. Ever since that party I have walked my dog to his yard so she can shit. So if he ever feels to have a party again until the waning hours of dawn on a night I have to work, his guests will be stepping in piles of my dog’s shit.
I suppose if I were not stuck in the last century, I might pick up my dog’s crap or put a little sweater on her or even buy a food bowl embossed with glittering bones. There are times when I am walking my dog on her leash that I am certain other dog owners are looking at me and seeing me not as I am, but rather dressed in a tweed sport coat with a top hat and pocket watch. But as it is, I saw something today that made me eternally grateful that I am locked away in my time rift.
I was driving, as I do for work every day that I deliver flowers for the small, family-owned flower shop. On this particular day, my boss, the woman who raised me, was driving with me since we had a particularly large order to deliver. To avoid traffic and save time, we had opted for a short cut through some neighborhoods that rented almost exclusively to college students that attend the local university.
As we drove by, my boss and I saw something that neither of us is ever likely to forget. I imagine I’ll tell my grandchildren about it one day, seated from my rocker, and I am sure they will regard me with the patient amusement that young people have for an older person who has obviously never let go of the past.
As we passed one particular house, its roof in obvious need of replacement and both the trash and recycling cans overflowing with alcohol bottles and empty cases of beer. It was not remarkable from any other house on the block save for the young woman crouched in the front yard.
At first glance, I noted she was attractive, pretty even. Her curly, coffee brown hair had been hastily restrained with a clip but errant locks still fell in her face. She wore a skirt that most people call “vintage” but I still call second-hand. Coupled with the skirt was a contemporary tight pink polo shirt that made the skirt all the more vintage or second-hand. She exuded the presence of a progressive college student, an artist determined to change the world, and I will admit my curiosity was peaked. Until I noticed why she was crouched in the yard.
I hadn’t noticed the dog because frankly, I’d been more preoccupied with the strange girl than why she was crouched on a lawn that might have been mowed once two summers ago. As my eyes took careful note of the dog, I noticed that it had the unmistakable stance of a dog preparing to defecate.
And that is when I realized exactly why she was crouched and what she was doing. In one hand, she had a disposable Styrofoam cup, the plain, bland white variety one might purchase by the hundreds at any grocery store. With a slender, delicate artist’s hand she held the cup aloft under her defecating dog’s posterior region, presumably to catch the turds as they fell.
This seemed a bit excessively preemptive to me. It was no longer enough for this young woman to simply scoop up after her dog, she had to catch the feces before it even hit the ground. Witnessing this event sent my mind racing with questions.
Did she come up with this idea of catching her dog’s crap in a paper cup as it shit on her own, or did she get the idea from someone else? Would simply catching it as it fell from her dog’s ass be enough, or would she eventually take it a step further and begin digging it out on her own? Did she have a stack of Styrofoam cups by the door, bought specifically for the purpose of catching feces? Did she use a cup more than once, recycle it perhaps to use again? Did she have a lover, a boyfriend or girlfriend that had actually witnessed her catching poo in a cup?
I couldn’t imagine the answer to the last question being an affirmative. Because if I ever had a lover that I had seen catching turds as they were shat out, that is all I would ever see them. The image would be permanently singed into my memory, and in my head, she would always be holding that little white cup.
I am still stunned speechless, flabbergasted by the progression of how times have changed from when one could simply take their dog for a walk, with little concern to where their dog’s shit would fall to the present where it is now necessary to take a Dixie cup with you to deposit still steaming crap nuggets before they even touch the ground.
I suppose this is the way my grandparents feel about computers or cable television. And my grandchildren will treat me much the same way as I treat them. Instead of “No, Granny, this is the save button. You click it like this.” They will say to me, “No, Gramma Jay, you hold the cup and tilt it like this so the crap rolls to the bottom of the cup.” And they will smile patiently and roll their eyes when they think I’m not looking, amazed that I cannot accomplish so simple a task.
And I will reply the way my Granny says: “I don’t know why I need to check the dot coms anyway. I lived my whole life without the interwebs, I can’t imagine why I’d need to learn it now.”
Only, I will say, “I don’t know why I’ve got to learn to catch dog shit in a cup. I’ve lived my whole life leaving shit where it fall and it never hurt me one bit.”
But that is simply how things are. The young look to the old with a sense of amusement for quainter times. Time always changes things irrevocably, violently and sometimes it is all we can do not to be left behind.
But this is one of those instances where I am glad I have been left behind. The past is warm and comfortable and familiar while the present is too scary and new and asinine for me to venture into. I don’t think my pets suffer for it, but I could not tell you because mine do not talk to me. Perhaps if I were to dress my dog up and treat her like a little person, like most people do, she would learn to speak to me and would be able to tell me whether or not she preferred I behave like an ignorant old-timer or a new age asshat.
Perhaps I am a throwback to another time, but I think it is necessary that I purchase a top hat I can wear whenever I walk my dog on her leash and let her shit in my inconsiderate neighbor’s yard.
.