Rancholand Diaries2001-12-186:53 p.m.A mild mid-December evening in the suburbs of Atlanta, the faint smell of something creosotey in the air. I arrive home from a late day at work, gather the mail, roll the 90 gallon garbage can to the back door, and let myself in.
The cats greet me with demands for food, and I comply before their icy, loathing glares reduce me to tears. They've had it rough these past couple month, since I brought her into the house. The felines dig into their hard little bits with nary a glance back at me to acknowledge my presence.
I scatter roughly 30 pounds of work accoutrements around the dining room and kitchen, easing the load off my tired shoulders, go retrieve a poop bag from our dwindling stock, and prepare to let her out of her crate.
Looking benign to all the world, she wags her tail in anticipation as I slide back the bolts and loose the beast. She stretches, wags her whole body this time, and squirms while I attach the leash.
Out the front door we go, meandering from Rancho South to the back forty of Rancho North. Automatic lights from both houses flick on to light our way.
She picks up the first scent she comes to, pausing only to urinate. We do our round around the yard. She starts to squat in a well lit part of the yard (yes!) but changes her mind because she thinks she sees something in the South yard that needs chasing. I see no such thing.
The aborted squat is a telling sign that I should not take her back in just yet, so we do another round. She explores the darkest recesses of the yard, where I will never find a deposit if she chooses to leave one there, and moves on. She squats again in a patch of yard bathed in the light from Rancho South, and I know she is serious about it this time.
Her back arches in an absurd curve, and as I watch her aromatic leavings drop, the motion-sensor light next door goes off, leaving us in darkness. Shit. Now I must keep my eyes carefully on the prize so as not to lose it. She finishes, walks a few paces away and kicks out tufts of grass with her hind legs, indicated that, yes, she is indeed finished and need never think about that steaming pile ever again.
I reach down with my inverted bag and carefully harvest the warm lumps of intestine-processed Authority Lamb & Rice Formula for Adult Dogs. I have it. I have found it all. All I need do now is carefully close up the plastic.
But then I hear it. The distinctive high-pitched whir like a fishing line snatched into the depths by a 400-pound marlin. The retractable leash handle is in my left hand. The still-open poop bag is in my right hand. And apparently the invisible cat has returned to the yard next door, and she is hurlting toward it.
The laws of physics are mightily and undeniably employed. She reaches the end of her lead, jerking my arm, my whole body, to the left. Fragrant objects in motion stay in motion, and I catch a whiff of soaring turds passing alarmingly close to my face.
Now I have a dog heaving and lunging at the end of a tether, and a dark yard mined with freshly strewn poop.
I found one piece, picked it up, and prayed to miss the rest on our walk back home.
Good dog. Let's go get some dinner.
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