Shits and Giggles

Last night our friends, Hollis and Ricky, came over for dinner. They come over on a pretty regular basis since they live so close and we all have a mutual dependency on Ryan’s cooking. While he was grilling out back with Ricky, I let Henry loose on the deck since he loves to be outside at any given chance even if it means running away. I told Ryan not to let him run in the yard since neither of us has cleaned up after George since before Palmer was born. 

While Ryan and Ricky were grilling, Hollis was contributing the side dishes and I was contributing empty beer bottles. As 7:30 approached, I knew it was time to start getting Henry to bed. I went out back and said, “Henry! Are you ready for bed?” and he replied, “Yes, Mommy! I’m beat! Let’s go now!” Psych. He ran into the corner of our yard and screamed, “NOOOOO!” So I said, “Ok, five more minutes!”

It was then I noticed the string of grass trailing from his shoes and remembered that our backyard is a minefield. And it’s tiny. So your chances of stepping in dog shit are… hold on… I’m not very good at math… 100%. Henry had undoubtedly stepped in crap and I was the brainiac who put Crocs on him. I asked Ryan if he'd picked up any of the poop out back and he said, "Umm, some of it." Which meant none of it.

After the requisite warning period was up, I went out to ask Henry to come inside. Knowing that he wouldn’t go softly into the dark night, I poised myself for a face off. I would have to go into the minefield and catch him, like he was some kind of greased pig or something. 

After some maneuvering, I caught the little sucker and carried him whilst he was kicking and screaming, flinging shit off his Crocs along the way. Once I pried his shoes off, I saw in horror as he had shit caked in underneath his toenails.

I screamed and picked Henry up and Hollis hurried to help me scrub his feet in the sink. As Hollis scraped poop from underneath Henry’s toenails—

This is why we are friends

--We both noticed that the smell of dog shit was not going away. I started screaming again because I realized he’d sat in a pile of poop and it was now on my arm. Ryan and Ricky came in to see what was going on, and Ryan, ever the helpful one, was quick to shout out helpful directions like, “Dry his feet off!” Because that’s what I’m worried about when I have dog shit up my arm.

I yanked Henry out of the sink, undid his belt and pulled his pants and underwear down in one fell swoop. And that’s when I saw it. Poop Soup. There was at least a half pound of runny poop in his underwear. It was a cauldron of frothy feces. It was not only in his underwear but had seeped up and over into his jeans.

At this point everyone is screaming and I am covered in George and Henry’s shit. I started screaming, “Oh my GOD! What do I do?!?” Because what do you do? Really, what do you do? I grabbed the poop soup underwear with one hand and with a pinky on the other hand grabbed a plastic bag and threw them to Ricky. Meanwhile, Ryan and Hollis have sprung into action and are hosing Henry’s butt down with the sink faucet. I resisted the urge to ask them to close the blinds to the window over the sink because, well, there was shit everywhere and George was circling like a shark waiting for its next meal.  

It took us about an hour to all get cleaned up, get Henry to bed, and finally sit down to eat. Dinner was delicious, albeit a bit cold and overcooked, but nothing a few beers didn't take care of. 


So how am I enjoying this beautiful spring weather today? Picking up poop out back. Ain't that some shit.*

*Oh, c'mon! I had to throw at least one poop joke in here!