The word of the night: scumbaggery.

What's that?  You say "scumbaggery" isn't a word?  Screw you; you're wrong.

"Scumbaggery" has to be a word; if I have to, I'll settle for "scumbagginess."  Otherwise, how could I describe the state of mind that allows a person to walk his (could be a her, but is almost certainly a his) dog through the streets of a mostly scenic village, and NOT make an attempt to clean up the trail of dog crap his dog left ON THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE OF MY HOUSE?

Small confession time: I have owned two dogs since I moved into the village, and while I remembered to carry a poop bag with me 99% of the times that I walked my animals, there were a few isolated incidents that found me unable to clean up my dog's mess.  Still, I always tried to steer my dog toward the grass.   And yes, sometimes a dog can't wait until it gets to the grass; my dog did that once, but even though I had already used a bag to clean up a mess, I went home and returned to the scene of the crime with a fresh bag.  Inadvertently leaving a poop on someone's lawn = not nice, but easy to clean and not likely to get walked on.  Leaving a trail of crap where everyone walks = never cool. 


It was my six year-old son who noticed the sidewalk landmines and alerted them to me before we headed toward the car.  I loaded my two kids into the car, inspected the scene of the crime, used a shovel to dispose of the filth, and proceeded to enjoy some time at the playground with my two boys.  However, the knowledge that there is a person filled with scumbaggery walking their poop machine of a dog through the streets of my village does not sit well with me.  It's not the poop that worries me - it's the fact that someone actually thought it was okay to leave animal feces on the part of the street that is designed solely for allowing people to walk safely through residential areas that really makes me want to catch this person and feed him to a woodchipper.

Please note: I am employing sarcasm and hyperbole!  I don't even own a woodchipper.


We live in a time where decency, pride, and respect simply are not being fostered any more.  People don't respect their schools; they complain about their taxes being too high, or they question every decision a school district makes and assume that they could do a better job.  People don't take pride in where they live; they litter, or they let their homes run down and accumulate trash and old toys or furniture on the lawns and porches, giving the area the appearance of a third-world country.  And don't even get me started on common decency; if that existed, I wouldn't spend 42 minutes a day picking other people's trash off of the tables and floor in the cafeteria, and I sure as hell would not have had to clean crap off of my sidewalk tonight!

I'm not going to give up the good fight, though.  For starters, I might just make my kids eat dog stuff if I ever catch wind of them doing anything so disgusting and disrespectful in public.  And when it comes to enforcing a sort of "moral code" in my neighborhood . . . let's just say the weather is nice, my sleeping bag is comfy, and the hose is on - I'd like to see you try to bring the scumbaggery my way, people!