This shit is bananas

It started with a pile of dog turds. (All the best stories do, don't they?)

In the morning, from time to time, I bring Hurley the Golden Retriever into our little side yard for some exercise. And on these mornings, from time to time, Hurley the Golden Retriever will conclude our little workout session by doing some rear-end business on the lawn. And this is, of course, fine -- because, y'know, it's our lawn and our dog and our right, as Americans, to pick up the shit at our convenience.

So, when a pile of shit first seemed to move from the corner of our lawn to the bottom of our porch stairs, I thought that I must be mistaken. Even though I could have sworn that the deuce-dropping took place elsewhere, in a spot over by the yardline, where the grass gives way to the gravel drive that runs behind our house. Even though, at the time, I'd thought to myself that yes, I needed to find a plastic bag, but that in the meantime, the poop wouldn't be in anyone's way.

Yes, I thought, I must just be imagining things. Because, in my naivete, it just didn't seem possible that any irritated neighbor -- no matter how peculiar or passive-aggressive -- would not only not bother to just ask us to direct the dog elsewhere, but go directly to the balls-out strategy of surreptitiously moving a pile of shit onto their neighbor's porch.

That is, until it happened again.

In the morning, Hurley retired to the corner of the lawn for some discreet pooping. And in the afternoon, the pile of turds had inexplicably made its way over to our porch.

Which means that one of our neighbors is, in fact, picking up the dog shit and moving it twenty feet to our doorstep just to fuck with us.

"Wait a second," Brad said. "Are you telling me this has happened before? Why didn't you mention it?"
"I thought I was imagining things!" I said. "I mean, what kind of person actually carries a pile of somebody else's dog's shit from one location to another just to make a point?"

What kind of person, indeed. The answer, of course, is the kind of person who lives somewhere behind us! Although we have no idea who it is. And I know, I know: this could all be avoided by just scooping the poop right away, thus depriving this proximate weirdo of the chance to transport it across the lawn. But on the other hand, I feel that this situation has kind of escalated beyond the point of easy resolution. I mean, really, once someone is secretly depositing shit on your porch, the time for measured response has passed. And instead, I am currently considering one or more of the following actions:

- Leaving the shit on their porch.
- Leaving the shit on their porch in a paper bag and setting it on fire.
- Sculpting the shit into a bust of Hitler, shellacking it, and presenting it to them in a wrapped giftbox with a ribbon on it.
- Putting the shit back in its original location, along with a tiny suitcase and passport.
- Dressing the shit up in striped scarf and beanie and leaving it on the passenger seat of their car with a "Where's Waldo?" greeting card.

Of course, all of these responses would probably just escalate an already-volatile situation. And nobody wants that.

Which is why, instead of playing hot potato with the shitpile, I plan to just let Hurley take another dump at the corner of the yard, lie in wait by the back door until the shit-moving neighbor tries to pull this little stunt again, and then stepping calmly out of the house for a conversation about how we might resolve this little conflict like a pair of motherfucking adults.

Or I might just kick him in the face.