The Most Disgusting Blog Topic Ever

I have written before in this space of my wretched opinion of the month of February. Nothing that has transpired in the 2013 edition has done anything to elevate my views of this miserable month. This morning I see that on Thursday we can look forward to heavy rain and 40 degrees. Peachy.

Spring training has begun, the only bright spot that occurs during this festival of dreariness. I now get to read baseball gossip each morning, my lifeline to sanity. There was a professional basketball All-Star game yesterday I’m told, and it appears that a woman has won the poll for the Daytona 500. I can hardly contain myself.

The big event for me every February is a story that never gets told, largely because it is something that is seldom mentioned in polite conversation. But, if I am ever to write on this subject, February would be the logical choice. Yes, I am referring to the annual mid-winter dog-poop removal project, or AMDPR for short.

Dog owners in this audience know the drill. All year we go out into the back yard every Friday or Saturday, usually right before cutting the grass, to remove the week’s damage. It is a mundane task requiring only 10 minutes, rubber gloves and a grocery bag. But then winter comes. The weather gets bad, the back yard becomes a bog, so the job goes undone…for weeks and weeks. Finally, once the middle of February rolls around, it takes the dog 15 minutes to find a bare spot. Something has to be done. So, on the most favorable day available, you gird your loins, and begin the hour long ordeal of filling a 45 gallon garden leaf bag with 8 weeks’ worth of Fido’s bowel movements.

This is the only time of the year where the great old joke about dog-poop and women doesn’t apply, since…what, wait…you haven’t heard that joke? What do women and dog poop have in common? The older they are the easier they are to pick up…that doesn’t apply during AMDPR, since the opposite is true. Eight weeks of exposure to the elements does horrible things to canine feces, let me tell you. But there’s a job to do, so you trudge on, reminding yourself, that you really do love your dog, and spring is on it’s way.

In a few short weeks this will all be over. The grass will begin to grow, the birds will begin to sing, tulips will bloom and February will be but a hideous memory. Hopefully by then I will be able to find more noble topics to write about.