Okay, here’s what not to do to your neighbor.  My wife never laughed so hard.  I was a fool and had to eat crow…

First you must understand some background.  So imagine this:

• The nice neighbors who happen to own two psycho yappy Chihuahuas that seem as if they sleep outside our bedroom window.
• Endless yapping at night, during the day, any time anything moves outside, whenever I walk in the yard, whenever I mow, all the bloody time!
• Wishing they’d escape into our yard while I’m mowing or weedwacking.
• Midnight prayers for an “accident” or miracle to happen.

Then, more fuel to the fire.  Every morning we sit in our front room and have tea while slowing waking up and gazing out into the park across the street. Inevitably, the morning dog walkers will stroll on down the sidewalk in front of our house with their furry Fido and Foofoo friends in tow.  And like clockwork, the happy mutts will leave a steamer or streamer in the corner of our yard by the light pole.  No matter what we plant there or rip out of there, it seems like every dog that passes by is so interested in that bloody corner.  Did I mention that we don’t have a dog, so it’s always pleasant to find a brown “wrapped” present in our yard?  Or inevitably the lawn mower finds it and flings it at me.

On more than one occasion we’ve opened the window and yelled something during the morning dump and embarrassed the owner.  It has become a source of irritation for us, probably worse than That Hated Little Pink Pig.  And I refuse to provide the neighborhood doggie toilet!

So imagine my surprise one afternoon as I’m sitting in the front room at the computer sipping my glorious afternoon tea.  I see the neighbor clamoring by with the two psycho Chihuahuas.  And, yep, like clockwork they stop at the blessed corner.  Oh, no you don’t!  “Surely you’re not going to let them go right there!,” I thought.  But just like a dog taking a slow motion dump on the lawn in the background of an outdoor redneck wedding ceremony, I stared in disbelief at the classic canine squat.  Sure enough, a fresh steaming deposit.

The dog’s owner, our neighbor, looked up towards our house and, I could see by the look on his face exactly what he was thinking, “Is anyone looking?”  He gazed again toward the house.  “No, great” he probably thought.  Of course, he couldn’t see that I had come home early and had seen everything.  After Foofoo did his thing, his human nonchalantly proceeded to walk Foofoo and Cookie down the sidewalk.

Now we all know the “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” routine, so being the church goer that I am, I decided to do unto others.  I should say, “doo” unto other.  Immediately I marched to our garage, hit the garage opener button, and grabbed a shovel.  I wasn’t mad, just determined, with one goal in mind – to return the pile to its rightful owner.

Of course, I don’t really relish confrontation, and by then the neighbor was fifty yards down the street.  So I instantly found the foul belongings, scooped them up purposefully, and then marched up the sidewalk towards the neighbor’s driveway.  Now, in our youth my brothers and I had been quite fond of the gasoline, dogdoo and bag trick – you know, light the bag on fire on someone’s door step, ring the doorbell and run!  The surprise is after the fire is stomped out!  Yes, that crossed my mind.  But with our neighbor I just wanted to get even, not create an ongoing feud.  So I just deposited the soft chunks (three of them) on his driveway in a spot where I was sure he’d see them on his return with his little snarling poop machines.

After putting the shovel away and returning inside the house, I told my wife the whole sequence of events.  She seemed quite taken with my story and laughed quite heartily.  In fact, she laughed and laughed.  Proud of myself, I returned to the front room and the computer.

Not paying attention to the time, maybe ten minutes had passed.  And as I glanced up from the computer and looked out the window I saw the neighbor again.  “Ah ha,” I thought, “you have a surprise waiting for you at home!”  But he was stopped.  With Foofoo and Cookie nosing about, he was hunched over in the light pole corner of our yard looking for something.  Looking, scanning.  Oh, I wish I would have thought to get out my camera to record him looking about for those blasted nuggets!  That was so classic.  But wait.  What’s that?  A bag in his hand?  “Ahhh, you’re kidding,” I thought.  “You actually came back with a bag to pick it up?!”  Now that was one thing I didn’t see coming.

On a side note, you know how dog owners (no offense dog lovers!) will turn the bag inside out around their hand like some sort of sick puppet, gobble up the treasure balls like a PacMan game, and then reverse the bag and put it in their pocket afterwards!  Have you seen that?  Gotta love dog lovers.  They don’t mind finishing their walk with a gushy sack of nasty in their belly pack, just waiting to ooze out!

Back to our neighbor, though.  He was quite intent on finding the stash and looking a little taken aback as to where it must be!  “I knew it was here” I could just hear him thinking.  Oh, a movie of this would have been so grand!  He crouched and waved his hand puppet around and looked some more, scanning back a third time.  He finally gave up and continued walking up the sidewalk towards his house.  Oh, I am busted now!  By now, I ran to the other room to tell my wife again of this bizarre sequence of events.  She laughed even harder (so hard that our daughter was now wondering what the heck was going on), knowing that the neighbor would discover that I had left three presents on his driveway!  Ahhhh!

Now what to do?  Do I just figure “heck with it, he got what he deserved”?  When in actuality he had already made amends for the mutt, at least in intent.  Hmmm.  I just went back to the computer and shrugged it off.  Another ten minutes or so had passed, maybe a half hour.  I hear my wife telling our five year old that “Papa should go apologize.”  Not thirty seconds later our daughter comes into the front room to tell me “you should go apologize.”

At first I thought, “naaa” no need, no big deal.  But I did feel a little guilty about the whole thing.  And I realized how this could forever change the dynamic between our neighbors and us.  All over some stupid thing.  Those blasted little mutts!  Now look what they’ve done. 🙂  So I swallowed my pride and set out on the long trip up the sidewalk.  As I reached their driveway I noticed that my present was no longer there.  Stepping up to the front door, I pressed my finger on the doorbell switch…Gulp…

Watch the entire narrated, creative, video-enhanced version:

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