one small corner of the universe

I know you weren’t planning to help me clean up after my neurotic dog when you came to pick up your cat Snowball at the pet wellness clinic this afternoon. Hell, I wasn’t planning to clean up after her, either. I can count on one hand the times she has taken a big dump indoors in her adult life: once, today, at the wellness clinic. Go figure. Perhaps she was picking up on my own nervousness, what with having taken today off to be my own childcare, only to find out that I don’t have childcare for work tomorrow, not to mention my three-hour class tomorrow night.

Anyway, when I realized that Suzanna had littered the floor with her own waste by stepping in it with my left foot, I was literally frozen with shock. There I stood, a wiggly 8-month-old in the carrier on my back, and my dog attached to a 15-foot spiral tie out (because of course I forgot the leash and for some reason had this useless, even under good conditions, piece of crap, no pun intended, in my car), staring down at various dog turds, one of which was smushing out from the sides of my Reebok, and not a single person in the room made a move to help me. Finally the girl behind the desk slowly stood and left the area; she returned a good two or three minutes later with a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of paper towels, and when she handed them to me she didn’t even make eye contact, as if somehow it was my fault that my dog just crapped in the floor of an ANIMAL CLINIC where I’m sure NO DOG HAS EVER CRAPPED BEFORE.

But then you, Lloyd, and you, Lloyd’s Mom, arrived to pick up Snowball, and I don’t know if you noticed that I was slowly dissovling into tears, having just knocked a box of fliers off the counter into a pool of disinfectant during the poo cleaning process, or if you are just nice people and saw that I needed help. Whatever your motivation for helping me, you are the reason I didn’t just drag my dog and my baby out of the clinic and leave. Lloyd, I really appreciate you getting that one turd I hadn’t noticed, and I’m much obliged to you for holding onto my dog while I went to the bathroom and washed my hands so I wouldn’t give my child some dog-turd-borne illness. And Lloyd’s mom, it was so nice of you to spray disinfectant on the bottom of my shoe while I balanced on one foot and tried to keep my dog from wrapping her lead around your legs. You continued to be nice to my daughter by cooing to her and later introducing her to Snowball, and even though Snowball looked like he had just snorted several lines of coke, my kid thought it was funny that his eyes were so big and his mouth wide open in a constant yowl, and for that brief moment of entertainment I thank you.

In short, Lloyd and Lloyd’s Mom, you renewed my faith in the kindness of strangers today. I hope that if I am ever in a similar situation, I will help some bedraggled, teary mom clean up her dog’s poop and enterain her baby and not sit around on my complacent butt and watch like the other douchebags in the waiting area did me this afternoon.

Yours truly, hd