dog shit

The Bloomingdale Trail is a defunct elevated train track that the city of Chicago has attempted (but thus far failed) to convert into a linear park space.  Its eastern terminal is a short walk from my house. Because it is not yet a park, there are no legal or structured access points to the trail. Once I climbed a wall, Prince of Persia-style, to an embankment that led up to the trail. There is also a hole clipped into the cyclone fencing around the interstate through which the trail is accessible.  Recently I noticed that somebody had built a rickety ladder with plywood so that it was no longer necessary to scale the wall at Paulina. On one of the steps of the ladder, somebody had written: "Please don't remove this! We built it so that the trail could be a public space!" I don't expect it to last long, because it looks like a tort in waiting. Past Leavitt, there is a much easier walk-up access point. 

The rail ties are rusted and overgrown with weeds and there is broken glass littering the entire three-mile length of abandoned track. People seem to enjoy drinking beer up on the trail and also leaving their beer cans behind. On the trail I have found a pair of leather child's shoes, the clip of a clipboard, rail spikes, interesting graffiti, and a parakeet's nest under the Blue Line, which is elevated above the defunct elevated line. The parakeets were green and looked like aliens. Apparently a pet store had released a bunch years ago, and they found happy homes in Hyde Park and Bucktown. 

Today I went up on the trail with a camp chair with the intention of writing letters to some friends. Near Winchester, I came across a couple with two roaming mutts playing on the tracks. The dogs were unleased, but they were friendly, and they trotted around me. The owners were inattentive.

One of the dogs dashed off to the side of the track and hunched over to evacuate its bowels. The male owner looked back, and then quickly looked away. I was walking behind him, and I said, in a polite, but firm voice, "Hey, your dog is pooping. Do you need a plastic bag?" The obvious message of this question was not that I was offering a plastic bag, but that I disapproved of dog shit littering the trail, and I wanted him to pick up his dog's shit.

The beaming idiot smiled back at me and said, "Oh no, we just let our dogs poop on the trail! It's biodegradable!" 

I was so startled by this response - cheerful idiocy - that I just shook my head and kept walking. After I got past the owners, I formulated several responses, any one of which would have sufficed to voice my disapproval more firmly. "Yes, but you also enjoy walking on a dog shit-free trail," or "Please pick up your dog shit" or "You smug, irresponsible twat." But it was too late, and I had walked on, and I only had my bitterness to console me. I walked until they were out of sight, and it was almost sunset, and found a quiet, dog shit-free place to compose my letters.

Two weeks ago, a hipster couple was walking a potato-sized chihuahua down Cleaver Street as I sat outside on my stoop drinking my Saturday morning cup of tea. These owners were also inattentive. The dog was so light that the owners didn't notice, as they kept walking, that the dog was crouched in its shitting position and digging its nails into the concrete to resist being dragged forward. It laid a little brown turd directly in front of my stoop, and then a few more aftershocks as the owner's dragged it on. I said, loudly, "Hey, aren't you going to pick up your dog's shit?" because it's really not preferable to leave your dog shit in front of somebody's stoop as she sits there drinking tea. The male hipster, in his purple frock and sideways cascade of hair, said, "Oh, I guess, yeah." He looked dumbfounded for a moment, then found some waterlogged junk mail in the gutter, and scooped up his dog's tootsie rolls and walked down the block looking for a trash can. I really enjoyed watching this as I drank my tea. 

I was not as successful with my badgering today, and just ended up feeling angry.