Year in and year out, very little exciting happens in our very mundane suburban neighborhood.

Oh, once in a Blue Moon we experience the odd catastrophe:  car break-ins (Go ahead, take my “James Bond Themes” CD — you must need it more than I do); motorcycle cops setting up speed traps to catch soccer moms driving their trashmobiles minivans to elementary school; wildfire evacuations (“Dad, one of my friends just texted me and the entire block is gone!” [didn’t happen]); and numerous posters on a monthly basis regarding lost dogs and cats (maybe not numerous, but the local coyote population uses our subdivision as a pantry, it seems).

But the thing you can always count on around here is, morning and night, there are hordes of dog walkers.

And being escorted by their owners is everything from greyhounds to pit bulls, while our own Dandy Dog stands out as the one and only White German Shepherd for miles around.  In fact, it is not unusual for passers-by and drivers-by who don’t know him to literally stop and/or pull over and gush about him.

They don’t know that he’s a Fancy Boy, but still, it can be sickening because of the fawning attention.  He is usually nonplussed about it all, since the only thing he truly cares about is his Mom.  She is his world.

“I’m so disgusted that I can’t even look at your face right now.”

Still there is some human jealousy involved on our end, but the kids get even with the dog in the end by dressing him up in stupid outfits or making him wear ridiculous headgear.  It’s our own version of Ralphie wearing the Bunny Suit his aunt made for him in A Christmas Story.  Dandy truly feels like an idiot when so attired.

As mentioned previously, Dandy is one of dozens and dozens of canines who live among us but, interestingly enough, do not use our toilets.

After all, the world is their toilet, and that world is the few blocks among which we inhabit.

Unfortunately, some of our neighbors are morons idiots less than diligent regarding picking up after their pets.

Don’t get me wrong.  The vast majority are fairly good about it.  It’s just that maddening minority that ruins it for everybody.  Not that I’m really keeping an eye out for the perpetrators, but I’ve never actually seen anyone brazenly leaving piles of poop unbagged.  I suspect the transgression is being committed mostly under the cover of darkness  by the sub-population of failed line dancers rumored to be in these parts.

So, it was with a mixture of wonder and awe that a couple of years ago, the local Nazis HOA installed poop baskets at opposite corners of the main drag here.

What a great concept!

Let’s encourage positive behavior from our fellow citizens and make it easy and convenient to both pick up poop and dispose of it properly.

That’s right.

And the pole on which the “waste” basket was mounted also included a plastic bag dispenser.

All of a sudden, it didn’t matter if someone “forgot” to bring a plastic bag along with the dog for the walk, a bag would be provided for you. Don’t like to carry a bag of freshly deposited poop in your pocket?  Just deposit here in the handy receptacle.

It was a lovely arrangement, at least as far as dog poop is concerned.

Then, the inevitable began to happen.

At first, the waste bags were regularly restocked, so much so that a few empty extras could sometimes be seen floating down the street.  Heck, we always tied a couple more than we needed to the leash, just in case.

But over time, the bag restocking activity become less regular.  Maybe the thing would be empty for a day or two before being refilled.  Then it became a week or two.  Then a month.

Then sometime during the last year, “they” stopped refilling the bags altogether.

There was always the hope the restocking activity would begin again, because you could peer into the dispensary slot and spy the lonely cardboard roller inside.

“Maybe they will refill it,” I thought, “if I just think good things and focus on the positive.”

Natch.

Next thing I knew, even the rollers were gone, just leaving a great big empty.

Oh, we dog walkers are a hardy bunch, and we compensated.  Folks started tying up empty plastic bags to the post, and stuffing all manner of other bags into the slots, but even that effort died out after a few months.

But the waste baskets remained.

Until tonight.

Tonight, there was a fresh square of sod planted where the poop basket pole used to be mounted.

The damn thing is just gone now.

Maybe it was taken by aliens, or maybe the evil condo owners made such a stink (sorry, couldn’t resist) about the thing being anchored along their row in their common area that the local Nazis HOA caved.

Although that particular explanation doesn’t really make sense, given the HOA here routinely positions itself somewhere to the right of Josef Goebbels in terms of neighborhood policing decisions.  What I’m saying is that, if they could, I could certainly envision them sanctioning a modern-day Kristallnacht, for crying out loud.

Yep.  They are bad.

I guess that leaves me just about where I started, thirteen years ago when we moved here.  We didn’t have poop baskets then, and we don’t now.

Dandy doesn’t seem to mind, nor do all of his canine pals.

But the question that keeps running through my own Dog Scientist mind is, where the hell are the poles now?  No doubt this entire episode will just become another chapter in the ongoing mystery adventure series, The Daily Trip, starring Brad Pitt, or Tommy Lee Jones.  Whoever is cheaper.

– Dad