Lawn Bomb

One of the hazards of the mailman biz is dogs. Of course!, you say, but it's not aggressive dogs, it's dog poop. Old poop, fresh poop, hiding in lawns all over town. And since I'm staring intently at the mail in my arms and not where my feet are landing, it can lead to stinky problems. Nobody wants to sit in a mailmobile that reeks of dog poop.

My so-far worst incident has been with a pile of...I'm not sure it was poop, and I'm not sure it was from a dog. Whatever put it on the lawn, the substance itself, judging from its smell, was the result of an encounter with some bad crab. So it must have been a dog because really? Who else would eat something like that?

It took two days of deordorizing in the bathtub to get the stink off my shoes.

But that was the worst. Usually it's a casual whiff of something not right leading to a sole inspection and vigorous rubbing on a clean patch of lawn. Most of the time? It's not even my shoes; a shift in the wind is bringing up the scent of cow patty from the Arcata bottoms. That's right: when the wind is right, Arcata smells a lot like shit.