It is March. We’ve left cold, cold February behind. The days are longer. The temperature is more moderate. The snow piles in the back alleys are slowly going down, revealing a lot of dog poo left behind by dog owners not looking after their shit. I see it on sidewalks as well. It does make me wonder and shake my head. I DO the responsible thing and pick up but I have been attacked more than a few times without probable cause. Not only that, I got yelled at once for making sure I got every piece that Sheba left, bagged and put in the garbage. The trouble was, I had put it in HER garbage bin in the back alley.

I was so surprised to hear this loud tapping as I was putting the doggy bag into the garbage. I felt like a deer in headlight. I looked up to see this woman in her window gesturing wildly at me and the bag fell out of my hand into HER garbage bin. She rushed to the door and flung it open. Her porky face was all red. “You don’t put your dog’s mess into my garbage!” She yelled. I was mesmerized, still a deer in headlights. Wow! It was like watching a movie. She got so upset that I was so careful kicking the snow to find all Sheba’s shit to bag and put into the garbage. It was February, the coldest February in the last 80 years. It will be frozen within minutes. What was the worry? Her bin was in the alley, city property.

I wonder if my emotions had been frozen by the temperature. I was unusally calm. I smiled at her, apologized and promised never to do it again. It left me with such a good feeling because I am normally a very reactive person. Maybe I have learned to tame and curb my reactiveness after all these long years. I still have that tape playing in my head, the loud tap, tapping on the window like a woodpecker’s. I see her chunky body in the door frame, her flushed fleshy face and her anger. All that because I had picked up and bagged my dog’s shit and put it in the garbage bin.

I wonder if I’ve myself  behaved similarly. The answer is probably yes. How silly and trivial anything is, is all in the eye of the beholder and reactor. But I did swear after that incident, that I would be a little more discerning about the shit I lose my temper and sanity to. Some shit is just not worthy to lose my gasket and health over. I am sure I lose bits and pieces of myself when I do that. I am going to stop reacting and retaliating. I’m going to rethink and respond instead. I know I will fail some days. Then I will try to forgive myself. I’m learning about self care and the ADHD in me as well.