Not a good day to crap on my lawn

I'm tired of cleaning up other people's dog crap from my lawn. I clean up after my dog, yet had to pick up several foreign deuces yesterday when I mowed.

I had a bad day today, and I was in a foul mood to begin with, when I happened to see a woman walking her dog by my house during the middle of the day. I work from home, so I'm nearly always around. How unfortunate for this person.

I watched as she let her tiny dog do its tiny business, then walked on. I thought she'd come back, as I've seen her walking before. After she was a few blocks down the street, I went out and cleaned up her leavings with a Target-bagged hand. Then I came back in and waited.

She came by on her return trip about 5 minutes later. I had a feeling she was from the apartment building just down the street. I followed her the 6 or so houses with the Target bag in my hand. As she was about 20 feet in front of me, she turned to go towards the front door of the building. There happened to be a line of cars with their windows open just to my left, waiting for the light to turn green. I said in a loud, commanding, yet trying-to-be-polite voice "Excuse me, Miss, but your dog left this in my yard. I'm getting quite tired of cleaning up dog faeces from my lawn, and if I see you let your dog do this again I will be notifying the police."

Note: Yes, "faeces." I thought that if I typed it in the British way you'd understand how commanding, yet non-intimidating I was trying to be. Confrontational, possibly, but I really wasn't trying to intimidate her. Plus, "faeces" looks cooler, and everything sounds better with a British accent anyways.

She offered a completely shocked look, and an terribly ashamed "I'm very sorry about that," took the bag and quickly turned away.

As I turned and walked back home I thought I heard the faint sound of clapping from the cars as they drove off.

My wife shook her head as I recounted the story, as I often do things that embarrass the family, such as saying "You're welcome" to cashiers that fail to say "Thank you."

I was just not in the mood for this crap today. Literally.