I need to tell the whole story. It goes way back to when we were first married... It might be a little gross at times, but trust me, you need to hear the whole thing....
Now, this is something that happens to everyone, I'm sure, though for some reason, my very D DH seems to add something of a flair for the dramatic when it happens to him. He can't do it in a reasonably normal fashion. Don't get me wrong - it has happened, especially in recent years, in a more - oh, "normal" way...
The first time - well, the first time that I noticed the extreme - happened when we were going to a movie. We went to a pizza restaurant for supper before going into the theatre nearby. All through the meal, DH was fidgeting and fussing. He was giving other customers an "evil eye", kind of glaring at times at our waiter.... As we left the restaurant, he mumbled to me, asking if I noticed the bad smell in the place.... I told him I hadn't really noticed anything...then he said something along the lines of "uh-oh"....
Turned out, that he had stepped in some doggy doo on the way in to the restaurant (we even saw the pile on the grassy boulevard that we'd crossed after parking) and *he* was the offensive person, not the other patrons or the staff....
So - here was a guy, almost making a scene, and ending up being the cause himself....
The second time, was a little more funny. At least, to me....
We had been out for an evening - this was some years later - again to a movie. This time, though, it was a "screening" of a video - back in the days when VHS was new, and movie rental stores were new, my BIL's wife (who I often think of as an SIL) worked for a distributor, and there was this wine and cheese affair put on for the various store owners/managers/buyers... Anyway - we were also invited to attend. Now, this was not put on at a theater; rather at a convention center in our city's downtown business district. On a weeknight. Of course, it ran late, and being family, we hung around to help with clean-up, etc. So - it was quite quite late by the time we made our way back to our car. Streets were essentially deserted of traffic - there were few parked cars.... The street we had to walk down to get to the car was four lanes wide - one lane, the curb lane, lined with parking meters, and three empty lanes. Our downtown area is also filled with one-way streets. On this particular street, there is a sidewalk on only one side - the other side has a concrete wall, that "protects" the entrance to the underground parking and access for the convention center. There is no sidewalk at all. Because of the lack of traffic (as mentioned, this was a business district, late at night) and the location of our parked car, we were walking in the street somewhat close to the wall rather than on the sidewalk. Also as mentioned, it had been a wine and cheese affair....
DH was not walking in the straightest of lines, and his DB was kind of horsing around pretending to vault over the parking meters - they were laughing at each other, not really paying much attention to anything.
I told my DH, at one point, to watch out for the dog........................... And he promptly stepped in it.
Now - not only was he able to step in it, on this wide expanse of street, but I was left to wonder how it got there in the first place - in this deserted business area....
Of course, between these two rather dramatic "steps" were other ones - seems like if there is going to be some dog stuff somewhere, my DH is going to have to walk in that spot....
The third incident - we have pet dogs of our own, now. Spud, whose picture has been posted here several times, was a puppy about 13 years ago. She joined our family around the end of June or beginning of July or so. Perfect - summer time, we were going camping frequently, so she could get to know us well.... (She was born a couple houses away from where we lived - a neighbour's house - so she had some difficulty transitioning as a pup - always wanted to go "home" at the end of a day....) One of the things that occured, was that part of her housetraining involved going for a puddle with Daddy in the middle of the night.... He would take her out with him when he had to "go to the bushes" (Middle of the night, when it is dark, sometimes it wasn't always easy to go on a narrow path to the outhouse if you didn't need to - men don't always "need to")
So - because of the associations formed while camping, when we were at home in the city, she did her thing just outside the bathroom door. (until, two or three months later, she was fully housetrained).
The house we lived in then was arranged such that our bedroom was at the front of the house, our DS's bedroom was next to it, in the middle, then the next room was the bathroom, and then at the back of the house was the kitchen. The two bedrooms were off the livingroom, which seemed more like a hallway to me. I digress a little, but you need to know that I was in bed, farthest from the bathroom, and DS was right next door....
So, I got up one morning, and I saw - a pile of doggy doo, but with a smear right through the middle. A smear about two feet long, heading toward the kitchen. I knew instantly what had happened, and while I felt some sympathy (having one foot go out from under you can hurt) I couldn't help but start to laugh... DS was also getting up about that time, and he heard me laughing, and said, "how do you think *I* felt - I heard it happen!" DS heard the slip-stumble-thump, the swearing, and the bathtub running while DH washed his foot.... DS and I laughed about it for a few years before DH could finally see the humour in it....
Now - Well, since we have two dogs now and they do their thing in the yard, and since DH insists on being the one to mow the lawn, there are a lot more incidents - but being semi-expected, they are mostly much less dramatic.
Out at our cabin now, though - well, for some reason (likely inherent genetics) Bear would much rather do his thing in the bushes. He pushes his way into the undergrowth, and goes somewhere near some trees... Not easy to clean up after him, but not likely to be stepped in, either. Spud - she seems to like to wander away a bit, or when I take them for walks, she goes where there isn't likely to be much human foot traffic, even though it is in an open area. Neither dog really goes very close to the cabin. Though, it sometimes happens, especially after it has been raining for a while, and Spud hates to be wet, so she holds it for a long time, and of course, doesn't get far before she *has to* go....
Anyway - just after the September long weekend (I've been dying to post this story since we came back from our holiday!) we were sitting out back, enjoying a camp fire. We noted that the flies were being annoying - at least they weren't mosquitoes - landing and walking and tickling bare arms and legs. For some reason, they were especially annoying on one of DH's leg, more so than the other one. Since he was beside the picnic table, which we'd recently used for food prep and consumption, he moved....
The flies followed....
DH was in bare feet.....
He was *MAD*.....
So, with much swearing, and me trying not to giggle too loudly, he sent me inside for some soap, and he went out front to where the tap is that supplies washing water. He got out there, washed his foot, and his hands...I went back to knitting and giggling. I thought I heard something..... He was calling me, but very quietly... he told me to bring the camera.....
The green trailer isn't used by anyone anymore - and that brown structure is a garbage can stand, protected by chain link fencing wire....
I wasn't going to walk any closer to try to take a better picture.... I just did the best I could with the zoom feature, and cropping and zooming pictures after downloading....
When the bear realized he couldn't get through the wire, he wandered away, walking between the trailer and the bush line, turning left around the corner toward the bush and the riverbank.... we lost track of him then. And, of course, I had momentarily forgotten that I had finally figured out how to do movies with our digital camera.
So I missed some great shots/opportunities :(
But - we kept the camera handy. Remember a couple posts back, when I shared pics of frogs, and I described the wide trail that goes behind our current cabin? We changed areas - we used to have a trailer across the road from where that green one is now parked.... we've moved to a different trailer and cabin since then - when Spud was a pup, it was down at that old place - the outhouse there was behind our trailer (not the green one, you can't see our old one in these pics) down a narrow path.... Anyway, the place we have now, with the wide trail - I mentioned it in the other post. SO - when we heard some noises later on, some twigs breaking and stuff - I grabbed the camera, set it on "movie", and went and stood by the outhouse.