Friday, December 13, 2013

Open Your Dog's Poop Bag While Keeping Your Gloves on in Twelve Easy Steps! (Pictures Included)

If you live in any major metropolitan area and own a dog, you know that picking up their leavings in any public thoroughfare is a necessity. Whether it's based on a civic-mindedness that drives you to keep your city clean, or on the socially induced fear of  being looked down upon in disgust and anger by your neighbors, picking up Spot's poop is just something you become accustomed to when living in near suffocating proximity to thousands of other people. You know you have a city dog when they rush to the front door every time you pull an old Jewel bag from under the sink.

For years, I would just use these old grocery bags for poop retrieval when walking my own pup. It's a good way to recycle, and cuts down on the ever-expanding mountain of polyethylene slowly taking over my kitchen. But, after a few occasions of missing a small hole at the bottom of the bag and ending up with more shit on my hand than in the bag, I finally made the switch to buying bulk doggie poop bags. They're great- they come in rolls that can easily be stored in your pocket, and I've yet to find a hole in one. Some are even manufactured with a slight scent to mask the smell of what has become of all those terrible table scraps you fed your hound last night on the way from your hand to the garbage can. The bags are great- no complaints.

The only real issue I have with these bags is getting them open. Since they come in rolls, they are very tightly wound and folded to maximize efficiency. This is all well and good when your hands are uncovered and you can lick your fingers to get enough traction on the bag to get it open- not unlike the plastic produce bags in the grocery store. But, what about when it's so cold outside that removing your gloves is not only inconvenient and uncomfortable, but also a potential health risk?

I've spent many hours contemplating this very complex urban problem. After removing my gloves hundreds of times to pick up dog waste and ending up with only dry, chapped hands, a couple of lost gloves, and leash burn, I began to toy with some ideas. Most didn't work. You certainly can't lick your gloves; don't even try. Using specialized rubber gloves that you might use when handling chemicals does in fact work, as they are very good for gripping things, but do nothing in the way of keeping your hands warm. So, that's out. But finally, after months of trial and error, I finally stumbled upon a solution that works perfectly- every time. Please follow the steps below very carefully, and you too will finally be able to retrieve your dog's waste without losing your comfort, various sundries, or sanity!

1. Is it that time? Okay, while Fido's pooping, retrieve the roll of doggie bags from your coat pocket. Pull one off the roll while he's finishing up. Unfold the bag and hold it thusly:


2. Now, with your gloves still on, hold the bag between your thumb and middle finger, as you would to open it if your hands were uncovered:


3. Holding the bag very firmly, slowly begin rotating your thumb clockwise while keeping your middle finger stationary. The bag will be unaffected at this point:



4. Continue rotating. Notice that the bag has not begun to open at all, but in fact looks exactly as it did when you first unfolded it. Don't worry- this is important. Polyethylene has a very high friction temperature, and what you are doing right now is essentially breaking the bag down, coaxing it to acquiesce to your desires:


5. After about thirty seconds of this, note that the bag remains unchanged. Also note your dog's boredom and readiness to get away from its own shit. Now, here's the trick: switch hands. Laugh aloud to yourself while noticing the askance glances of casual passersby as you begin furiously rotating your other thumb (counterclockwise this time!) against your middle finger:


6. Hmm. Acknowledge to yourself that this fucking bag is no closer to being open than it was a minute and a half ago. Consider removing your gloves momentarily in order to expedite the extremely simple task of bending over and picking something up off the ground, but, and this is crucial, DO NOT REMOVE YOUR GLOVES. Do you have a pocketknife, or better yet, a loose straight edge razor floating around in your pocket? If you live in the city, you damn well better:



7. Expose your blade (the thinner and sharper, the better!). Gently touch the top edge of the bag, and try to find the space between the two thin sheets of plastic that are less than .0025 micrometers thick, which cling together through the maddening science of static electricity:

8. Oops! Did your restless dog dart after a passing squirrel, causing you to lose concentration while simultaneously forcing the incredibly sharp cutting implement across your free hand, lacerating it deeply? Perfect! You're almost there now:


9. Were you aware that human blood, while not only being an extremely useful household lubricant in a pinch, can also serve as a makeshift adhesive? Yes, as blood coagulates, it becomes extremely sticky and can serve all sorts of fun purposes! But for now, let's focus on this pesky dog bag. Hang your injured hand by your side, allowing the blood to clot more quickly, and hang your head in shame. Note the wild look in your dog's eyes as the smell of human blood conjures ancient genetic memories long since bred out of the docile creatures:
                                         

Note: If you are a hemophiliac, skip steps 10-12 and report to your nearest trauma center.

10. As your blood dries, carefully take the doggie bag out of your good hand with your injured hand and repeat step three:



11. Voilá! Your bag will open as if you weren't wearing gloves at all! Now, retrieve your dog's poop, allowing any extra unclotted blood to collect in the bottom of the sack as well, in order to avoid any embarrassing bio-hazard situations that may arise from nosy onlookers that callously ask you to stop bleeding on their lawn:



12. Scoff at your neighbor's shocked looks of horror, and say something cryptic like, "The blood's the thing, methinks." This part is really up to you. Have fun with it! If their reaction is anything short of a quick retreat back into their home and locking the door behind them as fast as they can, hurl your bloody sack at their house. Note that they will never again cast dispersions or ugly looks upon you when, in the future, you allow your dog to relieve himself there unencumbered, allowing the poop to collect and whiten in their front yard, creating brown patches of dead grass for years to come:




Then, run home.


Friday, December 06, 2013

Retrospecticus

Hi there. I only just now realized that I put a link to a blog that I rarely, if ever, post on in a book that just came out that has an article that I wrote. So, if you're here after reading the Tour Sucks book, welcome! And hi.. again. Most of these blog posts are years and years old. I got really into the blogosphere about six or seven years ago, and then got over it just as fast. I got really sick of having to explain or apologize for my posts to friends I'd see at the bar a few nights after I'd post something, or having to retell or give someone a complete history of the facts that led up to a post-in-question, so I kind of just stopped posting blogs. Here I am complaining about people actually being interested enough in what I was writing to ask me about it, but hey, what can you do? Plight of the asshole. This was also before the advent of social media the way we use it today. Sure, we were leaving bulletins on Myspace and such, but certainly not interacting in the real-time way we do today with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A lot of what I write/wrote here is true to life, real stories of things that happened to me. On the other hand, I tend to fictionalize a bit as necessary. As an author, that is my wont and I feel no obligation to inform the reader either way when I post something. Most of the time it's fairly obvious. So, when a casual acquaintance asks me, "Did that really happen?" in response to a story I posted about BEING SHOT IN THE FACE WITH A SHOTGUN AND DYING on a pizza delivery gone wrong, you can see how I might have gotten a little annoyed and stopped posting things as much. However, there are a lot of things on here that I'm still proud of, and rather than have you wade through the whole goddamned blog to find one or two things that might make you laugh, I've decided to post a few highlights here. If you like 'em, let me know, and I'll start posting here again regularly. Lately, I just submit articles/stories to publications that never write me back, or keep my work confined to Word, where no man (unless you consider the paper clip thing a man) can judge me, until I'm ready to submit it for publication, that is. So, without further ado, please read the following posts and judge/criticize at your leisure. You can always email me directly at jgpool@gmail.com, too.

On Stealing My Own Van From an Impound Lot  

Just in case you're wondering, the above post is completely true.

A Series of Haikus I wrote about One Sarah Palin

Sometimes I write poetry. Not really, though.

On Getting My Bike Stuck in a Subway Turnstile

Also true.

On Failing Miserably at a Job Interview

I only wish this wasn't true.

Weird Fiction about Your Eyes

It would probably make sense to say I was doing a lot of acid at the time I wrote this, but I wasn't. No excuses.

On the History of Comedy

Bill Cosby invented comedy.

The Unfiltered Reaction to Coming Home to My Cat Being Mercilessly Slaughtered on My Kitchen Floor

This one got the cops called on me.

On Writing in Code and Puzzle

There actually is a hidden message in this post. I don't remember what it is.

On Dennis Madalone

I'm still proud of this one.

On My Trials and Tribulations at Carmax

This post won me $200. I suppose I should be proud of that, but I'm not.

On the Creation of a Fake Myspace Page and Corporate Espionage

This is one of those posts that people really thought was real, and got me more phone calls, emails, and texts than I'd care to recall. Don't bother clicking the link at the bottom- it's not there anymore. Myspace, ha!

On Quitting A Job Based On The Advice of Birds

True as fuck.

_______________________

So, there you have it.  A brief history and a look back through some of my biggest hits as a blogger.  I welcome your questions, comments, and publishing contracts. Thanks for reading, and if any of what you've seen above makes you question whether what you read in Tour Sucks is true or not, know this: you can't make that kind of stuff up. Consider that story my first piece of music journalism.