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Poowatch ramblings

INTRO! -- I wrote all of this crap a few days ago, late one night on poo watch, but due to technical difficulties I couldn't publish it till now. Now I don't like it as much, but in my magnanimity it's all yours.

3:34 AM, July 8. -- I always thought being on a stakeout would be kind of cool. Hanging out, surveilling, waiting for your mark to make his move. Slow but somehow exciting.

Well, now I know why the guys on stakeouts in movies are always so pissed off. It's tedious, boring and frustrating.

Yeah, tonight I'm on stakeout. Every night for the past week this new puppy of ours has left a nice pile of Lincoln Logs right in the middle of the kitchen. This despite us leaving the back door wide open all night. Yesterday I caught him peeing there in broad daylight and scolded the bejesus out of him, yet last night he still laid down the poo. I've decided the only thing for it is to catch him in the act in the dead of night and escort hizass outside.

Now I'm in hour four of Poowatch and it is starting to drag. The mark hasn't even budged since 1 AM.

* * *

So let me tell you about my 4th of July. Unlike Blog's and Canard's, mine just didn't lend itself to the war imagery. I would write that off to Eugene's lackadaisicality but the truth is in years past I've had quite a few war-like ID's here. One year I and some rowdy compatriots treated our house like the embattled jungle fortress it was, firing bottle rockets off the roof from bamboo bazookas and cross-bowing sparkler-tipped bolts over Dari-Mart's bow. Another year, stoned out of my gourd on drugs I shouldn't disclose but that my parents have done anyway, I came as close to Apocalypse Now as five dumb guys can get in the woods along the Willamette River without anyone dying.

But this year it seemed somehow mellower. At least not warlike. But not without its epic moments -- I'd never heard or seen anybody initiate a water-balloon fight by playing the Star-Spangled Banner on electric guitar from a third-floor balcony before. So that was nice.

Yes, there was a water-balloon war. But, even with those green grenade-style balloons, it just doesn't conjure the war metaphors as readily as seeing the streets of DC lit up by explosives.

I did set off oodles of illegal fireworks. This year, though, I wasn't pointing them at anybody. I did hand a Roman candle to Olly while he was beyond recall, but I swear it was not an effort at anti-Redcoat sabotage.

I don't know. Somehow, for all the water balloons and explosions, this year just seemed rather quiet.

* * *

4:03 AM, July 8. -- The mark just came out of the closet, where he's been sleeping, and thought about hopping on the couch. I told him no; he glared and went back to the closet. (This Frenchie bastard's starting to remind me of a cat. Since when do dogs glare at you?) Still no poo. I'm fixing to quit.

* * *

Here's a promotion you wouldn't have thought of: Free meal if you're descended from Genghis Khan. Chang's Mongolian Grill should pick up on this.

* * *

4:22 AM, July 8. -- Ugh. Still nothing. I can hear those goddamned morning birds starting to chirp outside the window. Soon the newspaper will come and tell me 1/4 what I found out online two hours ago.

* * *

I used to stay up this late, or nearly so, every night. I was literally nocturnal for weeks at a time during some stretches of my undergraduate career. I'd pop Adderal's and boil the shit out of coffee right in a saucepan. But now it just ain't as easy. Or worth it. What the hell am I doing grinding my teeth and waiting for a dog to shit on the floor? I could be dreaming right now.

Still, this does take me back. To shivering on the student union balcony at dawn, my jaw and neck tight, my eyes bugged and bleary, chugging a warm microbrew and discussing whether we'd wrap the next OC issue by 10 AM. To seeing a dreary winter morning outside my window after a night of coffee and procrastination. To sitting on the Shafer stoop, exchanging poop jokes and clove cigarettes and waiting for the sky to stop dancing so we could sleep.

I always found my grandparents' stories entertaining in an antique sort of way. I'd like to think that mine will be more exciting -- I think I've done my best as a young hedonist -- but then again my grandkids will know about things I can't even imagine now. My Grandma Mayme was born in 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers debuted the age of aviation in Kitty Hawk. She died in 2002, scant months after airplanes had brought down the World Trade Center. Between the bookends of her birth and death, nearly every trapping and tool of the civilization I know was invented and improved. From that amazing century she gushed a fountain of racy and exciting stories. Yet they all seemed quaint to me. If I can consider her stories old-fashioned, what the hell will my grandchildren think of me?

Ah shoosh, I'm ramblin' again. Hey barkeep, ya got any more of that sarsaparilla?

* * *

4:35 AM, July 8. -- Oh crap, there goes that train whistle. Echoing all the way down to 43rd Ave, instantly planting "I'm on Fire" in my head. And there's the newspaper. Fuck it, the mark's not gonna poo. I'm gone.

UPDATE JULY 11. -- I gave up and woke the puppy up. I dragged him outside and stood there until he shat. Then I went to bed. Since then we have not had indoor poops. VICTORY!

Posted by FLOG at July 11, 2004 2:00 AM | TrackBack