Ack. Time out. I can't restrain myself from going out there and stepping it off to see really how far it is. No I'm not always obsessive-compulsive. Wait here, I'll be right back. ...
... Okay. I was wrong. It is not 20 yards, it's only 11.375 yards from the porch to the woodpile. So much for my perception.
Granted it is a perilious 11.375 yards. One must traverse what we ever-so-fondly refer to as Cosine's Minefield. Oh sure, sure. We could get out there and scoop. Of course we could. But now we've got snow. So the existing poop piles are now rock hard lumps under virgin white snow. Rock hard lumps don't smear and get stuck in the tread of my cool new indoor/outdoor slippers and get tracked into the house. Better yet, any fresh piles stand out prominently against the vivid white background. Hence they are easy to avoid. Yet another reason I love snow.
I have this one memory of The Boy scooping poop. Not as a chore, as a punishment. He was seven, maybe eight years old. Old enough to have known better than to do whatever it was he had done. The Boy's behavior rarely merited harsh discipline. This particular punishment was the harshest I could think up at the time. I wonder what he did to earn it. I don't remember that piece of the story.
I sent him out in the backyard with a trash bag and a little shovel. I stood upstairs and watched him through the window. He moved slowly around the backyard, stopping every so often to shovel some shit into the bag. He retched once, bending over with his hands on his knees as he recovered. I giggled, then felt guilt and a wave of compassion so strong it brought tears to my eyes. I didn't stop him. But I no longer watched.
I also never made him scoop poop again.
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