Random Acts of Assholery

For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. Newton said that.

For every random act of kindness in this world, there's a random act of assholery as well. I said that.

In fact, in the last 24 hours, I've been subjected to 4 of them. All perpetrated by dog owners and sullen teen punks.

Last night as I got out of my car, I suddenly espied a clunk of dog doo right on the edge of the curb. Only a spastic triple axel spin move worthy of the Winter Olympics saved me from landing on it. Nice placement, I thought. Almost like a booby trap. I grabbed a soggy Towson Times from the stack on my porch (I never deign to bring this rag inside) and scooped the offending excrement away.

An half hour later, I got back in my car to go to the gym. On my way I encountered a moving road block in the form of four skater punks in the middle of the street, all clad in night-friendly Ninja black save for the lone neon green scrawl on one kid's t-shirt that read "Misfits." As the street urchins slowly got out of the way with their skate boards, they paid respect to their elders in the form of flipping me the bird. Ah yes, the true spirit of punk, suburban style. Privileged Rodgers Forge rebels without a clue, but with Mom and Dad's credit cards and mall-friendly attitude courtesy of the skater clothes racks at Hot Topic.

Around the very next corner another bunch of sullen suburban punks walked right out in front of my car, slowed down, took their time crossing and then also gave me the finger. I was half-way tempted to slam on the brakes, pop the trunk and grab the aluminum baseball bat there and ask them if they wanted to play Bad News Bears with me, but thinking of William Donald Schaefer's curmudgeony Old Man crankiness (he's in the news again - this time for ogling a secretary!), I decided against it. At my age I have to at least pretend that I have a certain dignity that can rise above such vulgar displays of ire. But it's hard!

Finally, as I walked out to my car this morning in my bleary-eyed pre-coffee consciousness, there were three massive piles of dog shit on my walkway, right below my front steps. They looked like a hieroglyphic, almost spelling out the symbol for Om. Again I had to grab a soggy Towson Times from the porch and scrape the shit into the birthday bag my girlfriend gave me (also on the porch because the damn thing had those annoying glitter/tinsel sparkles on it that get all over your clothes). The shit was getting closer. What's next - doggy doo on my front porch? How about right on my Welcome Mat?

That's it, I thought. If I catch some a dog owner letting their mongrel scat on my walk without cleaning it up, I will make them scoop it up - right into their mouth! Hey, it can't taste worse than those bitter Starbucks dark chocolate-covered Expresso beans. And it's almost a Baltimore tradition thanks to Divine in Pink Flamingos.

Better yet, maybe I'll save the doggie doo in my birthday bag so that I can fling it at the next bunch of rude skater punks who give me a hard time.