The French Pooper Scooper

At some point when you live in France, you begin to accept the dog shit situation.

Though I haven’t embraced it with unconditional love just yet, I have already changed my strut to avoid it with ease. Step, step, big step, side step, hop hop.

Now, I’m surprised if I don’t come across any dog shit after several steps and my rhythm feels off. I’m almost disappointed and disoriented. “Where’s all the dog shit? Where am I?”

Living in the city means there are few grassy knolls where your dog can crap. In fact, if you see any patch of green it is probably seaming with “land mines,” as one of my friend calls them. Avoid the grass, no matter how tantalizing it may look!

Sometimes I imagine myself hiding behind a bush. As soon as someone’s dog takes a dump, I pop out and say, “Ah-hah! Do you know what it feels like to walk through your dog’s shit?,” And then I force the person to walk through the dog shit over and over. “That’ll teach ya,” I say triumphantly after I’ve marched the dog owner in and out of it at least three times.

Or, I jump out with a camera; take a picture of the owner and her dog. Then, I make a big poster of it with the caption, “This lady’s dog shits here.” And I post it right there to shame her. Probably not as effective as the iron maiden but maybe we could have a modernized version. Instead of an incredibly heavy iron chamber on top of you, it would be some kind of big iron hat with a huge poop sculpture on top and you and your dog would have to wear it for at least 15 days. Maybe go to rehab “Clockwork Orange” style and watch videos of people picking up dog droppings.

Another idea I had was to spray paint in fluorescent yellow each dropping I come across in the entire city, no matter how old and crusty. Then I’d rent a special plane and take an aerial photo shoot of the city. Call it “Project Dog Shit,” print it out, blow it up and send it to the mayor and all the newspapers. “Congratulations for having one of the most dog shit-covered cities in the world!”

Did you know France employs pooper scoopers just like India? The poor fellows. Some of them even have little motorized contraptions on which they sit. They’re like scooters with water spraying out the back, brushes, and then a vacuum that sucks everything all up.

Imagine some guy, some French engineer sitting at his drafting table so he could design a dog shit sucking machine that the city has agreed to finance and even hire guys to operate it once built? What brilliance!

This engineer actually created more employment for France not to mention his government paid job as the shit machine designer. Did it go through trials?

“Here, man! See if this machine works better than your broom and shovel.”

Two hours later, the pooper scooper comes back all wet and covered with shit and says, “I think there are still a few kinks…”

Two days later the engineer says, ”Here, try again!”

The poor pooper scooper returns and says, “I think you should add a vacuum to suck up all the splattered shit the brushes and water have ground into the streets and sidewalks.”

“Good idea!”

And then, the city produces this great shit cart that sprays, brushes and whips the poop into a frothy brown smelly mousse and then this nasty vacuum tube sucks it up. And by the way, I really like the fact that these carts are fitted with a transparent shit storage unit so we can see the collections! You know, have an idea when it’s full.

“Look at my shit compartment, Pierre! It’s full! Look at yours, you slacker!”

This is for real. I’ve seen this contraption with my own eyes. So, why worry about dog owners cleaning up their dog shit when it literally creates employment?