When a bag of poop is actually a metaphor.

Read on!

So I have this leak in my daughter’s bedroom that is proving difficult to source. It’s very annoying and has me annoyed and also thinking, at the same time, about my first-world problems, which I am not allowed to be annoyed about because I am lucky to live where I do. I can spend a lot of time talking about the weaponizing of gratitude (especially against women) as a means to keep us placated and silent (I’ve written about this in my novel and possibly here, too—I’m old and can’t remember, I’m sorry!). But also, I can write at some length about how I need to shut the fuck up about weaponizing gratitude because I should be grateful this is the worst problem I have.

Anyway. I digress.

So my kid has been sleeping in our living room for probably a month. Her room is not inhabitable. Sometimes I go in there and think it looks like it’s been bombed and then I read the paper and look at the pictures and seriously tell myself to shut the FUCK up.

In other news, my dog sometimes does his business on the Astroturf of my tiny balcony. Like: first this in the morning. Traditionally, I clean up and drop the bag in an appropriate garbage bin. However, in the past couple months, I’ve started to drop the bags from my balcony into a small garden that is street level (when no one is looking) with the intent and practice of picking them up ten minutes later when I leave the building to take my kid to school.

About a week ago, I decided this just wasn’t efficient enough. Nope, I had to throw the bag closer to the entrance so that I wouldn’t have to go three steps out of my way to pick it up. So I did. I threw it towards the entrance without really giving much thought to its trajectory through space and the upshot was that it got stuck in a tree.

So now there was a bag of shit hanging outside my building. I couldn’t reach it from above or below.

For a few days, I regarded the bag with mixed feelings. It felt like a metaphor for pretty much everything. But I also found it hilarious. I kept waiting for my neighbors to say something. I was almost looking forward to the email thread. Except you really wouldn’t notice the bag unless you were looking for it. Which is a different metaphor altogether!

In the end, a heroic friend of mine, who first offered a branch clipper (hilarious) managed to climb up part of the tree and shake down this Metaphor for Life, no matter how you read it. I was relieved and also a little sad. And then managed to nearly flood my bathroom a week later, which just means there’s always another metaphor around the corner.

Happy holidays, my friends. And thanks for your support—new and old. I really enjoy sending out these dispatches from the frontlines of the absurd because a little humor never hurt anyone.