There comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to suffer for the one you love.
For me, that moment arrived yesterday when I got a bag of poop in the face.
In order to explain, first I need to tell you a little bit about my dog. When I got her from the animal shelter, her name was Iris. I thought she was given that name because she’s fancy. Turns out, it came courtesy of her fucked-up irises.
This dog was born completely deaf and about 90 percent blind. Her left eye is tiny, ice blue and completely useless. Her right eye is brownish, and she can use it ever-so-slightly. She can see well enough to get around most of the time, but not enough to avoid walking into the occasional mailbox or telephone pole.
Her eyes actually float in two different directions, like a cartoon dog that’s been hit in the head with a frying pan.
This is why I named her Lemon. Because she’s a wonky used car.
That said, she’s also brave and spunky. She literally stops to smell the roses, and she loves nothing more than burrowing under my knees when I take a nap. Her life is entirely scent- and cuddle-driven, which is admirable. For a dog, she’s pretty good at teaching people to enjoy the succulence of life.
Lemon also loves to hit the hiking trails, which is why I take her up the Lykken Trail about once a week. I suspect someone in her family tree once mated with a mountain goat, because she’s a surprisingly good hiker despite her ridiculous low-rider legs.
Yesterday she pooped four times as we approached the trailhead (Aside: Do you think dachshunds poop more because they are stretched out and therefore have longer intestines? This is my theory). I picked up each pile in a plastic bag and secured the bag around the handle of Lemon’s leash. So I was still carrying it with me, but I wasn’t actually holding the sack of nasty.
Another dog approached us, which always spooks Lemon. It doesn’t matter how friendly the dog is, imagine getting your salad tossed by a cold nose that you didn’t even see coming.
After the dog passed, Lemon was a little frantic and skittish, but we still progressed up the mountain. At a particularly thin point of the trail, I noticed two women barreling toward us. I imagined the ladies getting caught in a tangle of dachshund, the whole ball of them tumbling all the way down on rocks and rattlesnakes, eating cactus for lunch.
There was only a slight outcropping where Lemon and I could pull over. And just in time too. The women rounded the switchback as I was scooping up Lemon into my arms. And in that motion, the bag of poop launched itself off the leash and smacked me directly in the face.
It would actually be no big deal — after all, there was a layer of plastic between the poo molecules and my cheek — except that these ladies happened to be filming some kind of reality show. One woman had a helmet cam, the other a handheld device. When I ran into them at their car later, they said they were with some kind of TV production team.
So if you happen to see footage of a sweaty hiker chick getting a bag of poop in the face on YouTube someday, that chick might be me.
But remember that I did it for the Lemon I love.