Road Apples
Oct. 26, 2009

When things aren't always what they seem

By Tim Sanders

Things are not always as stupid as they may appear to be. Consider the following article by Paul Crossman in the Hudson, New York Register-Star, October 20, 2009:


State Trooper makes traffic stop on Joslen Boulevard

A New York State Trooper pulls over a vehicle near the three-way intersection on Joslen Boulevard in Greenport Monday. The reason for the stop and the outcome of the investigation remain unknown.


That’s it. There is even an accompanying photo of a lady standing next to the trooper’s vehicle. She looks pretty much like a lady standing next to a trooper’s vehicle should look. Both of her feet are firmly planted on the ground, and the vehicle is obviously not moving. It is a sunny day, and there are only a couple of cars on the street, neither of which even remotely resembles the spacecraft from the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” The woman’s image is obscured, but unless she has an ear where her nose should be and a third arm protruding from her spinal column, the photo is even less interesting than the story, although it does, by golly, confirm the fact that Joslen Boulevard indeed has a three-way intersection.

After a cursory reading, one could reasonably assume that either a) reporter Crossman wrote a really stupid article, or b) even when absolutely nothing is happening in Greenport, the ever-vigilant Register-Star is on the job. You know, reassuring readers that from what their highly trained, professional investigative reporters have determined, barring the possibility of a squirrel darting across the intersection without stopping first and looking all three ways, all is well on Joslen Boulevard.

I mention all of this because I, too, am a highly trained professional investigative journalist, although at first glance, one might assume that I was really stupid.
For example, we have a dachshund named Maggie. We also have a fence around our back yard. So one would think we could just let Maggie out the back door to make her doggie deposits, and then let her in again when she scratched at the door.

But that is not how we do things around here. When Maggie indicates the need to relieve herself, I pick her up and carry her outside and down the deck stairs. Then I snatch the pooper scooper from its nail on the deck and follow her. She of course stops every few seconds to sniff the ground, reading her email to learn what happened out there since her last visit. When she stops, I stop. Sometimes she stops several times between the deck and our grape arbor, and I have to wait for her to pee, and then smell the spot where she peed to make sure her message is grammatically correct. By which I mean I don't smell the spot, she does. Then she explores for awhile, stops, pees, smells, and explores again. There are certain places which are appropriate, and many more which just don’t fit the bill.

Pooping is another matter altogether. We have a large backyard, but Maggie has a few favorite spots in which to poop. She prefers a 50 square foot area near the back fence, but before using that area she must inspect the entire yard to see if there might be a better spot she’d never thought of before. When the mood finally strikes her, and the barometric pressure is just right, and she is back to her favorite pooping location, she will stop, begin to hump up the way dogs do, and then reconsider her choice and move ahead a few feet. She sometimes circles the area four or five times, looking for that perfect spot which only a dog’s brain can locate. Run, stop, hump, run, stop, hump. This can go on for a few minutes, with me following, stopping, following, stopping, always with my pooper scooper poised for action.

Now if anyone were to watch this backyard theater of the absurd, they would probably say, “Look at that Sanders loon following the little red dachshund around! I don’t think he’s quite right!”

But of course that observer wouldn’t know the whole story. Yes, I carry Maggie down the stairs, but that is because dachshunds are notorious for having back problems, and she is no exception. I follow her with a pooper scooper because I have scrubbed dog doo off my shoe before, and it is not my favorite activity. And as most dog owners can tell you, sometimes even scooping doo can prove messy. That is why I follow Maggie closely, with that scooper ready. I’ve learned that with proper timing, I can scoot the thing under her little hindquarters and she will simply fill it up for me. Now were she a larger animal, say a St. Bernard or a Clydesdale, the pooper scooper scoot would be more of a hit or miss proposition. But in the case of a dachshund, it works out really well. Maggie humps that final, dramatic “THIS TIME I REALLY MEAN IT!” hump, and I lunge forward with the scooper. When she’s done, the deposit is tossed over the fence into the field behind our property. I’ve followed this procedure for almost seven years, and I’m sure that by now that field is a veritable doggie doo mine field. But our yard, and my shoes, are poopless.

So things aren’t always what they seem. And just maybe that article in the Hudson Register-Star isn’t as stupid as it appears at first glance. Reporter Crossman may be onto something. The woman standing at the trooper’s vehicle may just be part of an undercover Krispy Kreme black market smuggling investigation, delivering the goods to a cop who’s gone over to the dark side, doughnut-wise.

Or maybe not