If you don't pick up after you're dog, you're going to hell

Mick McKinnon floated comfortably into his fifties. He was a fifty year-old by the time he was a three year-old, insisting his parents get their money back on his soggy green eggs and ham at Denny's. Now that the big Five Oh was officially here, he was just done. Done. No more trying. No more trying to date, no more working for promotions at Granbull Construction Corp, no more paying child support. Life was a breezy downward slope now, and he only needed to sled into pension.
You wouldn't be surprised to hear that Mick was done changing. He was the type of guy who’d rant on his cell phone about his new liver growth in a crowded Metra car, and at the highest possible volume before you'd consider it shouting level. He was the type of bloke who'd use the right emergency lane in a highway traffic jam. But his own undoing began when he bought a puppy from Pet Heaven, one of those retail stores that probably get their dogs from mills. A growing Rottweiler named Molly, he never bothered to put a leash on her, nor pick up her messes in the neighborhood. After all, Mick thought, Molly was an animal and didn’t deserve to be bound, and her poop was as natural as the Earth. "Hey," he'd said before. "We all put our shit in the ocean, and I can't let my dog fertilize our grass?"
In the dark of the early morning, you couldn't even make out that Mick's hair was graying in strange patches instead of all at once. In his den, he sat down besides his late mother's oak bureau, the bottom drawer already open. He picked out pieces of the damp tobacco and began to roll them. Mick loved his finely-rolled tobacco joints first thing in the morning, when the moon was still out, when the sun was only a slight shimmer.

Molly sat at his feet, looking up at him, her tail bobbing left and right.

"Just a moment, Moll."

He finally finished rolling his juicy tobacco. He chuckled to himself, thinking of how genuis he truly was. You see, most every tobacco aficionado clamps their tobacco in a humidor and for years he thought they were right. But ever since the one day he accidentally left his tobacco exposed to the air, it's gotten richer and tastier.

"I should write a book." On what? He thought. "General life." He nodded to himself.

Outside, the air was crisp. Spring was yet around the bend. He greedily sucked the last bit of the amber-flavored tobacco and flicked it onto a neighbor's lawn. Molly sniffed the tiny piece of paper and then squatted.

Mick remembered the last time that he left his dog's doo on Mrs. Schlivk's lawn. She came running after him, throwing the feces at him in a wrapped up newspaper. "PICK UP AFTER YOUR FUCKING DOG, MICK!!!" and after he slammed his front door behind him, he could still hear her shouting. "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, DIRTBAG! YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" If there was ever a moment that solidified Mick leaving his dog's solidifides, it was this moment. Other neighbors had made little passive-aggressive comments; the people who wanted to say something but were too passive and afraid.
"Molly, come back! Molly..." The dog ran up Schlivk's lawn, sniffing underneath her front window. She'd never gone this far into someone else's yard before. She bent over and delivered yet another pile.
Mick squinted his eyes. His dog had really changed coming into her adulthood. Her demeaner was sturdier. She seemed to prance around like a show dog. She even took her bowel movements wherever she liked. Mick smiled. She was like the daughter he never had (besides the daughter he actually did have, who calls him once a year, on Christmas.)

The next day, his dog's feces were on his door. Not his doorstep, they were smeered all over his front door. Mrs. Schlivk yelled at him from her car later in the day. "I can't wait for you to burn in hell!" It made Mick chuckle; living outside social norms, a purer state, sure had its challenges.

Mick began smoking his tobacco more and more. Keeping it exposed to oxygen was the best thing for it. About a week later, he was done puffing through his second tobacco roll of the morning already. He had nearly tripled his intake. He woke up a bit late this morning, and the sun was already coming out.

He looked at his hands. The tobacco had left a bit of a smear. He went into the kitchen and washed his hands in the sink. When he returned, he gasped.

"MOLLY!"

Molly was squatting over his lower drawer.

"Get away from there!" He shooed the dog away, but it was too late; she pooped onto his tobacco. Aggravated and shouting, he turned on the den light, for the first time in perhaps months. He grabbed a nearby Kleenex and bent over the drawer.

"Jesus....Jesus... JESUS!"

This fresh crap wasn't the only one in the drawer. Old remnants of drying feces lay in clumps all along his tobacco stash.

His stomach clenched. Many of the remants had his finger prints in them. Clumps were missing. He looked at the joint between his fingers. He quickly unwrapped it. Inside the joint was smeared with brown mess.

He couldn't make it to the kitchen sink before vomiting onto his stove. He emptied the contents of his breakfast, which was smeared with brown. Thoughts began running through his head.

"I should have picked it up...Should have... ughh... picked it all up..."

That's right. For the fact is that Molly grew to feel she could poop anywhere. Afterall, she learns her attitudes from her master, who lets her do it. Not only that, but Molly has always associated the ground outside, where she can poop, with Mick's flicked tobacco joints. Thus, she felt more than compelled to poop right into Mick's tobacco. Nay, it felt natural.

So remember, if you're a "Mick," that type of person who thinks the world is your oyster, that your dog's mess is someone else's issue, you deserve to ingest your dog's feces and you WILL. And Mrs. Schlivk is right; you WILL go to hell in addition.

Surprise! You aborted your child!

Lisa twisted the key and walked into her apartment, mostly dark except for slivers of afternoon light coming from behind the shades in the living room. Relieved to be home, she sighed and hung up her business suit in her closet. She yawned, and dragged her briefcase along the narrow hallway. Before she reached the kitchen/dining room area, all the lights flicked on at once.

"SURPRISE!!" people shouted as they jumped from behind her couch, her bookshelf, the wall that covers part of the kitchen. Lisa gasped and balled her knuckles into fists, ready to attack.

Balloons went up, streamers flew threw the air, poppers went off. Lisa looked at the faces of her smiling family; her grandparents, almost eighty, with party hats on, with tight-lipped smiles; her mother, hair just beginning to gray a bit; her aunt, uncle, and their five children, the youngest a toddler, the oldest a high school sophomore, all with the classic O'Donahue white-blonde hair.
There was a cake in the middle of the room, with a "5" shaped candle already lit. A banner had been hung up from the ceiling, saying, "Happy 5th Birthday, Lisa's Son/Daughter!"

"Screw you guys!!" Lisa hammered through sharp breaths.

"We just want to celebrate your child's birthday, Lisa. Or at least... almost birth day," said her mother, slicing into the cake.

"You did this to yourself," chorted her uncle under his sharp mustache.

"He would have been five years old today," Lisa's mother said, her lips curling. "Still glad that you slapped God in the face?"
"Get out, all of you!"

They stood still.

"How did you find me?!"

"God hath shown us the way on yellow pages dot com," said her grandmother.
Lisa ran into the kitchen and slipped a knife out of her wooden knife set and ran into the living room, brandishing it in front of her. "I'm gonna abort you all just like I did the fetus!!"
The family screamed and darted towards the front hallway.

"God save us!"

"The eyes of the devil she's got!"
**
A few minutes later, Lisa had packed the essentials in two large suitcases. She looked back at the apartment. It seemed like she had just set it up to be home.

She got into her car and drove a few blocks away to the Albertson Elementary School. Luckily, the bell was just ringing. Lisa wiped mist from her eyelids. A little boy with white-blonde hair, a bit taller than the gaggle of children around him, flocked towards Lisa's car. He opened the door and got in. Lisa gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

"We have to move again, sweetie."

"What?! Why?!" The boy threw his backpack on the car floor.

"Because our family found us."

"They did?! Can't I meet them?"
Lisa bit her lip. "No, hon. You can't. They can't know you're alive or where we are. They're insane. Hey, I've got a birthday present for you."
"What?"

"You know how you said you wished we lived near Disney Land?"

Did you know that if you impulse buy, your daddy issues are coming back?

This is true, according to Dr. Ian Zimmerman from Psychology Today, who writes that impulse buyers are motivated by social pressure, emotional instability, and using products to fulfill their general unhappiness. I knew there was a hunger that those Reeses Pieces just couldn't fulfill...

          Amidst the rows of pop and chip bags, Dona tickles Don's fingers. He looks up from the Cherry Coke pricetags and smiles her. She winks at him, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear. Don studies the way the fluorescent lights glean in her hair. He leans into her and kisses her. He presses her into the aisle. Dona moans. 

          "I've never been this happy," Dona admits. "Ever." 

           A few moments later Don and Dona walk towards the front register. There are only two people in front of them in line and Dona's eyes glean over towards the small shelf displays next to the old balding man at the cash register. Beep, beep, goes the merchandise. 

         "Do you have our Caring Customer Cool Card?" 

         Don tickles Dona's fingers. "I'm so glad we met," he says. "It's only been a few weeks but it seems like it's been so much longer." 

          Dona breaks eye contact from the sexy merchandise next to the register. "Your sturdiness makes my knees wobble," Dona whispers.

          "Your impulsiveness makes me feel like a man," Don hisses into Dona's ear. She tries to stay upright. She looks back over at the products.

          It's Dona's turn in line. The cashier smiles, wrinkles appearing on his cheeks. "How are you today, miss? Do you have our Caring Customer Cool Card?" Dona doesn't answer. She stares at the Listerine breath strips that hang underneath the "2 for 99¢!" yellow crooked tag. 

          "Your total is four-oh-one," the cashier proclaims. Dona extracts her Mastercard from her purse and looks again at the breath strips product. There are pine trees on the front. Dona pictures what Don would think of her, with the smell of a thousand forests flowing from her breath. He'd be shocked. He'd begin to kiss her neither of them had any tongue left!

          "I'll take this, too," Dona says. She swoops the Listerine product up with her hand and gives it to the cashier along with her credit card. Don looks at her with an eyebrow up, as if to say, Wow. Blow my mind, you sexy risk-taker.

          "That brings it to five-oh-nine." The cashier swipes the card in his register machine. Dona tries to calm her breathing. She can feel Don rubbing her thigh with his knuckles.

          "Hmm." The cashier rubs his chin. He swipes Dona's card again. Dona looks at Don and smiles, as though this were all a part of the plan. The cashier swipes the card again. 

          "It keeps reading denied. I just tried it three times." 

          Dona clears her throat and fists her shaking hands. "That's impossible." 

          "Well, I'll try aga- Yep. Same thing." The cashier hands Dona back her card. Dona eyes the faint green color that seems to glow from within her plastic Walgreens shopping bag. If only she hadn't purchased the breath strips, she'd probably be able to skimp by. Wasn't her mother supposed to have mailed her that loan by now? Dona decides to ask for the cashier to take out the breath strips. What?! How could she not purchase those breath strips? Don would kiss her mouth so intensely they'd both be mentally transported to a world of evergreens, where they could both be naked forever. She must have it! 

          "I just put like a thousand dollars in it," Dona looks at her light blue runner's watch. "About fifteen minutes ago." 

          "I'm sorry, but it's not working," the cashier says, clearly growing bored. "You should call your bank-"

          Don steps closer to the cashier. "I'll take care of it," he says, reaching for his wallet in his back pocket. 

          "I'm sorry!" Dona screams. Don and the cashier look at her, startled. "I lied about having the modeling job, okay?! I'm unemployed!" 

         "You lied?" Don asks. "It's not a big-"

         "Yes, I did! I LIED! I FUCKING LIED!" Dona picks up the telephone next to the cashier and speaks into it: "I, Dona Angelou, am a mother fucking liar! I'm a LIAR!!" Her voice reverberates throughout the entire store. Dona is aware of a red-smocked manager running towards them from near the photo booth. 

         "Goodbye, Don!" Tears glisten in Dona's eyes and she runs through the automatically-opening doors. "I'll always remember you."

          "This is declined, too," the cashier says to Don, handing him back his Visa.

Here is a link to Dr. Zimmerman's article. The moral of today's story is, if you have ADHD, autism, or the like, and you also have money, use the register in the back of the store.