TAKE COVER!!!

Hello good people of the world! I had some time so I thought I'd write some thoughts down. It's been fairly tame around the Bundy household for the most part. It's not a big secret that I am not a fan of Friday. I used to welcome Friday with open arms. I'd drive home with my favorite tunes playing in the car, windows down (weather permitting) and couldn't wait for what the weekend had in store for me. The older I get, the more my weekends are filled with laundry, dishes, cleaning, and....dun dun dunnnn.....the 19th Street Mafia. For those who aren't familiar with the 19th Street Mafia, I shall enlighten you. When we moved into our house there were three kids on this block. They were our neighbors and their youngest is 4 or 5 years older than our oldest. Owen was born and then there were 4. Along came Sarah and then there were 5. That's it. In the past 5 years or so, there have been several children move into the neighborhood. Somehow, in the mix of all of it, my house has become the meeting point for all these children. I'm not talking 5 or 6. I'm not even talking 10. I just wrote them all down on paper including my two kids. There are 18 kids that frequent my house. I guarantee that if you drive past my house when school is not in session, you will find endless children in my yard. At least 5 at a time. And this is even the case when we're not at home!!! And if we are gone, I swear they watch for my car and two seconds after we are in the house it starts. It's rediculous. Endless ringing of the doorbell, kids running everywhere in the yard. My kids in and out of the house trying to sneak multiple inside toys outside. Baby clothes, dolls, cars, swords, guns, chalk, pop cans, candy wrappers, pens, paper, crayons, moon sand. These are just a few of the inside toys that I have to go out and pick up afterwards. This does not include when the garage get's opened. Then we come into bikes of all sizes, little trikes, skateboards, balls, frisby's, etc. While it's great that they have friends and play outside and use their imagination, but their friends then go home. Leaving my kids and myself with the clean-up. My house constantly looks like a trash pile. Not to mention, my grass is shot. My kids will come in to use the restroom and 10 seconds in they are ringing the doorbell wondering if they are going to come back out!! Some days I just stay away from my house, just because I know the minute I pull in it's going to start. I'm not kidding! I'm afraid to come home!! The kids are great for the most part, don't get me wrong, but it defintely takes it toll on my sanity. So, there you have it. The 19th Street Mafia..

On to the dog. We have cattle and our last cattle dog, Fud, found a nice piece of carpet to eat and he died. Dumb ass. Anyhoo, so here they were without a cattle dog. Ryan rides Frost, our horse, in the pens and he does a decent job so the idea of a dog was put to the side for awhile. One morning Ryan decides to go to Bruce Nelson's to get a phone number. Bruce is a local guy in Greenwood who trains dogs to work cattle and such. A little inside information, for those who know Wes Boggs, it's his father in-law. So, he goes to get a phone number and what does Bruce send him home with? A puppy. He's a Border Collie and his name is Jed. Jed is a fairly large dog now and leaves big mammoth crap piles in the yard. Why can't he crap at the farm? He's there all day!! You can imagine my amusement when my daughter not only steps in it but actually slips and falls in it as well. Jeans - in the trash. Nope! I was not washing them. I understand that I will probably have several comments about the economy and how there are kids with no pants on so I can only apologize and donate a pair next time I'm in town. I can do cow shit, pig shit, horse shit, chicken shit (remind me later to tell you about the chicken poop poops), baby shit, big kid shit, goat shit, I can even go as far to say that I can deal with cat shit. There is something about dog shit that I just simply cannot do. I threw the damn things away.

There is a point to this rambling and I'll get to it right now.

I witnessed a fairly large pile of poo on the driveway the other day. THE DRIVEWAY!! Really? The dog can't even shit in the yard. Anyhoo - in fear that one of my kids or any of the other members of the 19th Street Mafia would step in it, I decide I need to pick it up. It was in the mix of all the beautiful fall leaves making it camouflage. Excuse me? Why do I care about the 19th Street Mafia stepping in it you ask? Well, that's a good question. It's because when they do, they tend to scrape it off either all over my front steps or on the house itself. No shit! On the house!! You can kind of see now why I drink like I do. It keeps me smiling!

So, back to the disposal. I grab this little hoe my daughter uses to clean the poop up and attempt to slide the crap onto the hoe using leaves and my shoe. It's not working as expected so I decide that poop is better in the yard than in the driveway, right? I carefully slide the plastic hoe as far under the crap pile as I can and with one swift motion, I fling it toward the side yard. I assumed the poop was dropped after the rain we had, however, I realized quite quickly that was not the case at all. It was a mere facade and I was a fool. When I flung that crap with all my might, it stuck to the hoe just long enough to release straight up in the air. I watched that crap in slow motion rise in the air and then burst like a $2,000 firework on the forth of July right above my head about 6 feet up. But there were no "Oooo's and Ahhh's" following this firework. It was more "OH SHIT!!!" I'm running for the door as I hear shit pellets hit the ground and my windshield. I'm covering my head and all hunkered down as if someone was actually shooting at me! All the while saying to myself, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no" as I'm running for cover. I'm sure the neighbors were laughing at me, yet again. "There Nicky goes again. What has she done now?!" And why was I covering my head? Did it really matter where the hell the shit hit me? It would've been horrible anywhere!! I hate dog poop. I will always hate dog poop, and I will not attempt to pick it up again.

**When you eat chicken poop, you often come down with a case of the chicken poop poops, per my nephew.**

**I was asked a good question today. If you ripped the wings off of a fly, would it still be called a fly?**

Well, duty calls and I better run. I hope you all have a great week!! And please, watch for dog shit. There isn't a substance much worse, in my opinion.