Like a Flower, Opening

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS about living in a city is that you get to know your neighborhood a little more every day. I happen to live in Washington, DC, but for the purposes of this post I could live anywhere. Each new facet makes the neighborhood feel more like home: the Italian barber holding a haircut fundraiser for a mayoral candidate, the to-die-for chicken salad at the deli around the corner, the long-awaited sighting of the middle-aged douchebag who drives that obnoxious orange sports car. The little things reveal themselves and I'm charmed.

My most recent revelation took place this morning. I was out of my apartment early for a Saturday, and was apparently hitting the streets at a prime dog-walking hour. I swear, it was like a 3:1 dog to human ratio on the sidewalk. I've always been perplexed by those people who have one huge dog and one small dog -- was one a surprise? A mistake? Did it appear with a pacifier and a hastily scribbled note in a basket at the doorstep? I mean, don't most people have a preference about these things?

Regardless, I digress. The revelation. I'm walking up the street on the way to the bank and I see not one, not two, but three dogs piss on the exact same spot on the curb, one right after the other. And on my way back, there's another dog pissing on the same spot! And then it's like the scales have fallen from my eyes and I realize that there are dark, dry stains all over the sidewalk -- on a curb, next to a tree, next to a (how cliche is this?) fire hydrant. A veritable epidemic of canine piss stains, baking and calcifying in the sun until the next rain. Check it out for yourself in your neighborhood. I swear, once you know where those stains are coming from, it'll change everything.

Also, I saw a man wiping his dog's asshole with a paper napkin. Seriously? Get a life.