Today’s douchebag should be totally ashamed of him or herself.  There’s a rule that every dog owner should live by.  If your dog poops, you scoop.  I myself have never owned a dog, but an ex-boyfriend of mine did, and when I’d walk him I’d always scoop his poop. Did I enjoy picking up large steaming piles of crap?  No.  Did I suck it up and do it?  Yes.  (Except one time the dog had diarrhea and I just didn’t see a way).  It is specifically a huge problem on the Upper West of NYC.  Land of dogs and baby strollers.  At least babies poop in a diaper.  Hmm, has anyone ever explored the doggy diaper?  I’m sure they have, seems too easy.

Anyway, I was walking down the street one day and my luck, it was the one time I wasn’t looking down as I walked.  For whatever reason, when I’m walking the streets of NYC I always look down.  I’m not sure why, I just do.  But one day I was walking along, looking down and this homeless guy says to me, “Honey…it can’t be THAT bad.”  The irony is that I wasn’t even miserable (except for the usual, why does my husband think it’s funny to fart loudly, type misery) If a homeless man went out of his way to comment on my miserable looking persona, it was definitely time to make a concerted effort to change.

So I did, and what did it get me?  A sneaker full of Schnauzer shit, poodle poop, dalmation doodie.  I don’t know what kind of dog it was, it doesn’t really matter.  Dog crap is dog crap when it ends up on the bottom of your shoe.  And I was wearing sneakers so it really got up in there, in every ridge, every crevasse.  It’s infuriating and it’s all because some douchebag didn’t do his due diligence when his dog took a dump. From now on I’m going back to looking down when I walk, that way I’ll see what I’m walking into.  Lesson learned, I’d rather LOOK miserable than BE miserable after stepping in a pile of shit.

You know how you describe a sneaky, dishonest person who will totally screw you over a “snake in the grass?” Well, today’s douchebag is not that, it’s literally…a snake in the grass. Swamp life strikes again. I was sitting out back doing some writing since the weather finally turned and you can sit outside without feeling like you’re suffocating. So I’m on my laptop, and for whatever reason I looked up only to spot this latest intruder. Now, admittedly, I am a person who does not do well with this type of wildlife, but here is an official definition of a snake…

Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears.

I’m sorry, I don’t care if you’re a herpetologist (yes, I had to look it up and it’s a person who studies reptiles and amphibians. I know, it seems as if it would involve herpes. Don’t ask me why, I also looked up whether or not snakes can get herpes and they can. So I guess a herpetologist can kill 2 birds with one stone) Anyway, my point is that even if you’re someone who chooses to make a living studying snakes, the above definition just doesn’t sound appealing. They made a movie with Samuel L. Jackson called “Snakes on a Plane.” Notice they didn’t go with “Raccoons on a plane,” or “Beavers on a Plane.” Well, that would be an entirely different genre. They went with snakes because the idea was for it to be scary, and snakes are scary, not to mention slimy and they slither. In addition, any animal that is rope-like in shape is frankly too bizarre for me to wrap my head around. And speaking of wrapping around, some snakes wrap themselves tightly around their prey in order to kill it. I’m claustrophobic just thinking about it.

As soon as I saw the snake in my yard, I sent the pic to 2 of my friends that have been here longer and are more familiar with the creatures that surrounds us. They said they didn’t think this specific snake was venomous, but nonetheless agreed it was very unsettling. One of my friends told me that if I see any more snakes I need to call “Critter Jim.” If you want to pursue a career in critters, surely this is the place to do it. While clearly I could never have been “Critter Hope,” I could very well have been “Fritter Hope.” Let’s face it, you could fry up a keychain in the right batter and it would taste good.

Ssssssssssorry snake, you’ve slithered your way into the title of today’s douchebag of the day.

I am writing this entry on behalf of my friend.  Today’s douchebag is the bird that flew over the bench on the southeast corner of Bryant Park in NYC at about 2:30 PM last Thursday. Why?  Said bird took a shit on my friend’s head.

My friend decided to take a much needed break from work, grab some lunch from one of her favorite food trucks, sit on a bench and people watch while she eats.  People watching in NYC is one of my favorite pastimes.  It’s the only place you can see a fierce tranny, a conservative granny, and a baby with its nanny walk by in a matter of 5-7 seconds. So my friend was sitting there enjoying the sights and her pad Thai, when suddenly she felt something wet drop onto her head.  She clearly knew it wasn’t raining, and she wasn’t close to any buildings. What I mean by that is, in the warm weather, the air conditioners on the high rises often leak water which can drip on you’re head as you walking down the street. Crazy as it sounds, as a New Yorker, you sometimes learn to embrace it, especially in the really balmy months.  Even dirty water feels good when it’s balls hot and you still have 18 more blocks to walk. Anyway, my friend pulled a mirror out of her purse, and came face to face with the reality, a bird had crapped on her.

Now, you might think her anger and disgust came from the fact that she had bird feces in her hair. Well, you would be wrong. She was pissed because she had just gotten a blow out.  Here’s the deal, my friend has not taken a blow drier to her head in years.  She says she’s about as skilled at blowing out her own hair as Kim Kardashian is at, well, anything. She has curly hair, so she says, I’ve known her for over 10 years and have never seen so much as a wave.  It’s always pin straight, and looks great by the way.  She managed to find a salon on the upper east side that gives cheap, but good blowouts. So twice a week, she goes and gets it done. Yes, it sounds like a convenience, but she works full time and has a son, so fitting it in is often a challenge. She’ll either get up extra early to do it, or try to sneak it in on a lunch break. I used to work at the same ad agency she works at so I can assure you, much like finding the perfect pair of underwear, a lunch break is very rare.  So the fact that the biweekly blowout she had just gotten the day before had been crapped all over, had her really pissed off.  She sent me a selfie of the affected area of her head, and tragically it was right by her scalp. This bitch of a bird didn’t have the decency to unload on the end of her hair so it could’ve been a partial wash scenario. Nope, this was a full redo blowout and that really blows.  I tried to make her feel better by telling her what my mom used to say, when a bird shit on her car it was good luck.  She immediately sent me another selfie of the bird crap dripping down her head with the message, no, I’m just shit outta luck.

She washed out what she could, and the next morning told her boss she had a doctors appt in case he was looking for her, but really went to get a morning blowout.  Sure she lied, but whoever says they’ve never lied to their boss is full of as much shit as the left side of my friend’s head. So on behalf of my friend, bird…you took a poorly placed poop, that makes you the douchebag of the day.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I currently live in a swamp. And by swamp I mean Florida.

My husband (Adam) and I were going out to dinner on Saturday night. Everything was going well, in fact, I had my hair down for the first time in possibly 2 months, and had on cute underwear that goes way too far up my ass to wear on a weekday. We got in the car, started driving, and suddenly Adam stopped the car and screamed as if he saw a ghost. It wasn’t a ghost, it was a big fucking frog that decided to leap into our Lexus. Adam immediately opened his door and frantically began to “shoo” this swamp creature out of our car. I will admit, it was pretty amusing watching my ‘guy’s guy’ husband have a total girly freak out. And for the rest of the night I called him Adaline which was fun. But seriously, who finds a frog in their freakin car?! People who live in a swamp. That’s who.

Now you’re probably not going to believe the next part of this story because of the timing, but even I couldn’t make this shit up. So the next morning it was early and I had to pee. I drink an inordinate amount of water therefore peeing at 5am is a common occurrence. I stumbled into the bathroom, did my business, still half asleep, grabbed the toilet paper roll (the toilet paper holder has been broken for months. I’m one of those people who just learns to deal with things when they’re broken. In one of my early NYC apartments I once sat in the dark for several months because the light switch was broken and my super had disappeared. It was strangely calming and gave me a new appreciation for the Amish) Anyway, it was still pretty dark in the bathroom when I went to grab the toilet paper. As I lifted it I quickly realized there was something sitting on it, more specifically, a lizard. WTF? Why are these swamp creatures invading my personal space? Has this lizard decided that taking a shit on the grass is too primitive for him? Am I going to find him next on my reclining chair enjoying a cold beverage? It was way too early for me to deal with swamp life, so I got back in bed, woke Adam up and told him what happened. His response was, you really have to keep the doors closed. That infuriated me because truthfully there are an insane amount of lizards outside my house and just walking in and out is an open invitation for these rugged reptiles to invade my space. So I suggested to Adam that I somehow acquire magical powers that allow me to teleport myself in and out of the house so I don’t have to open the door. His response was, just like the swamp life, it was also too early for my sarcasm. In my opinion it’s never too early for sarcasm.

Given that within a 12 hour period, I was unexpectedly faced with 2 reptiles in my natural habitat, not theirs, Florida is today’s douchebag of the day. And for the record, I get it’s sunny here, but right now I thinking it should be, Florida. The Swamp state.