Neighborhood Children

Before I was married, I owned a small house in a neighborhood that had lots of children. The house was just right for me and my Doberman Pinscher, Brandi; but I have no idea how the family who lived there before me ever managed, with two teenage daughters and two large dogs. The rooms were small, and there was just one very small bathroom.

The previous owner had apparently been a hunter because, when I looked at the house before buying it, there were hunting trophies on display around the family room. In fact, one time after I had moved in, my doorbell rang. When I answered it, there was a little boy standing there, who wanted to know if he could come in and look at the animals. He was disappointed to learn that the animals had gone with the previous owner.

There was a nice fenced yard for Brandi, although not as roomy as she probably would have liked. The small size of the yard made it important to keep it scooped.

Once, after not having scooped for awhile, I cleaned the yard and ended up with a pretty good supply of doggy waste. I put it in a garbage bag, then scooped up some sand that had accumulated at the curb and put that into the bag with the other contents. Then I put the bag by the curb to be collected by my trash pickup service the next day.

The next afternoon, when I came home from work, I found a group of children at the curb in front of my house, flinging something at each other from the ends of sticks. Then I saw what had happened. The trash bag had torn when the trash collector picked it up to throw it onto the truck, and the contents had spilled out. With their natural ingenuity, the children had quickly come up with a fun new game.