You smell it first.
That ripe, someone-forgot-to-flush-the-toilet smell.
That’s how you know it’s there.
That dog shit stuck to the bottom of your shoe.
We’ll get back to that in a minute.
First, there was snow in the forecast, the first of the season.
And I still had a thick layer of leaves covering my yard.
Once it snowed, my ambition for dealing with the leaves would be zilch, so I figured I’d better get out and do something about them.
Luckily, the snow was due to hit early Sunday morning, so that gave me Saturday afternoon to clean things up.
I generally don’t mind yard work.
It doesn’t require any skill, and it provides fresh air and exercise.
Plus, in the late fall, it allows me to gear up like I just stepped out of the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog.
You can’t do serious yard work without a hearty flannel and Maine Hunting Shoes, right?
Well, I should say, that used to be the case.
My yard is so treacherously steep, I’ve had to adapt my yard work uniform to better meet the task.
Lately, I’ve been dressing for lawn-mowing and leaf-raking as though they were CrossFit workouts.
I wear a fleece pullover, running shorts, and a pair of baseball cleats I picked up on sale at the Fort Leavenworth Exchange.
Sounds ridiculous, I know.
But the cleats are essential.
Without them, I don’t know how many times I might have gone careening into the woods behind my house.
So, once I was properly attired, the question then was to rake or mulch.
Is it better to rake or blow the leaves into piles for disposal or run them over with the lawnmower and mash them into the grass?
The articles I’d read online clearly favored the latter.
The mashed-up leaves apparently act like lawn food.
So, it was decided.
Mulch, baby, mulch!
I fired up the mower and, for the next hour, enjoyed the satisfying crunch of leaves being chewed up and spit back out all over the yard.
And, when I was finished, I had to say, the place looked pretty damn good.
I put the mower away and tidied up the garage a bit.
And then it hit me.
The smell.
Oh, no, I thought.
No, no, no, no . . .
One at a time, I picked up my feet to examine the bottom of my cleats.
And, sure enough, jammed into the crevices of the underside of my right shoe was a brown, gooey mess.
Dog shit.
Which was absolutely infuriating.
Especially since I don’t have a dog.
So, who was to blame?
Most neighbors are good about cleaning up after their pets.
If someone’s out walking his dog, and that dog makes a stop in your yard to do his business, that person, almost without fail, will break out a little plastic baggie and pick up after the dog.
It’s what you do when you live in a civilized society.
However, from time to time, one of the neighbor’s dogs will liberate itself from its leash or the invisible fence surrounding its yard and make a break for it.
And, when that happens, the dog will take great pleasure in sniffing around and shitting in your yard.
I guess it’s about the freedom . . . the novelty.
Dogs like that stuff, too.
It reminds me of the tradition of the Phantom Shitter on board a U.S. Navy vessel.
About halfway through a deployment, when things really start to drag, a pile of human feces will be discovered in a conspicuous place on the ship.
The quarterdeck, or the ceremonial area on the ship’s main deck, is a favorite spot.
Then begins the intrigue, which consumes the entire crew.
Who is the Phantom Shitter, and where will he strike again?
After the quarterdeck, another favorite spot is the main passageway in Officers’ Country.
That’s where the ship’s officers live.
Or, better, if the ship has accommodations for an admiral and his or her staff, Flag Country, as it’s called, is another favorite target of a Phantom Shitter.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
The most powerful, technologically advanced Navy in the history of the world is populated by people who defecate in places other than toilets?
That’s a fair question.
But, unless you’ve done one, it’s hard to appreciate how monotonous and boring a deployment can be.
Anything that spices things up; I mean, anything; is a welcome reprieve.
Halfway through my second deployment, a Phantom Shitter struck my ship, USS Fletcher.
We’d been operating in the North Arabian Gulf for a couple months, hitting port about once every thirty days.
It was Groundhog Day.
The same damn thing over and over again.
And then the Shitter struck, electrifying the ship.
I even had the privilege to discover some of the Shitter’s earliest handiwork.
There it was, a pile in the center of the passageway connecting the hangar and the Combat Information Center.
It was about two o’clock in the morning, and I was on my way to Combat to brief a flight.
I carefully maneuvered around the pile, hugging the bulkhead as I passed it as though it were radioactive.
When I got to Combat, I found the Tactical Action Officer, the senior watch stander.
Someone left you a present in the passageway, I told him.
He immediately sent one of the junior Sailors to clean it up.
Poor bastard.
The ship’s second-in-command; the Executive Officer, or “XO;” is typically charged with rooting out a Phantom Shitter.
The XO is ship’s enforcer.
I’ve observed XOs take two approaches to managing Phantom Shitters.
The first, what I’d call the enlightened approach, has the XO taking the high road.
“Okay, Phantom Shitter, whoever you are, you got us,” he’ll tell the crew. “But do you really want your buddies to have keep cleaning up your mess? Not cool.”
And then the Phantom Shitter phenomenon typically dies out.
The other, more heavy-handed approach, like that taken by Fletcher’s XO, has the second-in-command going full Commander Queeg, like in The Caine Mutiny.
He’ll make it an inquisition.
And then the Shitter phenomenon persists, with the crew’s rooting him on every step of the way.
Myself included.
Fletcher’s Phantom Shitter was never identified.
Which still brings me a good deal of satisfaction.
So, you see, I’m not necessarily anti-Shitter.
A well-placed, well-timed pile of shit can provide a huge boost to morale.
That can include dog shit.
Random piles will show up in my yard from time to time throughout the summer, and I typically don’t mind.
I can spot them from a distance and take evasive action.
And I don’t believe my neighbors are secretly dispatching their dogs to leave piles of shit in my yard in the middle of the night just to torment me, Phantom Shitter-style.
That seems highly unlikely.
But kudos to both the dog and owner if they are.
I can’t exclude the possibility that my neighborhood has a canine Phantom Shitter.
I guess my problem is when mulching a leaf-covered yard, the dog shit goes undetected.
Until, that is, you step in it.
With your cleats on.
And then what?
I guess I’ll be off to Fort Leavenworth to buy another pair.
Because that stuff’s not coming out.
Bravo, Phantom Dog Shitter.
Whoever you are.
Bravo.