I was walking a trio of wiener dogs (two Oscar Meyers, one Ball Park Frank) today, minding my business and theirs, trying to keep the little furry cylinders happy, letting them investigate a patch of ripe grass, when someone begins to frantically rap on a window from the inside of their corner house. It was difficult to see anything, what with winter glare, so, thinking someone was saying "hello," admiring the dogs or perhaps my lovely dog-walking sweatpants, I smiled. The four of us continued down the sidewalk through the slush when the tapper bursts from the front door with eyebrows the shape of evil and scolds me for not picking up after the dogs. "Aren't you gonna pick up after your dogs?!" she screams, pointing her finger at the grass the dogs were roaming moments ago. I explain that they didn't go to the bathroom, and that, even if they did, the tremendous pile of Great Dane-style dog shit in plain view could not possibly have come from them, these tiny creatures I have leashed to my hand. She says something along the lines of, "Well, I wish you'd pick up after your dogs," obviously still blaming me and the Daschunds for the mess in her yard, and slams the door on me as I attempt to resolve the issue. 

Just a few weeks ago, almost the exact same thing happened: an oldish woman comes out of her house to get into her car while Ruth (yes, Ruth), a beagle mix, is peeing on a strip of her lawn. The woman asks me if I'm going to pick up after my dog, and I tell her that the dog didn't poop, she peed. "That's not what I saw," she said, and, as I invited her to point out the imagined pile so I could pick it up, she huffed, got into her car, and slammed the door.  

I can't figure old ladies out. Even semi-old ladies. Many of them seem to have the same rotten prerogative, always wanting to get riled up, start something, then walk away, still riled up, from whatever it is that got them riled up. What I want to know is if anyone gets old ladies; that is, if old ladies can be gotten. Maybe you have a helpful hint or a taser I can use the next time some old coot wrongly accuses me and refuses to talk about it. I just hope they don't force me to whip out the old incontinence insults. I'd hate to surprise one in such a way that she wastes a perfectly good diaper.