Then there's good old dog shit. Though laws in NYC require dog owners to scoop up their dog's poop, some owners look the other way and leave the evidence right there in the middle of the sidewalk. Unsuspecting folks step in it, drag it a few feet further, and you've got a path of poop to navigate only IF you're paying attention while walking. If you manage to step in shit and it attaches itself to your footwear, you've got yet another problem to deal with, and that's the eau d' peu. No matter where you go, what store or supermarket you enter, everyone who has clear sinuses will know that one of you stepped in shit; you can't mistake the odor.

So what's a shit-stepper to do? Well, unless you want to sit down on a curb and hand wipe the offensive poo off your shoes, you ponder removal tactics and become resourceful, using anything that may help with waste management -- a quick grass-and-dirt scrub, the edge of a sidewalk curb, newspaper, anything you can find. If you can't do this, then you alone are responsible for spreading the shit around town and also through your own home until you remove the offensive debris.

I dare not recall the number of times I've had to remove shit from the bottom of my shoes. Where there's dog shit, there's me. I attract it like bees to flowers. And supposedly, stepping in dog shit is good luck also. I have difficulty comprehending the idea that stepping in animal excrement is lucky. How something so utterly offensive can be turned into something fortunate is beyond me. It's probably something someone made up one day after a friend stepped in a heaping hot pile of poop. I mean, what else would you say? Only an optimist would attempt to turn something so vile into a thing of beauty. What else is there to say but oh, shit!

If stepping in dog poop or being shit on with fly-by bird poop is lucky then I should be swimming in good fortune. :-)