Bag of Poopy Snow

I may have mentioned in a previous post that my job as a vet assistant can range from scrubbing in to surgeries to literally being a pooper-scooper.

While I get the most excited about scrubbing in, all of my best stories are about the latter.

It was the winter of '12. Poop-scooping was turning out to be slightly more pleasant in the freezing cold. On a hot August day, there's nothing worse than dripping with sweat, wearing scrub pants and holding a bucket of steaming dog turds. The fact that all of the turds were now frozen and consequently less pungent was a big perk. Also, being a veterinary hospital, there was an unfortunate tendency for the dog feces not to be solid in above-freezing temperatures.

What I hadn't anticipated was how quickly my garbage bag would become heavy. The added weight of the snow surrounding each turd began to make the job increasingly difficult as the garbage bag and I both strained under the weight, but I didn't want to go inside to get a second bag because my glasses would fog up and I'd look like Chandler in that clip they always show of him wearing glasses in a sauna during the introduction to "Friends." (You know you know the clip I'm talking about.)

When I was satisfied with my clean-up job, I dragged the feces-and-snow-filled bag over to the dumpster.

The dumpster was really full. In fact, it was overflowing - I guess the garbage guys had missed a day or something, because the mound above the top rim of the dumpster was at least six inches high. The top rim of the dumpster itself was about 3 inches taller than me; almost six feet. I briefly considered leaving the garbage bag sitting on the asphalt next to the dumpster so that someone else would have to deal with it, but come on. That's a dick move. It was my bag of shit, and I was going to dispose of it properly.

After assessing the situation for a moment, I decided to just go with the first logical option - use my own brute force. (Cue laugh track.)

This is how my first attempt played out.

After scratching my head and casually looking up at the sky in case anyone was watching, I decided to give it another go, but this time to swing the bag back farther to get more momentum. (So basically the exact same thing but with feeling!)

I very badly wanted to be in a comical fury. I recall yelling "Balls!" a few times while shaking the poop-y snow-water out of my hair. In the end I couldn't really be angry and this is why: