scoop

Yesterday a man named Mark sent this Comment in to the New York Times:

---------------I don't think we would have seen these protests if heads had rolled in the financial community, and if we had seen criminal investigations and jail sentences. Instead we saw golden parachutes and record high bonuses. We MUST get back to creating wealth by creating a product. Will someone explain to me in simple English why hedge funds managers who make astronomical salaries are Good for America? I am not saying hedge funds are bad, but please tell me (since we seem to have so many of them now) why is this good for America?----------------[end quote]

(Boy, I'd be the last person with an answer to that question, but I know a Good Question when I see one...)
-----------------------------------

Remember when the pooper-scooper law was first passed in New York City in the 80s? It provided fodder for late-night comedians and other jokesters and commentators -- Paul Harvey had a field day -- oh! did he have fun with that!

(Think probably most major cities have that law, now: funny to think of, or not, it does make sense where you have concentrated population -- people go out and walk their dogs -- you CAN end up with too many dogly "calling cards" around...)

In the Stephanie Plum novel Hot Six, author Janet Evanovich riffs on the pooper-scooper law Phenomenon. Showcased here are two excerpts: the pooper-scooper sequence is in the second excerpt; we need the Excerpt 1 to introduce characters Mitchell and Habib.
(Hah - BEEB.
Ah yes. Just so.)

[excerpt 1 -- setting: Trenton, New Jersey]------------ I left Moon to his retrospective and had my fingers wrapped around the door handle of my car when a black Lincoln pulled alongside me.
The passenger-side window rolled down and a man looked out. "You Stephanie Plum?"
"Yes."
"We'd like to have a little chat with you. Get in."

Yeah, right. I'm going to get into the Mafia staff car with two strange men, one of whom is a Pakistani with a .38 tucked into his Sansabelt pants...and the other is a guy who looks like Hulk Hogan with a buzz cut. "My mother told me never to ride with strangers."

"We aren't so strange," Hulk said. "We're just your average couple of guys. Isn't that right, Habib?"
"That is just so," Habib said, inclining his head in my direction and smiling, showing a gold tooth. "We are most average in every way."
"What do you want?" I asked.
The guy in the passenger seat gave a big sigh. "You're not gonna get in the car, are you?"
"No."
"Okay, here's the deal. We're looking for a friend of yours. Only maybe he's not a friend anymore. Maybe you're looking for him, too."

"Uh-huh."
"So we thought we could work together. You know, be a team."
"I don't think so."
"Well, then, we're just gonna have to follow you around. We thought we should tell you so you don't get, you know, alarmed when you see us tailing you."

"Who are you?"
"That's Habib over there behind the wheel. And I'm Mitchell."
"No. I mean, who are you? Who do you work for?" I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I thought it was worth asking anyway.

"We'd rather not divulge our employer's name," Mitchell said. "It don't matter to you anyway. What you want to remember is that you don't cut us out of anything, because then we'd be annoyed."

"Yes, and it is not good when we become annoyed," Habib said, wagging his finger. "We are not to be taken lightly. Is that not so?" he asked, looking to Mitchell for approval. "In fact, if you annoy us we will spread your entrails across an entire parking space of my cousin Muhammad's 7-Eleven parking lot."

"What are you, nuts?" Mitchell said. "We don't do no entrails shit. And if we did, it wouldn't be in front of the 7-Eleven. I go there for my Sunday paper."
"Oh," Habib said.
----------------------- [end Excerpt 1]

--------------
-----------------------[Excerpt 2]: I wanted to check on Hannibal's town house, but I didn't want to drag Mitchell and Habib over with me.
"I need a diversion," I said to Lula. "I need to get rid of those guys in the carpet car."

"Do you mean you want to get rid of them? Or do you mean you don't want them following you?"
"I don't want them following me."
...Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. "How about the burning bag thing?"

We swiveled our heads in his direction.
"Usually you do it as a gag on somebody's front porch," Vinnie said. "You put some dog shit in a bag. Then you put the bag on the sucker's front porch and ring the bell. Then you set the bag on fire and run like hell. When the mark opens the door he sees the bag burning and stomps on it to put it out."
"And?"
"And then he get dog shit all over his shoe," Vinnie said. "If you did it to these guys and they got dog shit all over their shoes they'd be distracted, and you could drive away."

...
Lula said..."Only thing is, we need some dog poop."
...
Connie took a brown paper lunch bag from her bottom drawer. "I've got a bag and you can use the empty chicken bucket as a pooper-scooper."
...

The park was only two blocks away, so we walked Bob to the park and stood around waiting for him to answer nature's call. Only nature asn't calling Bob's name.

"You ever notice how when you don't want dog poop it just seems to be everywhere?" Lula said. "And now when we want some..." Her eyes opened wide.

"Hold the phone. Dog at twelve o'clock. And it's a big one."
...The dog was big and black. The old woman at the other end of the leash was small and white. ...

The dog suddenly stopped walking and hunched over, and Lula and Bob and I took off across the grass. I had Bob on the leash, and Lula was waving the chicken bucket and paper bag, and we were running full tilt when the woman looked up and saw us. The color drained from her face, and she staggered backward.

"I'm old," she said. "I haven't got any money. Go away. Don't hurt me."
"We don't want your money," Lula said. "We want your poop."
The woman choked up on the dog's leash. "You can't have the poop. I have to take the poop home. It's the law."

"The law don't say you gotta take it home," Lula said. "It's just somebody gotta do it. And we're volunteering."
...

"I don't know if that's right," the woman said. "I never heard of that. I think I'm supposed to take the poop home."

"Okay," Lula said, "we'll pay you for the poop." Lula looked over at me. "Give her a couple bucks for her poop."
I searched my pockets. "I don't have any money on me. I didn't bring my purse."
"I won't take any less than five dollars," the woman said.
------------------------ [end Excerpt]
...
They scoop up the stuff & take off back for the office -- the lady is going, "Help! They're taking my poop! Stop! Thief!"

-30-