Stench-berry

It beckoned like a tiny ripe blueberry. This miniature piece of butt fruit radiated stinkiness. It refined what "foul" means.

It was almost 80 degrees and it was only 6:30 in the morning. The humidity of our heat wave bathed the low-hanging bowel berry in moisture, coaxing from it the sour smell of intestinal wonders best not thought about.

My lhasa-poo, Penny, was rather put out that she had a dingleberry.

We were returning from her morning walk. She made a deposit, I picked up after her, sealed up the bag, and turned back for home. Except, she was walking like she had a board between her legs. This would be awkward for anyone, but Penny has a fairly masculine gait anyway. Now she walking with her rear legs even farther apart.

Just as I was wondering what was going on, she paused just short of our walkway, and looked up at me. She never does this because she is far too eager to get back inside her home. She is a dedicated watchdog and agoraphobe, never straying very far for very long. I knew something was up.

The look on her face said, "Help me, daddy. Something is wrong." Not knowing precisely what, however, I encouraged her toward the door. When she mounted the doorsill with her front legs she afforded me a better view of the effrontery.

Clinging to her caboose was the most perfectly round excrement marble I ever saw. As I bent down to remove the extrusion, an olfactory sunami slammed into me. Penny's buttocks bangle stank to high heaven.

With deep misgivings, I reopened the occupied poop bag I was carrying. That was bad enough. I readied it for reuse. I lifted her tail out of the way, and went in close for the extraction. A foul odor gripped me snuggly, like the cloying embrace of a drifter's corpse.

I gently grasped the aromatic atrocity and plucked it into the bag. Penny looked relieved. My senses were still reeling.

I opened the door and we went in. Penny galloped off to fill in Mom on her latest adventure, abandoning me at the door as is her custom. I was left to dispose of the stench-berry.