Short story: Dog droppings. How you pick them up says a lot about you.

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John had been living in the same house for 15 years. Soon after he had moved in there, he noticed that an elderly man, with his dog, used to walk past his house, every morning, around 10 am, every morning. The dog always did its business on John's impeccably cultured grass nature strip, in the same place, every day, right slap-bang in the middle of his lawn. It was a large dog, and so it was a large pile of droppings. John always picked it up with his small plastic shovel, and then he simply bagged it in a plastic bag, and placed it in his garbage bin. He never confronted the man about this, in all of that long time. He did know where the old man lived, a couple of streets away, because he had seen him going into his house one day, when he was going for a walk himself. And then, suddenly, for a week, no droppings were left. The man had not walked his dog for a week. John wondered what might have happened. Maybe, the man's dog had died, or maybe the old man had taken sick himself. John walked around to the house, and he knocked on the old man's door. A lady opened the door, and after some small talk, it turned out that this was old George's daughter, as George, was the old man's name. The long and the short of it was, that old George had died, and he had been found dead in his house, with his dog still there with him, by this daughter. The daughter, Ruth, said to John. "I do not know what I will do with his dog. It will miss him, and this neighbourhood. Would you like a dog, kind sir?" and she smiled at him, sweetly, as she said this. So, John took the dog, named Ralph, and it lived with him quite a few years more, but it was used to doing its business, on John's lawn, so that didn't stop from happening either. And so, John picked up after the dog, every time still too, and binned the droppings. John was happy with the old man's dog, because John was basically a happy man anyway. He was always happy whatever came into his life, and was content to move in whatever direction life, God, his soul, or whatever, seemed to be guiding him in. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com Real love never complains; it just takes loving care of all things.