People in every city love to complain. In New York when locals complain, it’s usually about rats, garbage, the current incompetent mayor, or the insanely high cost of living here (especially in Manhattan). But you know what is even more frustrating than all of those things for me on a day to day basis where it feels like I cannot even go half a block without thinking about it? DOG POOP.

The other day when I was going to pick up Kaia from daycare, the entire sidewalk from building to street was lined with poop that had been smeared by someone — just steps away from the school entrance. It likely could have been that a dog pooped in the middle of the sidewalk, and then random passersby who didn’t notice unknowingly stepped and dragged it everywhere. Getting around it with the stroller on the way home was a challenge: I almost had to push the stroller into the street to avoid the dog poop.

Today during a late afternoon walk, some dog owner left their poop bag, filled with poop, in the middle of the street. The poop gushed out of the bag and everywhere. Many people stepped on it, and the same thing happened as in the above situation: the poop was all over the sidewalk, still soft and smeared everywhere!

It’s impossible to take a leisurely walk on any sidewalk in this city without constantly looking ahead and down on the ground to ensure that I (or the stroller) can avoid stepping in poop at all costs. It’s also frustrating when I am walking with Kaia, and she doesn’t understand what dog poop is and has this (sort of disgusting) curiosity for it: the other day at Riverside Park, she almost shoved her hands into a pile of dog poop! Dog owners can’t control their dogs. They just think they can be careless with their dog’s feces and let everyone else suffer. When and where will the constant presence of dog poop in this city ever end? Or, will it simply takeover New York and drive people like me and Chris (who believes all dogs should be exterminated or eaten) away?