Dogs and Kids Ltd.

Dogs and Kids are considered personae non gratae.

DOGS AND KIDS Ltd.

 

How it all started and who might have been implicated in the dastardly plan was never discovered, but in the end, did it really matter? It began on a foggy November morning in a not very salubrious district near London airport. Laura had picked up her son’s dog from his house in her little run around and was taking him for his morning walk. The air was heavy with moisture, and cold too. Laura shivered in her heavy water and windproof coat. She hoped Randy wouldn’t give her any problems, like running off or refusing to do his necessities. She didn’t have to worry. Randy had his own tree picked out for such a call of nature. Laura stood waiting patiently while he emptied his innards onto the dank ground. She wasn’t paying particular attention to his performance, until a gruff voice said to her, “I hope you’re going to clear that mess up.” It was the park keeper speaking with an angry tone in his voice.

Laura said, “Of course I’m going to clear the mess up. Look, I’ve come prepared,” and she showed him the little plastic bags she bought in packets from a giant supermarket.

The park keeper laughed bitterly and said, “Madam, would you take a look at the disgusting amount your dog has left under the tree, and then tell me whether those bags will take all that lot.”

Laura cast her eyes to where Randy had been crouching, and saw the most horrible sight she had ever seen in her life, and she had already lived past sixty years. She looked at the tiny bags and said, “I can’t imagine what’s got into him. He never does that much.”

The park keeper said, “It isn’t what’s got into him, but what’s come out of him. What are you going to do about it?”

Laura said to Randy, “Come on, Boy, let’s run.” The two of them made a mad dash for the gate the road and her car. They got inside, away from the wrathful shouts of the keeper, and drove off in the direction of Laura’s son’s house. Randy was cleaned up, and after a bowl of water fell asleep in his basket. Laura wasn’t sure about telling her son, Tom. After thinking about it for a few minutes, she thought it better not to. But she told him not to go to the park because the keeper was getting very anti-dog.

Randy wasn’t the only dog that was messing up in an exaggerated manner. It would appear that the dogs in the borough were overdoing it. Every day the keeper had to chastise someone or other out walking their dog, for fouling the park. Children had a terrible time trying to avoid stepping into it. Parents had to explain to their offspring why the local park was out of bounds. The evil smell got worse and worse.

 

The winter months saw a rise in the amount of dog excreta left behind after their walks in the park. It wasn’t long before the park became known as ‘poop-park’, due to its high stench of dogs. The locals complained about the horrendous stink, and the council was obliged to call in the sanitary inspectors. After making a quick inspection of the park area, they said it would have to remain closed until it had been disinfected and deep-cleaned.

The following day, the park gates were chained up and padlocked, and wire netting was put in place all over the railings, to prevent anyone from getting in. The prompt action of the sanitation authorities meant that, during the winter, there was nowhere for children to play on dry days, nor for any dog lovers to let their pets leave their mess. There were many complaints about the speed in which the council had acted, when at other times they dragged their feet. Meanwhile, the park was cleaned up and hosed down with powerful disinfectants, but the stink lingered on, and the park remained closed to the public.

 

As the park was so near the airport, when passengers got down off the planes they were greeted by the distinct smell of dogs, depending on the direction the wind was blowing, and that had to be taken away as soon as possible.

The cabin crew would open the doors with the immortal words, “Welcome to London, we hope you enjoy your stay. For those who are returning home have a good trip. Please make sure you haven’t left anything behind.”

In general the passengers alighting from a flight in London would be greeted by the strongest smell of dogs that they had ever come across in their lives. Those passengers who had travelled all over the world, wondered if they had boarded the wrong plane.

 

All through the winter, dog owners and parents had to think things through before leaving their homes for a walk. Many times, problems arose when families had both dogs and children, and they needed to be taken out of the house in order to get some fresh air. On days when the rain fell like one heavy sheet, filling up all the drains and making rivers of the streets, till it was plain impossible to cross the roads, then everyone had no alternative but to conform to the prevailing climate. The children got tetchy and the dogs barked themselves hoarse. Some people managed to get out at the weekends, but even then it wasn’t easy.

 

One Saturday, Laura’s grandsons were playing in a football match in another town. Randy was taken along, as it was thought to be a treat for him after losing his park. The boys were busy playing and the dogs that were present were running around. Laura removed the lead so that Randy was able to get rid of his pent up energy. Nobody in the family took any notice of him, because they had their eyes on the boys playing. At the end of the match, Laura called, “Randy, come on. Good boy, time to go home.” After calling him for some minutes, Randy went running up to the family smothered in fox mess. How did they know that? One of the father’s of other young players said, “He’s been rolling over in fox mess. Our dog did the same the last time we were over here.”

Laura and her son stared down at the filthy dirty Randy, and Laura asked, “Where did you clean your dog up? We can’t take him in the car smelling like that.”

Laura added, “See, it’s not only dogs that leave a mess behind. I wonder what the council’s reaction would be to fox poop?”

“I haven’t heard of foxes being seen where we live yet, so we’d better wait and see,” her son Tom said.

The man told them, “If you go along there, in the direction of the other entrance, there’s a water fountain, and you’ll be able to wash off the mess. Your best bet is to get him home and in the shower, and with a strong dog shampoo, rub it into his fur until he’s clean. See you around at the next matches. Bye.”

The man moved on with his family, and Laura went with her dog to the water fountain to get rid of the majority of the fox mess. The boys were amused by the dog’s behaviour. When they eventually got home, Randy was put into the shower and soaped and soaped and showered until he was squeaky clean, and smelt perfumed. Laura towelled him down, and then gave him a blow-dry to make sure he was dry.

Such scenes were to be encountered in many households that winter. The dogs ran wild when set free after their enforced incarceration, but the park was still shut.

 

At the same time as the families were missing the park facilities for dogs and children and the occasional pensioner, the council viewed the park land as prime property, and were keen to make the most of it. Their attitude was, that the public had no appreciation of anything good, so they needed to come up with an idea that would put a stop to inconvenient questions.

One of the council members was one Richard Ringer, he was a man who never said much but thought a lot. He was ambitious and avaricious - a winning combination. When it was clear that the other members of the council were not coming up with any ideas that he considered worth while, was when he swept into action.

 

In February, when every member knew that they had no real reason for keeping the park closed for much longer, Richard entered the monthly meeting and said, “I’ve got an idea of how to make us money and use the park land. We’ll make it a luxury housing estate for ourselves, our families, and those with similar attitudes, and in that way, nobody will say we did it for ourselves. I’ve made drawings on the computer of what might be achieved with foresight and determination.”

“Who’s going to pay for all this?” a member asked.

“The general public, of course, with a little help from us. OK?” Richard said.

The council members went home full of contentment, just thinking about how much money they were on the point of making.

It wasn’t long before a large hoarding was set up high, by the closed entrance gate, announcing:

FOREST LAWNS HOMES

A new housing project consisting of one hundred luxury houses and flats. All will have garages, laundry rooms, fitted kitchens and bathrooms, double windows, and skylights in the roofs. The grounds will be landscaped. All those wishing to acquire a property, please call:

[phone]

 

 When all the members of the council had taken their share of the properties, the rest were then open to the public. A large model was made for those who were interested in acquiring a property, and shown in a shopping centre for the public to see. It formed part of the plan to let the general public think that they had the possibility of living in a luxury flat or house. The problem for the locals was, that they couldn’t possibly afford one of them. Those that were sold off, after the council had adjudicated the majority to their family members, went to people working in London who required a dwelling not too far away from the airport. There were grumbles and groans from all those who had not only lost a place to walk their dogs and for their children to play in, but had also lost an opportunity to get a luxury property in their area.

 

Some young people who had been brought up in the district, who felt it was unfair that there were no properties for them, got nasty. One weekend a group of young men got into the construction site and daubed the half-finished houses with graffiti.

“We don’t understand what on earth’s going on in this district. We’re making an effort to upgrade it, by putting up luxury homes, and this is the thanks we get,” the mayor, Basil Crown, said, making an unusual public appearance. He had, as anyone can guess, already been promised his share of the Forest Lawns Homes in the shape of a large house for his eldest son to live in.

 

Throughout the borough there were odd patches of public grass or lawns and when it was not possible to take the dogs to what had become the local dogs’ lavatory, the owners, tired of having to look for somewhere a car drive away, began letting their dogs relieve themselves on these small green patches. The grass patches were on corners or bordered the pavements by the road, and were there for the very good reason they were decorative rather than practical. It wasn’t long before those members of the public who weren’t dog owners, began ringing in to the town hall with complaints about the stench of dog mess and the amount of it. The dogs were leaving behind them unheard of piles of excreta. Those neighbours whose streets enjoyed the green borders with trees, were more than fed up with seeing them decorated by dog poop.

The mayor was called upon to declare what the council was going to do to solve the grave situation to public health. “The sanitation department has been called in once again, and it has been decided to pave all the grass patches in the whole of the borough. That way, not only will the elderly and children feel safer about walking in the streets without being in fear of slipping up in dog mess, the result in the whole area will be without the odour of it, thus making this a more desirable district to reside in.”

 

The dog owners were not too happy about the mayor’s statement. Where could they take their dogs to relieve themselves? Not two days had passed, when all the green verges had gone under the paving stones. The streets had been converted into a long line of continuous greyness, unbroken by anything except the odd tree left standing.

 

Laura lived in a first floor flat in a small building near the end of a road. Everyone who inhabited one of the flats was elderly, and they got on well together. There were no rough edges to be smoothed over in the relations among them. In the flat below Laura’s, was a couple, she was called Elizabeth and he John. They had moved in more or less at the same time as Laura. Over the years, John had turned the corner area, which was right by his flat, into a garden. He had planted so many plants, it had become the spot where the neighbours would take a small chair to sit and enjoy the sunshine on warm days. There were no gardens in the street because it was full of flats and no houses. The land behind the buildings had been paved over from the beginning, to make easy access to garages. Apart from John’s plants and lawn he had planted and cared for since he and Elizabeth had lived in the flat, there was nothing green there at all.

Due to the removal of the street borders and the park, where was a dog supposed to go and also where were the children meant to play? Sooner or later, fate decreed that John’s little bit of garden would be discovered by the public. The professional complainers who like to create problems where there aren’t any and enjoy making others lives a misery, began ringing up the mayor and the local council.

 “This is council property, it is not yours or anyone else’s. Health and Safety say, easy access for ambulances and wheelchairs must not be impeded by anything that might cause an accident. The plants and flower pots are exactly that - an impediment. In fact, it’s dangerous from many points of view. It will have to be ripped up.” The mayor had spoken. He was going to retire soon after, and didn’t want to leave a stain on his reputation as a man of the people, who knew how to keep a clean district.

As had happened with the park and verges, the small piece of land that John had so lovingly cultivated was paved over, creating another stone eyesore, but which the council thought was their idea of a nice clean borough.

The day of the paving, many of the neighbours who had enjoyed the garden, put their properties up for sale. They figured it wasn’t worth living in a concrete jungle, and were angry with the council for many reasons. They had had enough, and wanted out of the place, however far away it was from the big city.

 

The ‘once upon a time garden’ was designated the spot for the council bins, in order to help the bin men.

 

It wasn’t long before new neighbours moved into the flats and Laura, Elizabeth and John, with the majority of the street, had gone to greener pastures.

 

 Not far from the street where Laura and her neighbours had once lived, there was a very long road which went from the airport out into the countryside. There were several sets of traffic lights which when green for the pedestrians to cross, meant a hold-up in the circulation of the traffic. Ringer’s idea was to get rid of the traffic lights, line both sides of the road with metal railings, and have the long road one way only. At first it was considered to be totally out of the question. How were people supposed to cross the road? Ringer’s words were, “They’ll think of something.” Once again, the general public had no voice in the matter.

The mayor said, “We can’t have a one way road in such a busy area as this. It will have to be a dual carriageway, with overhead bridges every so often, to make crossing easier for those who wish to do so. We can’t isolate one part of the district so far from the other. Ringer, you’ll have to have another think. The drivers must have a way back to the airport. It’s quite out of the question to have it one way.”

Nobody ever argued with Basil Crown, he hadn’t been mayor for ages by being stupid, he knew how far the council could go, before the borough would rise up against them. The members voted for the overhead bridges to be constructed.

 

The metal railings were set up first, long before the road was made. The overhead bridges had both stairs and ramps, making it easier for cyclists and mothers with buggies to reach the top and walk over. In the meantime, the dual carriageway was made more attractive by planting bushes and flowering plants down the centre. All the public buildings anywhere near the road were newly painted, and with warnings about dogs fouling footpaths. The council announced on local television that the road was going to be inaugurated on the last weekend of August.

 

In spite of the argument that all the changes in the road and the bridges would cause problems in the district, the mayor and council turned deaf ears to them. According to some of the shop owners, their sales were already falling, because fewer people were entering their establishments. The mayor, as usual, said, “Things will get better when the road is being continually used and everyone will use the bridges as a way of getting to the other side. The road will bring more business to this area.”

 

On the day of the inauguration of the renovated old road, some were in their houses watching the mayor on television, and those who lived near the road viewed him and the other dignitaries through their windows. The authorities were standing beside a long ribbon, which went from one side of the road to the other.

The mayor declared, “I proudly declare this lovely new and modern accessory to our borough, open, and ready for use.”

He cut the ribbon with a pair of scissors, handed to him by the head of the company that had constructed it.

 

The mayor and his henchmen left the site, and went off to a very elegant pub for an early cocktail. The cars that had been building up behind the group, began revving up and started on the first journey down the now wider and safer road for them, with no traffic lights and no people to cross over and spoil their smooth ride. The cars and taxis leaving the airport, shot down the road till they came to the ford which marked the end of the carriageway. As there had been no rain there were no problems, but the people living in little villages and suburbs were petrified to see the mad rush of speeding cars pass by them, in front of their eyes. Of course, nobody had warned them of the situation that was now invading their quiet and peaceful territory. The drivers were thrilled to bits, as they continued on their way to their own abodes outside the area. Never mind seeing the countryside go by in a great big blur, they would be safely home in an incredibly short time.

 

Back in the borough, those who lived in properties in what was once known as poop-park, were not tuned in to the noise of the main road which ran parallel to their nice luxurious homes. They all had double windows to keep the sound out, and their fancy estate was hedged off by tall trees, which acted as a screen to avoid the road being seen.

 

The whole area had changed in a short time. There were no dogs and no children, except for the ones in the Forest Lawns homes. Everyone else had left, abandoning what had formed a small but tight community.

 

The one thing that the posh homes couldn’t keep out - was the stench of dog poop. It was all nice and quiet and luxurious - but smelly. It didn’t matter what the householders did to eliminate the bad odour, it invaded everything. Even the double windows were unable to keep it out.

 

The mayor’s mother, who was a very strange lady, had to go into hospital. Then, one evening, Basil and his wife Edna, a thin-lipped and thin-hipped woman, went to her home to pick up some of her personal possessions to take to her in the hospital. They saw how tidy everything was, and went into the kitchen to get her some cakes and biscuits. Edna opened a food cupboard and called Basil, “Take a look at all this,” she said.

 

 

The shelves were full of bottles of Syrup of Figs. Basil said to Edna, “I never knew my mother suffered from constipation. Did you?”

“First I’ve heard of it. But just count how many bottles there are.”

Basil said, “She must have picked up a job lot from somewhere, I suppose. Come on, let’s go and see how she is.”

 

Basil’s mother was in a private hospital and resting well. She was lying back staring at the television when Basil and Edna entered.

“Mum, we’ve got something to ask you. Why are there so many bottles of Syrup of Figs in your kitchen cupboard?” Basil asked.

Dorothy Crown smiled at Basil, and answered, “I used it on the dogs in the park, hoping they would be absent, and feeling a bit unwell for a few days.”

“How did you get the dogs to drink it?” Edna asked her mother-in-law.

“I used to stroke them when their owners were looking the other way, and squirt the Syrup straight down their throats.”

“What about the children, you didn’t squirt that juice down their throats, too, did you?” Basil asked.

“When it was Halloween, I made up a non-alcoholic punch for the children, and laced it with Syrup of Figs.”

“What was the reasoning behind that action?”

“The children got on my nerves, always playing in the streets until all hours, and making a terrible noise. I couldn’t hear myself think. I thought they would be out of circuit for a few days - and they were too.”

“Why did you get the dogs to drink the Syrup?”

“To get the dogs and their owners out of the park. I was fed up with their mess, and as you know, I always commented that the site was far too good for a park, especially in this area. The general public never appreciated it. They let it go to the dogs and the children, and it became unsightly, with screaming mothers, and children, and dirty dogs. My idea worked, didn’t it?”

“Is there any other mischief you’ve been up to?” Basil asked his mother.

“No, Darling, but I could easily think something up if you want me to. Now, you have to understand it was very easy to carry out my plan. Nobody ever notices elderly people, and certainly elderly ladies are invisible. The others who were in the park when I was, wouldn’t recognise me or know my name. They all think the elderly are gaga, but we aren’t, as you can see.”

 

Edna and Basil left his mother in her comfy bed, happy, with the thought that she had helped her son out.

 

They knew they could never say anything about the conversation they had just had with Basil’s mother to anyone.

 

“I wonder if she knows how to get rid of the smell of dog poop on the Forest Lawns Estate,” Basil said to Edna, as they drove back home.