There’s No Poop Fairy in My Mind

In Albuquerque, our Parks and Recreation Department has a “No Poop Fairy” campaign intended to encourage pet-owners to remove their pets’ poop when said poop is deposited in city parks, trails or pathways. As I passed a sign promoting the poop- picking-up initiative, I thought, I wish I had a poop fairy in my mind. Retirement provides me with more time to think, and thoughts that are total pooh pop in to my mind all the time. Once there, they clutter my mental pathways, tripping me up and polluting my thought processes. They stink!

I want to say, that I have nothing against pooh, and realize it’s a necessary bodily function for pets and people alike. I would, however, prefer that pooh stay out of sight and OUT of mind. The pooh in my mind is usually the excrement of my own paranoia. I am always afraid of what people will think of me. Will the ubiquitous “people” think that I’m stupid, worthless, a pest, lacking talent, lacking skill, etc.? The list is much too long to include in its entirety here. When it’s right here in front of me in black and white, even abbreviated, I think, wow, I’m afraid of a lot, and why do I think other people are thinking about me that much. Obviously, I am not spending enough time focusing on the “don’t take myself too seriously” technique intended to keep me from killing people.

I have other mind-cluttering pooh producers: anger, pride, jealousy – oh heck, let’s just throw in all of the deadly sins, except lust (removed with uterus, ovary and fallopian tube), and sloth (I’m kind-of a neat freak, because I’m afraid someone might think I’m a sloppy mess). A poop fairy in my mind, would be worked to death, and as well as not wanting to kill people, I also don’t want to kill fairies. I’m just going to have to gather up those poopy thoughts myself (and quit taking myself so seriously, limiting my food for poop-producing thoughts). What am I going to do with all of that mind pooh? Much like making lemonade out of lemons, I’ll make mental compost out of the mind pooh. I will then use it to grow good thoughts. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do, and maybe those good thoughts will grow into a book, but not erotic fiction, because that whole lust thing is off the table.