Last week I spent most of the week at TBEX, a conference for travel bloggers. While there I met many fabulous people, exchanged business cards, talked about Twitter and Instagram. Above all, I made some new friends. When I saw this tweet pop up, I was amused:
“@FloridaKeysGirl This may sound weird but we met at TBEX last week & I’m pretty sure I saw you walking your dogs outside my house today. LOL”
Indeed. Last week a new client called and told me she had Facebook-stalked me. (It wasn’t creepy – turns out we have mutual friends.) Now, Twitter.
I walk the dogs every afternoon and this is the first time someone has tweeted about it. Now, in Key West I often see people I know while walking the dogs. Several dinner/happy hour plans come to fruition while crossing the street, or while I scoop the poop. But in Hollywood, it is a different story. I almost never see anyone I know, and if I do, it is generally in the form of a honk-and-wave while someone drives by and I struggle to figure out who it was.
Rather than shout my dog walking route to the entire twitterverse, I went the old-fashioned way: email. After a short exchange, I was met with this:
“So it was definitely you who I saw today because I live right along your usual route! My mother says that she greatly appreciated the fact that you clean up after your dogs. HA.”
I once had one of my parents’ neighbors shout a hearty “thank you” from across the street because I did stop to scoop the poop, but I’d yet to ever receive a written thank you for something that should be common courtesy. Until now.
There are those people who think I am more obsessed with my dogs than most others, but they’re wrong. I love my little furballs, but most everyone else I know loves theirs, too. I am not the only one that buys them $40 per bag treats. But where a lot of people fall short is the clean up. I can honestly tell you that I have always picked up after my dogs. On the grass, or in my own yard, it gets scooped. Why? Common courtesy. And I don’t particularly want to step in it. Ever.
As it turns out, I don’t want to step in anyone else’s poop, either. So be a good neighbor, won’t you? Stop to scoop the poop.
