I am so sick of playing the game Who Pooped? So. Sick. Of. It. Not a day goes by that I’m not sniffing out some putrid stench, trying (often in vain) to locate its source.

Usually it’s the baby. Usually. But it’s also sometimes the 4 year old who didn’t request assistance with a butt wiping or had to do it on his own because his preschool teachers and daycare workers no longer help (and who can blame them?). Many times, though, it’s the dogs.

Those damn dogs.

My male, a 10 year old Shiba Inu, who, if you know anything about the breed, can be obstinate even when we’re not talking about poop, is an asshole. He bosses my 10 year old female Shiba around, biting her face and preventing her from eating her food, something we finally had to put a stop to by locking her in the laundry room at dinnertime so she can get a damn moment of peace to engage in sustenance. And he acts all tough and alpha-like whenever he sees strange dogs or passersby walking down the street. He almost got his throat ripped out by my friend’s sweet pit bull before my husband dove between the two and pried her jaws from around his scruffy, dickheady neck. I don’t blame that poor pit bull. You can only take so much of another dog posting up and nipping at your ankles before you lose your shit.

But for all that tough guy attitude, this dog’s a coward. And he poops when he’s afraid, which is pretty much all the time. Thunder storms? Poop. Fireworks? Poop. Beeping smoke detector low on battery? Poop. Instantly too, which is quite amazing, actually. I can’t poop on demand like that. I don’t know how his excrement can even travel through his bowels and out his bum hole that quickly, but it does. It does.

This afternoon as I was feeding the baby, I smelled it. Poop. As Baby Sammich is on soy formula for digestive problems, his can be pretty rank, so it was certainly possible that he had released a massive bomb in his pants while eating (which he does frequently). I gently placed the bottle on the coffee table and lifted his bum up to my nose for a whiff, as mothers do. Nope. Not him.

I began to fume. As did the foul aroma permeating the room. When Baby was done with his bottle, I quickly burped him and placed him in his bouncer, tearing off in a frenzied tirade to discover the poo pile festering in my house. I began screaming for the dogs, my anger bubbling over.

“BALTHAZAR!” I bellowed. “Where is it, you sonuvabitch? WHERE?”

I looked around the living room. Nothing. Next it was the kitchen. Still nothing. I inspected the dining room, which is currently being used for storage while we finish the basement, peering beneath chairs and around the couch, promising to shave that dog’s hair off if he crapped on the new upholstery. Not a poo in sight.

I stormed up the stairs, threatening at the top of my lungs to send him to the pound, when I saw it. Five medium-sized logs inhabiting the carpeting on my landing. I threw up in my mouth a little from the odor before locating the offender, hunched in the corner, tail between his legs.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” I shouted, motioning toward the feces on display in the middle of the pathway. “Why?” I demanded. “WHY DO YOU DO THIS?!”

It was at this point that I heard the dryer had started up again, a thing it does when it’s finished its cycle and I haven’t removed the clothing yet. (Let’s be honest here. I never remove the clothing as soon as the cycle concludes, so this feature intended to keep clothes from wrinkling was clearly devised for someone who’s got her life together way better than I). Moments later, I heard it buzz, an insistent “Come get this stuff outta here already!” emanating from the laundry room.

Dammit, I thought. “The dryer, you spineless fur ball? REALLY?!”

I knew adulthood was sometimes shitty, but I never expected that sentiment to be so…literal, you know?