Bo-Bo Knows Generics Are Dead to Me

The PetGold® poop bag dispenser is a tiny plastic column that lives at the end of Bo-Bo’s leash and contains a roll of poop bags for sidewalk emergencies. If you’ve never seen it, the thing works on the same principle as a stamp dispenser—put your roll of 100 stamps in and enjoy. But as nice as it is to have bags holstered when you need them, I have this warning for pet owners out there: do not cheap out and buy generic refills. Oh, no, no, no.

My computer-programming husband-to-be once told me that the companies that design software for ATMs demand that their programs run at 100 percent accuracy. This may seem like anal perfectionism, but it’s really just good business—if ATMs were only accurate 99 percent of the time, you’d get screwed every hundredth visit.

The generic pet industry could learn a thing or two from their banking colleagues. If your product is designed to be the only barrier between your customers hand and dogshit, 100 percent product dependability is really the only option. Because if I have to be on the losing side of a mistake, I’ll pick a financial error to a fecal error every day of the week.

Except today, apparently.

If you saw a woman swearing on Winthrop Shore Drive this morning, that was me. If it looked like I was trying to use a pile of sand as a handiwipe, it’s because I was. If it seemed like I was standing there with my hand outstretched, looking up and down the street for a handout, I was actually calculating that I was pretty much at the exact halfway point in the walking loop I take with Bo-Bo and trying to decide whether I would be more likely to cross paths with a Purell®-carrying parent if I turned back or pressed on.

I pressed on. Unfortunately, my besmirched hand was still outstretched when I got home

I’m sure there’s a lesson buried in today’s Bo-Bo shenanigans. Maybe the fact that I had to open a door, unhook a leash, and answer a phone left-handed was supposed to be a metaphorical call to shake up my everyday routine, a reminder that even when my tried and true methods fall quite literally to shit, I’m resilient enough to find another way. But right now, all I can think is the shit streaks that graced my right palm earlier today.

And while I have never in my life been more grateful to get the chance to wash my hands, I have to admit I was obsessively disappointed to find that the label on my hand soap boasts that it kills 99 percent of all bacterial while the label on my generic hand sanitizer claims a 99.99 percent kill rate. Slackers, both. I mean, seriously. What’s a girl gotta do to kill germs around here? Dip her hand in boiling bleach?