Shit on the Shins
By: Benjamin Eric, Litoff
Tags: Work, Shit, Mowing, Washington DC, Customer Service

I grew up in Tenleytown D.C. Families filled the houses with parents who were either feds or fed-adjacent. It was (still is) a well to-do part of the city with most of the houses having a front yard and back. Since my parents did not want to raise lazy sons, I spent my summers mowing those lawns.

Listening to this album reminded me of my time cutting grass

We had a popular neighborhood landscaper (who I will give the alias John). During my summers as a teenager and young adult, I both worked as a groundskeeper at a baseball camp and mowed lawns for John (who paid in cash). At the end of every summer I would have a new pile of clothes with permanent sweat and grass stains.

John was a peculiar fellow. He often made bizarre comments and believed littering was a worse crime than grand theft auto (with global warming, he may have been right). He also had a heart of gold, often employing individuals suffering from addiction and mental health who struggled to hold what we might consider more traditional employment. Tenleytown residents saw him as a bit of a whacky figure.

John was cunning. That’s not a word most people would use to describe a man who mowed lawns for a living. He saw the opportunity in the neighborhood, though. To afford the cost of living to raise a family in a city with mostly government jobs, many homes had to have both parents working. “No one wants to push a mower across their lawn in this DC heat after a long day or over their weekend, so they’re happy to pay someone to do it for them” he once told me (paraphrasing). Although, I didn’t understand why moms and dads didn’t just make their kids cut the grass the way my parents did.

One summer I needed more money than usual. When I use the word “need,” I don’t mean it literally. I wanted more cash for booze and new video games. John liked my work ethic so he took me out to help him with his Maryland clients for a better payday.

We used gas-powered push mowers, and I was pushing it along one of the backyards while John worked the next door neighbor’s. I was used to chopped grass spraying across my legs, but in this backyard I felt a splatter and smelled a stench. The blades propelled a pile of dog shit across my shins.

I cursed and mumbled under my breath while tipping the heavy mower over on it’s side, using a rag to wipe the dog shit from the blades before continuing along. About a minute later, I run over another pile of dog shit. Soon, I hit another and then another.

By the fifth pile, my shins were coated in shit and the mower smelled rancid. I started to throw a fit, yelling and cursing.

John had just finished the neighbor’s yard and rushed over to me in a haste, demanding I keep my voice down so his client, who was inside, wouldn’t hear me. I pointed to my legs and said “I’m covered in shit!”

John apologized for forgetting to warn me that the homeowners don’t pick up after their dog and to watch out for the droppings. I was astonished to hear that this was a regular occurrence. I asked him if the owner knows that John comes by regularly, why doesn’t the owner have the decency to clear the space. I referred to the man as an asshole, to which John responded, “I know, but I need his business.”

He used the word “need,” in its literal meaning.

I drove back home after work with the windows open, not wanting the stench on my socks, shoes, and shins to linger in the car. I remember the shit drying on my leg hairs and how ferocious I had to scrub in the shower to get it off me. The frustration I felt was fueled by humiliation and pity for John that he had to regularly engage with that lack of empathy.

I don’t mow lawns anymore (and I am not sure what John is up to now). My career path brought me to office jobs, where I have worked as a B2B client manager. This role requires me to figuratively eat shit from my clients, but I am aware of the difference between my work and John’s. My job comes with more generous compensation and peer respect, as we view office employment as more important than working outside, pushing and pulling in the elements, forcing your body to endure straining labor. In other words, while John’s clients liked the quality of his work, it became more clear, in looking back at interactions, that they did not see dignity in what he did for them.

We live in a world where we exchange currency for goods and/or services. Yet, we live in a culture that holds the currency to a higher value than those good and services. There exists a power dynamic that favors the party exchanging the currency. Put that together with the social hierarchy of labor (white-collar, blue-collar, salaries, etc.), we create a world where inconsideration, and even abuse, among common exchanges is tolerated.

It’s hard for me to see Karen videos circulating online without thinking back to my time working with John. I live with some shame, speculating that I may not have sympathy for people, who are put in positions to take abuse, if I never worked on that yard with hidden landmines of shit. Whenever I engage with people, I try to use that story as a metaphor and think what piles of shit am I unintentionally leaving behind for individuals to deal with.

That thought is a rabbit hole deep enough to make anyone go crazy. It’s a rabbit hole that can trigger anxiety. If you can value a person’s labor and time and see all life worthy of dignity, then the answer on how to engage others, and how to be conscious of the space we take up, on a day-to-day basis becomes obvious. I admit, it shouldn’t take having to deal with piles of shit to see that.