Walter Briggs stepped onto his front porch at seven in the morning, coffee mug in hand, and immediately stopped breathing. There it was again. Right in the middle of his lawn — the part he had reseeded just last Tuesday — a fresh, steaming pile that could only have come from something the size of a small horse. He stared at it for a long moment. A vein pulsed slowly in his forehead.
He set the mug down on the porch railing. Very carefully. Very deliberately. He walked back inside, sat down in his armchair, and folded his hands in his lap. He closed his eyes. He counted to twenty. He opened his eyes again. He stood up, walked back to the porch, picked up his coffee, and looked at the lawn one more time. It was still there. Of course it was.
“That’s it,” Walter said to no one in particular — unless you counted his goldfish, who was watching from the windowsill with what Walter felt was quiet moral support. “That is absolutely it. Enough is enough.” He pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket and clicked his pen. He outlined an idea. Then he sat down in his porch chair and began really planning.