Jacob John is the first person I've ever seen in a news report who got dressed up to be interviewed about someone pooping on his lawn. This handsome young man sat calmly in a grey suit and tie, clean-shaven and polite, as he described for the camera a scene too bizarre to be imagined -- something that is quite possibly the Holy Grail of all BM Newswires [1]. It has it all: garbage trucks, turd terrorism, an escalated argument between everyday citizens and sanitation workers, and a man taking a dump in someone's yard, in full view of the street in broad daylight.

It all began last week, when John discovered a sanitation worker had just defecated in his backyard. The man, who John said had just come from a garbage truck parked in the street, stated that, "I'm sorry man, my bad. But I couldn't hold it any more." Clarence Martin, John's brother-in-law, then got into a heated altercation, not only with the turd terrorist, but also with two of his co-workers, who most likely heard the argument and came to their friend's defense.

Martin was furious that the man, an employee of Ard Sanitation, had dropped trou in an area of the yard to which his children had access. Eww. To make matters worse, Ard Sanitation answered none of the numerous calls John made regarding the incident, nor did they come out and clean up the poop.

WIS 10's Jack Kuenzie interviewed Ard Sanitation manager James Anderson about the incident. Anderson promised to address the situation and take "appropriate action" against one of his twenty-one employees, who will be facing "possible suspension or other disciplinary measures".

What?

I hope that "other disciplinary measures" is garbage code for "we're going to fire his stupid ass." Is there any other disciplinary measure to take against a man who would get into a shouting match about whether or not he should clean up his own shit? It's not bad enough that he took a huge dump in someone's yard -- he actually refused to clean it up!

I understand this man's reluctance to ask a resident for use of their bathroom. I'm sure many people would take one look at him -- or, more specifically, his uniform -- and say, "Hell no." (I probably would have let him in. I take hot chocolate to our garbage guys in the winter.) I also understand him panicking about possibly crapping his pants. No one wants to crap their pants in front of their work buddies.

But what I don't understand is why he took a shit in someone's yard when he rides on the back of a garbage truck for a living. A garbage truck. It's a vehicle that was designed to carry waste. Why didn't he just shit in the back of the truck? It's already full of shit. Was he afraid of ruining the ambiance of rotting orange peels and coffee grounds? I have no idea what this guy was thinking.

Ard Sanitation services an estimated 7,000 customers in the Richland County area.