A shitty synchro…

At the dog park today (Jan. 31), the small group who were gathered with their dogs at our usual place got into a conversation about, well, shit. It began when I posed the question of what happens to all the horse manure that’s created here in Wellington’s equestrian community. Apparently, this was an issue three years ago in the village and some sort of resolution came about.

That led Lloyd, owner of Abby, to talk about the word shit originated in ‘olden times’ when wet manure stowed in the hold of ships would ferment and generate hazardous methane and explode. So, Sacks of manure would be marked SHIT, meaning Ship High in Transit.

I had never heard that story, and to me it sounds like etymythology. So I offered another version of the origin of shit, which is considered the genuine origin. It’s from the Old English “scitte” which is related to the Dutch “schijten and the German “scheisse,” all meaning shit.”

But now comes the shitty synchro: Two hours later, the same group met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Wellington. We sat a table outside under a roof and adjacent to the open bar. From our table, we noticed a sign facing us just above the bar that seemed to relate to our earlier conversation. It reads: MANURE HAPPENS. An odd sign to see in a restaurant, but this is Wellington, Florida and there’s a lot of manure, aka shit happening here during the winter horse season.