Out here in the northwest, it’s becoming increasingly common to put gallon milk jugs half filled with water on the perimeter of your lawn. Supposedly this discourages dogs from relieving themselves and they move along to a jugless lawn. Can this possibly be true? Or is this the pink flamingo of the 90s? –Ralph Goldstein, Oregon City, Oregon
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And Oregonians think people from California are flakes? This unbelievable stunt has been floating around since the late 1970s, and by now has spread all over the world. Folklorist Jan Brunvand, who tells the whole story in his latest book, Curses! Broiled Again!, says he saw plastic bottles on lawns everywhere during a trip to New Zealand, and apparently they were common in Australia, too. Where the idea started nobody knows, but numerous early instances have been reported from California. “Explanations” for it include: (1) dogs won’t foul their own drinking water; (2) they get spooked seeing their reflections and/or the glitter of the water; (3) it ain’t the water, it’s the bottles–the water just keeps the jugs from blowing over; (4) you have to put ammonia or mothballs in the water–the smell is what repels the dogs.
God knows. It’s been proverbial at least since 1836, and the idea of chasing rainbows period goes back a lot earlier than that. The catch, of course, is that you can’t get to the end of the rainbow, owing to the fact that it’s an optical effect dependent on the relative orientation of the sun, you, and a suitable collection of airborne water droplets. If you’re not directly between the droplets and the sun, no bow. If you spot a bow and try to chase it, it simply recedes before you until the angles don’t line up anymore, at which point it disappears.
Gerould’s book on the “grateful dead” legends is lovely. Stith Thompson also discusses them. [Typically the hero pays a dead man’s debts so his corpse can be buried. Later a stranger, who turns out to be the grateful dead man, joins the hero and offers his help, on condition that all winnings be equally divided.]
