A few months ago Fred went on a long hike wearing boots he hadn’t worn before. As a result, when he got home the second toe over from the big toe (the “index toe”, if you will) on his left foot was painful. As time went by, the toenail turned black, and we were pretty sure that it would eventually fall off. But more time went by and nothing seemed to be going on and except for the occasional glimpse of his toe when it caught my attention, I pretty much forgot about his nasty black toenail.
A few nights ago Fred called me into the living room, where he was watching TV.
“Look!” he said excitedly. I sat down on the loveseat and prepared to be amazed and impressed. He reached down, put his finger on the end of the black toenail and pulled upward, saying “There’s another toenail under there growing in! I bet this one is going to come off!” Now, I can hardly think of anything nastier than a toenail that’s about to fall off, because the thought of that naked toenail bed under there being exposed to the elements… gah. I swear to you, if I had balls – real ones, not figurative ones – they would crawl right up into my body at the thought of a toenail lifting up.
I just now had to walk away from the computer and think happy thoughts, I am so disturbed at the thought of nails – toe and finger – being lifted up. Gah. Gah, gah, gah.
So as Fred lifted the nail up to show me that it was loosening from it’s moor, I stood up and ran around in circles screaming “OH MY GOD, THAT IS SO GROSS!” at the top of my lungs before blacking out.
When I came to, Dr. Poo was sniffing at my eyeballs to see if I was still alive and – oh yes, could I pay her fee in catnip, please?
Fred tried to show me the Nasty Loose Toenail again, but I refused to look, and I resorted to screaming “NO! NO! STOP IT, I AM NOT GOING TO LOOK, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” whenever he opened his mouth. Finally, he got the message and stopped trying to make me look.
Last night we were sitting in front of our computers.
“Hmm… what the?” Fred said, and I turned to see what was going on. He was sitting with his left foot propped on his right knee. He’d pulled off his sock and was looking at The Toe. Immediately I knew what was going on.
“NO!” I bellowed, turning to face my computer.
“Bessie, look, the toenail came -”
“NO!”
“Just look at this, this is so cool, there’s like a little half-toenail-”
“NO!”
“Just LOOK, there’s a toenail there, it’s not a naked toe-”
“NO!”
“It’s so cool, though, you have to see-”
“NO!”
“Look at the toenail then, it’s kind of nas-”
“NO!”
“Bessie, please! Just look! Why won’t you look?” he begged in a sad look, and finally just to get him to SHUT THE HELL UP, I turned around and looked.
Except that I let my eyes go unfocused, so while it might have looked like I was gazing in admiration upon his freakish toe, in reality I could see nothing but a big white blur. Ha!
Later, we were sitting in the living room watching TV. Meester Boogers was in a state of high dudgeon because he’d left his bed on the end table to investigate something, and while he was gone, Miz Poo had climbed into the bed (they both like it because it’s under a nice warm lamp) and gone to sleep. He sniffed at her several times and thought about climbing into the bed with her, but it was a small bed and there was really no room for both a portly Poo and a Booger, so he gave up and sat on the back of the couch looking disgruntled.
When it became clear that his sitting on the back of the couch looking pissy and pouty wasn’t going to convince us to toss Miz Poo out of the bed and let him have it back, he jumped down onto the couch, stretched out, and went to sleep. At some point I looked over and he looked so damn cute that I had to rub his belly. I put down the cross-stitch I was working on and leaned over. As soon as I touched him, he made a grumpy “Who’s touching me?” noise and opened his eyes. He decided that he could go for a belly rub, and flopped onto his back to allow for maximum belly exposure.
Finally, Fred could stand the cuteness no more, and he got up from the loveseat and walked over to pet Meester Boogers, who grumped again and stretched out some more. Fred kneeled down in front of the couch and bent down to give the Booger a kiss on top of his head, and a moment later pulled back with a horrified look on his face.
“Oh my GOD,” he said. “Whew!”
“Oh, is it bad?” I asked sympathetically. I don’t know whether it’s the fact that Meester Boogers only has a short tail and thus not enough tail to cover the occasional stink from his butt, or that he’s a nasty boy and thus doesn’t clean his butt often enough, but he seems to have more Stinky Butt episodes than the other cats, and every so often Fred catches a whiff of stink from him, and has to go after his butt (Meester Boogers’ butt, that is) with a baby wipe.
Fred nodded. “God, he reeks!”
And then. People, this is so gross, the width and breadth of the grossness cannot possibly be fully explained to you. As I sat there on one end of the couch and Meester Boogers sat there on the other, Fred kneeling in front of him, the most disgusting thing ever happened.
Fred leaned down and SNIFFED MEESTER BOOGERS’ ASS AGAIN.
“Whoo!” he said, shaking his head. “That is just nasty!”
“Oh my god!” I said. “What the fuck? Why on EARTH would you INTENTIONALLY sniff the cat’s ASS again, when you already KNEW it stinks?”
“Smell it!” he said, gesturing toward Meester Boogers.
“What? NO, I’M NOT GOING TO SMELL THE CAT’S ASS!”
“Bessie, just put your head down there and smell it.”
“NO! Jesus christ, what is WRONG with you? I am NOT going to sniff the cat’s ass! I already know it smells repulsive, I don’t need to CONFIRM IT!”
“Just smell it,” he wheedled. “I need to know if it really stinks, or if he just farted!”
“NO!”
“Smell it!”
“NO!”
“Bessie, come on!”
“NO! Get the hell away from me. GOD!”
“You just don’t love me,” he said sadly.
“Not enough to smell the cat’s ass! JESUS!”
I mean seriously, people. What the hell would make a person who is apparently in full control of all their faculties INTENTIONALLY SMELL A CAT’S ASS? I just don’t get it. The thought makes me want to throw up. I can’t stand the smell of nasty things, so I don’t go out of my way to lean down and sniff them. That just seems to make sense to me.
GAH.
“This is not dignified.”