Last week I was at Sam’s (and in fact, I’ll be leaving to go to Sam’s in a few minutes, because I forgot a few things last week, and I need to get out of the house), and I was in line behind this woman who was buying two huge-ass boxes of adult diapers.
I realized a moment later that I was eyeballing her behind to see if she was actually wearing adult diapers (I couldn’t tell).
Tell me you’d do that too. You would, right? Not that I was JUDGING (I figure I’m about 18 months away from adult diapers myself), I was just curious. Nosy, I guess.
DON’T JUDGE ME.
There’s a lot of poop talk in this section. Skip it if you’re eating or have a weak stomach.
I know that I’ve mentioned before that the air flow in our house is kind of weird. Like, if a cat pees near the fireplace in the front room, you tend to not smell it when you’re in the front room, but you can totally smell it in the guest bedroom doorway. This makes for a SUPER-fun game of “I SMELL CAT PEE DO YOU SMELL CAT PEE? CAT PEE CAT PEE, WHERE THE FUCK’S THE CAT PEE?”, where we walk around, sniffing wildly. Of course, if it’s dark or near dark, I can wander around with the black light and sometimes I find the offending pee and sometimes I don’t and I lose my mind.
Anyway, the air flow upstairs is odd also. At the end of the hallway is Fred’s room, and then next to his room is mine, which is across the hallway and down a little from the bathroom. The doorway to the bathroom and the doorway to my bedroom are nowhere near each other, and there are two litter boxes in the nook in my bathroom.
Every fucking time a cat goes into the bathroom and uses the litter box, the smell somehow ends up hovering over the head of my bed. The stink goes OUT of the litter box (stink, like heat, rises. In case you were wondering. Actually, more like bread dough. It’s like a big loaf of stink, rising and expanding to fill all available space.), around the corner into the hallway, DOWN the hallway, and then through the doorway into my room, across the room, then hovers malevolently there until I chase it out with air freshener.
More than once I’ve woken in the middle of the night, positive that a cat has taken a great big dump on the pillow next to me. I’ve gotten up, turned on the light, looked all over the room, and ended up tracking the smell down the hall to the litter box. Last night, when I went upstairs at bedtime, Fred was peering under the bed, looking for the source of the smell. I had to clue him in that the smell had traveled over a great distance to torture us.
It is, as I’m sure you can imagine, DELIGHTFUL.
Last night, Fred and I came in from putting the chickens to bed (you’re imagining us tucking them into little beds, aren’t you? No, we just close up the blue coop, then go to the back forty to give the dogs their evening snack, hang out with them for a little while, and then check out the garden), and as I walked through the back door, I saw that Sugarbutt was in one of the litter boxes.
Now, I don’t much care for having to look at cat poop, but it is my unfortunate duty as the caretaker of what feels like a thousand cats to make sure that no one’s got anything untoward going on in the poop category. “Untoward” meaning diarrhea, blood, obvious worms, anything along those lines.
So when I walked through the door and saw Sugarbutt in the litter box, I thought “Oh good, I can see if all is well.”
(When I was 10 years old and thinking about becoming a vet (idea discarded due to the amount of schoolin’ involved), I had no idea the amount of time I’d spend peering at poop or how JOYFUL I’d be at the sight of a well-formed poop. For the record.)
By the time I got my boots off and got to the litter box, Sugarbutt had vamoosed. I headed for a look anyway, and was about a foot from the litter box when I thought “Oh, I guess he was just peeing, I don’t smell -”
Then the smell hit me in the face. You know how in Alien, that face-hugger flies out of nowhere to attach itself to peoples’ faces and implants an embryo in their chest? It was like that. It was like a living thing. The smell was so thick that I could TASTE IT. I’d say that Sugarbutt’s digestive system must detour through the gates of Hell, but I’m pretty sure that the smell of fire and brimstone would be a more soothing and pleasant odor.
“AGH!” I howled, and covered my mouth and nose with my hand. Which is like closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out, I know, but it was a reflex.
In the kitchen, Fred turned and looked at me. He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sugarbutt?”
“GOD JESUS YES I THINK I’M DYING,” I yelled.
He laughed.
On the up side, Sugarbutt’s poop, as I determined after leaning down and peering into the litter box, was perfectly fine.
Except for the smell.
Fred is determined to torture me with crappy movies lately, it appears. First, over the weekend we watched Every Which Way But Loose, and then on Tuesday we started the sequel, Any Which Way You Can. He read somewhere that the sequel was better than the original, and since he didn’t think the original was all that bad, he put the sequel at the top of the Netflix list.
(I rue the day I ever gave him the Netflix password.)
As soon as the movie started, I said “That’s not the same Clyde, is it?” Clyde being the orangutan who plays Clint Eastwood’s sidekick.
“You don’t think so?” Fred said.
“He’s not orange enough, and he doesn’t have that potbellied old-man walk the first Clyde did.”
After about ten minutes, I said “He lacks the subtle charm of the original Clyde.” Seriously, Clyde v2 was all about the Bronx cheers and the shitting in cruisers and big over-acted kissing. (And Wikipedia tells me I’m right about it not being the same orangutan.)
After another ten minutes, I said “Sondra Locke lacks the subtle charm of a MACK TRUCK.” Honest to god, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Sondra Locke in anything else, but in the Every Which Way movies, she overacts horribly and appears to be doing a really really bad Marilyn Monroe impression.
I suffered through Sondra Locke singing (GIVE that woman some Auto-Tune!) and then gave up and read magazines for the rest of the evening.
All four in one picture! Too bad they’re not looking anywhere near the camera.
Going…
Going…
Gone! Zzzzzzz….
Pretty Rhyme.
“Mooooooom! The couch is eating kittens again!!!”
Previously
2009: In self-defense, I had to do the unthinkable.
2008: Here’s a hint: Mister Boogers? Not the man.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Oh, it’s FUN to be a girl, ain’t it?
2004: Am I not stylin’?
2003: Like I repeatedly said to him yesterday, “I’m GLAD you’re ENJOYING my pain!”
2002: Momma don’t do food-related or cleaning-related stuff on Mother’s Day!
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.