“It was your idea,” my husband reminded me.
He also says this about the kids from time to time. I agreed, after my histrionic rant was over, my arm shaking from the frantic cleaning of the carpet. Let me tell you now, think twice before you make your decision. Pets…or no pets? Suuuureeee, they are cute. The kids were very interested in the cats when they were kittens. They are still interested, from time to time, for approximately three minutes, which seems to be their average attention span. (I’ll worry about that one later)
It came to a head a few nights ago, as I settled into some mind numbing T.V. Roscoe, our larger cat who is now the size of a small baby harp seal, came running out of the cat door. He had a look of distress on his face, and earnestly began dragging his bum on the carpet, chirping a noise of distress. I have only seen this habit in dogs, and after seeing the “scoot”, I decided I didn’t want a dog, or anything that would randomly decide to wipe it’s ass all over my floor.
“What is he doing?!” I scream. “What the (bleep) is he doing?” I jump up, frantic, in shock. I run for the bathroom for some toilet paper, as I can at least see that his problem is poop-related. Seeing me run spooks the cat to run to the other side of the room, to repeat the process. Mentally I take note where I will be spraying/scrubbing in the next few minutes. My husband is laughing at my hysterics, which of course makes me fly into a rage. “You nEED to HELP ME,” I yell at him, motioning for him to pick up the cat, which he does, as I find the culprit entangled in a wad of ass hair. Meanwhile, the other cat is running around, sniffing and having an obvious freak out. Her face reads, What the hell? Why is there crap all over the floor? I’m not allowed to do that, I really don’t think he should be doing that, Gross! I’m going to jump on the bed and attack the blanket threads!
At this point I decide we are giving them away, our daughter is allergic to them anyway. That, or I let them be outdoor cats, and shoo them towards the road. I rant and rave for a bit, until my husband reminds me, it was me who had wanted them, desperately needed them, at one point in the recent past. And I did. I used the logic that the kids should grow up with pets, that it would teach them empathy, understanding, love. But it was me who wanted the cats.
After our recently departed duo, we lived in blissful, hair-free harmony. No ancient, mangled, stuffed-animal like cats barfing on the carpets, no 3 am hairballs, no spraying in corners where other cats had sprayed, nothing. Quiet, calm, peaceful. No paying of sitters who may or may not have spent their time just eating goldfish crackers and surfing porn. No broken screens or cushions/couches/seating of any kind with shredded corners. No pulling out sweaters, only to find that they have an inch thick of hair on them, and have been the “nesting” site for the past month. No worries man! Nothing! What was I thinking!!!!!!
I’ve seen other pets destroy their owners houses, destroy their nest-egg on vet bills, and generally evoke havoc on every aspect of their lives. Pets don’t come with warning labels. Like people, some of them are insane. Some of them have bad habits, like our old cat, that binged and purged for 17 years. I got so used to the chuk-chuk-chuk noise that when we lived in London, in a basement flat, every time a woman walked past in high heels, I thought the cat was throwing up.
Chuk-chuk-chuk.
My brother recently sent me an email that said he started his day cleaning up the puppy’s puke. She had been eating rocks. Am I putting things into perspective for you?
I once watched, to utter hilarity, my college roomie’s cat run into the room dragging a small turd from his backside. The turd had embedded itself into a long hair (everyone had long hair then) and it was traveling at a foot distance. That same look of distress on the cat’s face, it tried turning around in a circle, whirling dervish style, but the turd followed, only to swing into it’s side. It went in a circle the other way. No go, same result. It took us a minute to help him, because we were laughing so hard. Part of me was thinking…how long has he been dragging that, and where? It was funny then. It wasn’t my house and it was the grunge era so we were all filthy anyway.
This is the part where I tell you the good outweighs the bad, that love conquers all. Except I’m not going to. I love them, unfortunately, so they get to stay. But Roscoe has ripped up the carpet next to the door where we shut them at night. One of the cats takes human sized turds and doesn’t bury them, leaving our basement with the distinctive aroma of barn/crap. But they are cute. Really cute. So for now, we are pet owners. And I have booked the carpet cleaners for tomorrow.