After the kids got home from school today, I let the dog out the back door. He had been gated in the kitchen all day and hadn't been out in hours. I couldn't get him to head outside so I walked out with him, walked around the backyard for a few minutes and then came back in. I checked out the mail on the kitchen counter, walked across the room to the bill pile to throw the new bills onto it and then hopped over the gate into the family room. I stopped at my desk, added a piece of mail to that correspondence pile, walked over to the TV, turned it down, and then walked over to the opposite side of the family room to help Libby with her homework. I leaned down to see her paper and immediately smelled something horrible.
"Oh my gosh, what is that smell?", I exclaimed, still leaning down.
Libby plugged her nose and yelled, "Owwwwww....that's horrible! What IS that?"
We both look accusingly at Andrew but he swore he hadn't tooted. (We actually asked him twice because you never know with him.)
I then walked back across the entire room, back over the gate into the kitchen and checked to see if the dog had had an accident. Nope.
I walked back into the family room, got halfway across it, and realized that the entire family room floor was covered in stains.
"Oh my God, the cat must have gotten sick all over the place!" It didn't really smell like vomit. It smelled like shit. But, what else could it be? The dog was gated in the kitchen and had been for hours.
So, still swearing at the cat and muttering under my breath that 15 years was old enough for a cat and that I was going to call the vet for THAT appointment, I walked back across the family room, picked her up, walked into the front hallway, threw her in the basement, back through the family room, over the gate, and into the kitchen. I walked around the table, past the counter, got cleaners out from underneath the sink and walked back into the family room. I thought I was losing my mind because the stains seemed to have doubled. Shaking my head and still swearing at the cat, I realized I needed a lot of paper towels, so I walked back into the kitchen and got a new roll of paper towels out of the pantry.
As I was headed back into the family room and trying to find a way to explain to the kids that the cat's lifespan had just been dramatically altered, I realized that there was a little pile of something by the sink that hadn't been there before. I leaned down and immediately smelled it. Yep, it WAS shit. It was not vomit. But, how did it get there???? I had put the cat in the basement.
As I leaned down again to make sure, the smell just seemed to get stronger. And as I looked at the little piece of crap, it suddenly dawned on me that it was pretty smashed. And I got it. Or so I thought.
"Oh no!!!! Kids!!!!! Someone walked in dog poop! And tracked it in! Take off your shoes NOW!!!!!"
They both looked at me with blank looks and held up their bare feet. The same feet that hadn't been outside in 30 minutes or so.
And then I really got it. And I looked down. At my own shoes.
Those same shoes that had walked across the cream-colored family room carpet no less than 7 times and across the kitchen no less than 5 times in the last few minutes. And thought of how the number of stains seemed to have doubled in the last minute.
And, so slowly that I can't even describe the dread, I picked my feet up, and looked at the bottom of my shoes.
Needless to say, it wasn't the cat.
(P.S. My shoes are in the trash, I have used an entire bottle of pet stain remover on my family room carpet, mopped the entry room, and the kitchen, and will be renting a steam cleaner tomorrow to finish the carpet cleaning.)
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
