Finally edited the poo-covered cat post. Normally I would have just posted it without reading it at all, but after glancing at it briefly last night, I realized that towards the end I was starting to sound like a hysterical banshee and consequentially not making a whole lot of sense. When the topic at hand is poo-covered cats, there’s no reason at all to bring up the fact that my husband paid his best friend’s taxes for him. That’s a post for another day.

Anyway, onward with the adventure:

No one, and I do mean no one … not even the most evil, vile demon from the pits of hell … should ever be confronted with a poo-covered cat at 2:20 in the morning. No … one.

Of course, this isn’t a story about no one. This is a story about me … the person who either willingly chooses to do those things no one should have to do or has them thrust upon her at some unlikely hour of a Wednesday morning. I assure you, I did not self-select to be confronted by a poo-covered cat at 2:20 in the morning. No, the universe decided I needed to be faced with this particular life experience in order to … what? Test me on the depths of my compassion, tolerance, love, sense of duty? Or did the universe just want to see how long it would take me to barf?

For the record … concerning the previously mentioned virtues, the depths to which I exhibit them still appears to be bottomless, seeing as the cat is now no longer covered in the most disgusting poo I have ever seen. The time until barfing? Less than five minutes. The worst part? Not being able to let go of the then both poo-covered and soaking wet cat to allow myself to do so by properly assuming the position at the porceline goddess. No, no … even worse? Because the stench was so vile and so strong, I had put on one of my painter’s masks and spritz both it and myself liberally with perfume. Then every breath was nothing but perfume and cat poo and the unending feeling that I’d die if the heaving didn’t stop. Die … or go stark raving mad and join the crazy white haired woman with the blue broom out in the street. My broom is yellow. We could have jousting tournaments. It’d be fun.

Lin’s only contribution to this whole vile-smelling, cat-howling, Orb-cursing event was to roll over on the couch where he was sleeping, grunt and inform me that I was being too noisy. If I were not as sane and stable as I am, I would have let go of the cat at that very moment, grabbed a butcher knife, and slain him where he lay while screaming between dry heaves THE CAT IS COVERED IN SHIT, AND I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! … or slit my own wrists and bled out on my kitchen floor in a puddle of my own vomit.

Fortunately for the cat, the husband and the world at large, I chose Option A … just get the hell through this as quickly as possible and try to survive. It’s interesting that I never once thought about offing the cat, the one most directly responsible for my immediate misery. The spousal unit might want to take note of that before complaining about strange cat-howling, Orb-cursing noises eminating from the kitchen in the wee hours.

I have experienced many vile things in my life … the butchering of animals in slaughterhouses and back yards, the mangled remains of auto accident victims, someone shot in the head, someone else stabbed in the gut, the rotting corpses of animals under dark and moist houses, the remains of hunted deer tossed into the creek behind my house and left to decompose … and the list is even longer than that. Those are just the most cringe-worthy ones that come to mind. None of them, and I really do mean none of them, were as bad as what I am now referring to as The Horrible Cat Poo Incident. Even if I could find the words to properly convey to you exactly how horrible it was, I would spare you. If I ever do find the words to convey it properly, I will not be sparing the spousal unit … the one who, instead of griping about the noise, should have roused enough sense of mind to ask what was happening (and perhaps offer to help). For those who are curious, yes, I am the one who gets out of bed to investigate burglar noises.

Truly … it was the most disgusting experience of my life, and I thought I had a few things on the top of that list already. I would have never guessed that the thing which would bring me to my knees would be a poo-covered cat, but it did. Now you know how to torture any information out of me you want. All you need is one elderly cat with irritable bowels who has recently eaten something he shouldn’t have. Lock us in a room together, and I swear to you very shortly I would be singing like a canary. I have found my Achilles heel, and it is liquid cat poo.

I have no idea how the cat accomplished to cover himself in poo either. When I heard his first pathetic mew, it came from the direction of the bathroom. I passed the cat in the hall, smelled cat poo, and checked the box in order to determine whether or not I was going to have to track the cat down to wipe his fuzzy little butt (something I have to do at least twice a day). There was no poo in the litter box. I wandered through the house sniffing, and the smell was no longer floating in the air. At that point I assumed the cat had been gassy. He can be extremely gaseous from time to time. His farts, while horrible in their own right, are at least something that can be ignored. Gas eventually dissipates on it’s own, and a spritz of air freshener tends to help it on it’s way. I spritzed a little “house perfume” in the hall, and returned to my computer. All I wanted to do was close up the programs I had open and save a few files, and then I was off to bed.

Then I heard more pathetic mews. This time they came from the kitchen and seemed a little more strident. Since the cat has recently selected one corner of the kitchen floor as his favorite place to have his poo accidents, I quickly got up, turned on the light and investigated the situation. The cat was was no longer in the kitchen, and there was no poo to be seen or smelled. I figured he was just being weird, and once again, I returned to my computer.

The cat was determined to let me know he was having a crisis of grand kitty proportions, and within a few seconds, he walked right up to my chair, and meowed loudly several times. Turning to look at him, even in the mostly dark room, I could tell there was definitely something wrong with the cat. Then he jumped up into my lap, and the “something wrong” was undeniable. The back half of the cat, from ribcage to tail tip, was coated in poo. Like I said, I have no idea how he accomplished this. I have found no poo anywhere else in the house, and believe me as strongly as this stuff smelled, it wouldn’t be difficult to locate even a small dab of it. It’s as if the poo simply jumped from his butt and tried to devour him. I have never seen such a thing without there being some sort of associated mess elsewhere. How the cat came to be poo-covered will likely remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time.

So at an ungodly hour of Wednesday morning, the cat got a bath. While the cat did seem somewhat traumatized by this event … I normally build up to a cat bath by playing with him, grooming him and generally spoiling him, rather than just grabbing him and going to work … I have very little sympathy. Being a sentient human being with a very sensitive nose and somewhat squeamish stomach where cat poo is concerned, I feel I was far more traumatized by the cat bath than the cat was. The cat was back to being his usual jovial self by the time I stumbled out of the bedroom at 7 am. I, on the other hand, have literally been sick all day and almost completely incapable of eating or drinking anything at all. My gag reflex seems to have been pushed into overdrive, and it just won’t let up. Also my back and stomach muscles are outright sore from having to control my desire to gag. By 7:15 am, I was crawling right back into bed, and I stayed there most of the day.

Until Lin came home from work and I had a total nervous breakdown during which I am certain I made no sense at all. I’ll have to apologize to the spousal unit tomorrow, but not for everything. I wasn’t entirely crazy on some of my points … points that don’t happen to relate to cat poo and so won’t be discussed here today. They shouldn’t have come up during a nervous breakdown about poo-covered cats, but once a mental breakdown starts, it’s so very hard to maintain focus and stay on topic. Yes, it’s as if one poo-covered cat was all it took to make me think my entire life was one huge mess and failure. Of course, I realize now that isn’t true, but at the time, it sure did feel that way. The powers of liquid cat poo are a manifold.

I am hoping tomorrow my gag reflex will have returned to normal. I am also hoping that tomorrow I stop immediately gagging at the mere sight of my cat. Surely I’ll feel better tomorrow, right? My gag reflex can’t permanently be broken, can it? If it is, dieing would be preferable. I have seriously been that miserable all day today.

The cat is not going to get to eat whatever food makes him happy. This is just a fact. He’s been eating it for two weeks now, and I haven’t noticed that he’s eating any more of it than he did the allergen-free stuff. Additionally, he hasn’t gained any weight at all, and the bowel problem appears to be seriously escalating. Basically, he is just going to have to learn to like New Zealand venison, and when I can afford to do so, I suppose I will start cooking chicken for the cat. Even cheap chicken isn’t cheap anymore though, so he better not expect it too often.

Also, he is going to the vet as soon as we can afford it (hopefully next month). There may be some other problem going on that his overly-sensitive digestive system is covering up. I just want to find some sort of solution that will end with both a happy cat and happy humans all living peacefully under the same roof. I am praying this is possible, because happy or not, we humans and the cat are going to have to continue living under the same roof all the same. It’d just be a whole lot more pleasant if it involved a good deal less cat poo … especially cat poo on the cat.