BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

When you have geriatric felines you are going to have problems. That is just how it is.

I’m sure you’ve read some of my other blogs where I’ve gone on about having to give insulin to diabetic cats, or running sub-cutaneous fluids into a fleabag with chronic constipation. You’ve likely even read the blog about – and laughed at the picture of – the hemorrhoid cat. So, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that I am now lamenting the selective incontinence of one such “kitteh”.

Jasper, or as I like to call him, “the stupid one” – mostly because he’s as dense as a brick – has taken to relieving himself in one corner of our dining room. We stay on top of it, of course. Our house is lived in, not filthy. But, I have to admit, it is a bit of a battle. And, no matter how many chemicals you use to destroy the human detectable odor, the cat can still smell it and returns to that place over and over.

Since I am sequestered away in the office all day, we lock “TSO” and “TFO” (The Fat One) in the basement where the litter boxes are located. Granted, the basement is unfinished so it isn’t exactly plush – which is how E K prefers her dungeon – but, for the kitteh’s sake we do make sure they have their “cat pyramids” and “cat beds” down there. And, since that is where their food dishes are as well, they are all good.

Now, before I get a ration of comments telling me how I need to handle this, or that I am a bad person because I need to take the cat to the vet because he’s trying to tell me he is ill, just put a governor on it and step away from the keyboard. E K and I have been rescuing cats for better than 20 years. We have more than just a little experience in this arena. PLUS, we have, in fact, taken him to the vet. He’s fine. Nothing wrong. No urinary infections, no diabetes, etc. He’s just old and suffering from “I don’t care anymore syndrome.”

So anyway, on with the story. “TSO” will do the same thing in the basement on occasion, meaning he’ll leave a puddle on the concrete floor 10 steps from the litter boxes, just because he can. Fortunately, that is much easier to clean up than the hardwood in the dining room, but I digress.

Just the other day it was raining. Since we live in an old house at the bottom of a hill, in a dip in the road, with all of the property around us sitting higher than us, drainage occurs. See where I’m going with this? When such drainage occurs and the ground is saturated, some seepage also occurs. We don’t get “major flooding” down there, but we get a few puddles and minor streams running toward the floor drain.

On this particular day, the O-spring, fresh off finishing her homework, headed downstairs to take care of the afternoon feline feeding – something that has been added to her list of chores in recent weeks. No more had she gone down into the basement than I heard “Ewwwww! Jasper! That’s disgusting!” Given that I was sitting in the office upstairs doing some work, you know she had to be pretty loud.

The “Ewwws” and scoldings continued for a minute or two, and finally I heard her clomping back up the stairs. The basement door opened, the slammed, and I was greeted with my daughter yelling at me from the bottom of the first floor staircase.

“DADDY! Jasper peed ALL OVER the basement!”

“What do you mean, all over?” I asked.

“He peed EVERYWHERE! There’s only only little places to stand where it’s dry. It’s GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!”

When I finally stopped laughing I called back to her, “Honey, it’s raining. That’s just water from the basement leaking.”

It was quiet for a moment, then I heard a very calm and perfunctory, “Oh.”

Crisis averted. I wonder what she’s going to do the first time she has to change a diaper?

More to come…

Murv

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but in case you are new here… Oh, what the hell… It bears repeating even for the regulars:

E K despises Wal-Mart.  And, when I say despises that is very simply the strongest family friendly word I can pull out of my pocket at this juncture. If she could, E K would have Wal-Mart strapped to the wall down in her dungeon so she could torture it on a daily basis. She hates the organization just that much.

Living under that same roof with her I have come to understand this, and to even plan routes to restaurants and cinemas so that they avoid coming within 10 miles of a Wal-Mart. It’s sort of a self-preservation thing. However, since E K is not only evil, she has the built in “Mom Thing” going on, the O-spring can at least get away with mentioning the name of the vile organization without paying the price I – or another adult – would.

And so, since Wal-Mart attracts a “certain” demographic, which then allows them to cut deals with manufacturers or even musical artists that cater to said demographic, the life sucking mecca of retail depravity happened to be the exclusive reseller of a particular CD. A particular CD that it turns out the O-spring wanted “really, really bad.” This, of course, led to the child badgering The Evil One relentlessly about shopping there – whether in person or online, she didn’t care.

Eventually the badgering wore on E K, and one night as the O-spring dropped not so subtle hints around our office, the redhead went ahead and surfed over to the online cesspool of Satan’s Shopping Center. (That would be Wal-Mart just in case you aren’t following.)

The O-spring watched on as the supremely evil one scanned the site. After a few silent moments the kid looked at her mother and with every bit of seriousness she could muster announced in a matter-of-fact tone, “You didn’t know Wal-Mart had this much information didya?”

A minute or two later, as E K and I were cleaning our drinks off our monitors, the daughter turned to me and said, “This is going to be blog material, isn’t it?”

Why yes… Yes it is.

More to come…

Murv