Over the next couple of days, circumstances became jumbled and schedules became conflicted, which frustrated me further. There was some confusion when it came to whether or not we were supposed to pick up the CT scans or if the doctor's office was going to mail them to us and when I asked my mom for clarification, she got annoyed with me and accused me of being rude because she had already messed up the schedule for the appointed consultation and she thought I was taking a dig at her. I tried to explain myself but she was an ice queen for the rest of the night.
With the mounting circumstances of a more complicated surgery in my future, trying to figure out when and how much time to take off work, realizing I would have to spend my vacation days in recovery, and my mom over exaggerating, I went to bed angry.
I always leave my bedroom door cracked to allow my cat Moses to come and go as he pleases. If I don't, he will scratch on the door frame until someone opens the door for him. He does not like closed doors. So, as I was settling into sleep, I heard my door squeak open and felt Moses jump on the bed. We usually have a midnight meeting. When I lay myself down, he jumps on the bed and rests there for a while before bouncing off and going about his business. He usually wedges himself between my arm and torso but this night he settled himself on the edge of the bed next to my feet. I thought it was weird but in my half-unconscious state, I didn't think anything of it.
Until the smell hit me.
Vile dookie aroma flew up my nose and I flew up in the bed and reached for my lamp. Clicking it on, light burst onto my cat's butt. His rear was facing me so I got a fantastic view of the string of Tootsie Roll-shaped turds hanging out of his brown eye, dangling on my sheets like his second tail. Just chillin' there, dangling. I shuddered.
"Ugh," I groaned as I pushed him off the bed. He flew through my open door and I thought about going back to sleep but then I felt bad. He was obviously having problems and I didn't want him to be distressed throughout the night. Besides, there was no telling how much he would have flung the feces around throughout the night so I decided to get up and try to help him out.
I grabbed some tissues and opened my door wider. Outside, a giant poop streak snaked its way from the hall to the threshold of my room. I found Moses in the living room licking his butt in utter futility. The smell was as bad as something I'd unleash after a heavy night of Mexican binge eating. I lifted up my shirt and hooked the collar over my nose to block some of the pungency. I lifted his tail and plucked most of the poop from his butt fur.
"This is my existence," I thought to myself. "I'm standing here at 12:13am with my shirt over my nose with a handful of tissue and turd waiting for my cat to lick the rest of it off of himself."
After he ate himself out a little bit, I bent back down and lifted up his tail to check for any rectal remnants. Sure enough, a turd had become severely tangled in his fur. I grabbed some more tissues and tried to gently yank the poo free. This is when Moses got difficult. I thought the turd would detangle with a gentle pull but I guess I yanked Moses' fur and he squeaked and yelped at me. I tried to explain what I was doing but he wasn't having it. He swung his upper body around toward me and sunk his claws into my arms.
"That's it! I'm done!" I whisper-shouted at the cat. I flushed the poo, washed my hands of the situation (both literally and figuratively) and then left a note for mom that she'd see in the morning:
Moses has a turd stuck to his fur. Don't let him sit on your lap or he'll rub his stank all over you and your housecoat.
The next day, Mom had a visitor as I was walking out the door to go to work. I didn't think it was appropriate to mention our cat's incontinence in front of company so I texted her later that day while on my lunch break. I asked if she found and removed the offending feces and she replied that she looked and didn't see or smell anything. I was going to tell her to check again, that it was definitely there, but things were still awkward between us because of her blow up the day prior and I didn't want to make things worse so I let it go.
After work, I came home and asked about the poop again. Mom said she looked and looked and I told her it wasn't right underneath his hole but a little to the left and pretty far in. As if on cue, Moses came through my door and jumped on my bed. The smell hit me again.
"How do you not smell that?" I asked. Mom just shrugged. I put on some latex gloves and coaxed Moses to lay on the floor. I lifted his tail and he meowed again but I ignored his pitiful pleas and poked around his butt. Ah, there it was, the fugitive Tootsie-turd. I lifted my shirt over my nose again and slightly pulled on it. Yeah, that baby had dried, solidified, and fused with his fur. It was going to take more than finger finesse to loosen that log.
I pulled out the scissors and asked Mom to hold the cat down. More yipping, more scratching, but the turd had to come out. I grabbed the poo and cut the fur around it until it finally dislodged from his body.
It took a couple of tries because his fur is so dense and I was hesitant to really go in there and start hacking away because I didn't want to cut his skin. Considering his squirming and the fact that I was holding onto a dried piece of crap, I think I did a decent job. Moses got up, licked himself a bit, and then jaunted away.
"You're welcome," I called out to him. Jerk.
Over the next couple of days, any time he would jump on my bed and rest his rump, I'd get worried and eye him suspiciously. I took a few deep whiffs to make sure he hadn't had another...occurrence. But he seemed fine.
Although I had delays in my own surgery, I had to end up performing an emergency turd-ectomy on my cat. I only hope I'll be able to walk away as easily as he did.
This is the offender. Don't let his cuddly fuzziness fool you. He's gross.
Cute face. Sour stomach.
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