Teresa Bloomingdale’s I Should Have Seen It Coming When The Rabbit Died opens with that very line.
In Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, Jud says, “Sometimes dead is better.”
Well, I should have seen it coming when the cat died. And though it pains me to disagree with Mr. King, dead wasn’t better this week.
Pete the Beagle, like many elderly gents, often pees in the middle of the night. Two nights ago, he stayed out much longer than usual. I got through half of an episode of Charmed. Pete still wasn’t at the back door.
I was forced to step out onto the deck to call him. This is a dicey proposition at night as the deck is often dotted with slugs. Recently, a skink skittered from beneath our grill. So the deck at night is not for the weak.
In case you thought, like I did, that a skink is that frenemy from ninth grade who stole your would-be boyfriend, you’d be wrong. A skink is a horrific lizard/snake crossover that likes to live under my grill, in my garage, and in the creepy crack on my front step.
Fortunately, before any diabolical phallic-shaped excuse for a vertebrate came my way, Pete came running from the corner of the yard. He dashed inside and began to rub his face into the rec room carpet.
That’s weird for Pete. At 10 o’clock at night, sure. He’ll rub away. But in the middle of the night he usually makes a beeline for his water then rushes to curl up with Don.
But it was the middle of the night. Fatigue prevented the weirdness from occurring to me. Until Pete and I headed upstairs and I caught a good whiff of him.
Beagles like to roll in poop. More the better if it’s not theirs. Pete had clearly taken a dip in the deep end of some fecal matter. Or so I thought at the time. That I couldn’t find any poop on him or the carpet didn’t strike me until later.
I gave Pete a bath. It was three o’clock in the morning when I chased my wet, soapy, poop-scented dog through the house. I kept our chase quiet to avoid waking anyone. Something that looked like Barbie hair stuck to my wet foot as I wrestled Pete. Pete’s collar smelled as badly as he did. I was gaining no ground.
I washed Pete’s collar. I washed my carpet. I pulled the wet Barbie hair from my foot, tossing it in the bathroom trash.
Once everything was Clean I had a conundrum. I consider myself Dirty when I give Pete a bath. As such, I touch nothing until I can shower to get Clean. If I do touch something, like a light switch, say, or Pete’s bath supplies, those items are not just Dirty. They are Forever Dirty. Meaning nothing I do will ever make them Clean. Touching those items is usually reserved for just before my shower.
I couldn’t hop in the shower – I’d wake Don, who gets up for work at 5 o’clock in the morning. And I’d shower at The Cabin before I’d ever shower in the kids’ bathrooms.
My bed would be Forever Dirty if I slept there. And the very wet Pete would be in that bed with me.
I checked in with my obsessiveness, which is indeed a fickle master. He told me Pete and I could crash on the sofa. The sofa would not get Forever Dirty.
Personally, I think my obsessiveness just wanted to watch Charmed. My obsessiveness insisted he has a schematic of Dirty and Clean, that he doesn’t share it with anyone, and that he was only ever interested in Piper. He also said he was still resentful of Don for not letting us name our daughter Piper.
Pete and I crashed on the sofa. We watched Charmed until four o’clock.
Twelve hours later I was unpacking groceries and starting dinner. I sent Pete out into the yard while I worked on getting a luscious whole chicken in the oven before the kids got home.
Pete barked to be let in. As he ran past me….yeah. He smelled again.
My good humor now a murderous rage, I set about washing Pete. Again. I washed his collar. Again. I scrubbed the carpet. Again.
Pete’s not the biggest fan of his own poop. The aroma and consistency of other animals’ poop are far more appealing. I think it’s like eating a meal that someone else cooks, cleans, and pays for – all the sweeter for none of the work being yours.
Believing a wild animal had pooped in our yard – we’ve been known to get mountain goats in our yard, right Don? – I went to work seeking Pete’s newfound medium. I envisioned my yard as a grid, like a fresh sheet of graph paper lay over it. I worked that grid sequentially until I reached the far right corner of the yard.
A nice pile of Petey poop lay in our little circular garden. As I scooped Pete’s deposit, I recognized the smell that had perfumed my dog since the wee hours. Surely this was the poop Pete had been using as a mud bath.
Then I noticed the hole under my fence.
Pete has never dug a hole under the fence. Why would he? He takes the most expensive drug of anyone in our house, sleeps with me more than Don does, and has gained six pounds of what the kids call “love” since his adoption. He’s not going anywhere.
Then I saw my cat’s very disturbed grave. The rocks covering her final resting place had been rolled away. A thousand Jesus jokes ran through my head. I was fool enough to believe she was still inside.
Thinking I’d have to ask Don to fill the hole under the fence and un-Mary Magdalene Ladybug’s grave, I rounded the garden triumphant. I’d solved my Petey poop problem.
And that’s when I saw my cat.
She had not been resurrected like Jesus. Not even like Church and ooh! I just got that! Stephen King with your clever little metaphor!
That last part might’ve been just for me.
Anyway, my cat lay, desiccated and bare on my lawn, looking not unlike the whole chicken I’d just put in the oven. The poop had been an unwitting red herring. Its proximity to my dead cat had led me to believe the poop was the source of the smell.
Deciding to mentally deal with the horror of my disinterred cat later, I pulled out a shovel and a trash bag. I didn’t want to put my cat in the trash. But I really, really didn’t want her dug up again.
I found I was physically, emotionally, mentally unable to scoop up my cat. Thankfully, Don’s text rang at that moment with the words every squeamish owner of a zombie cat wants to see.
Headed home.
“Ok,” I replied. “It wasn’t poop that Pete rolled in last night. It was Ladybug.”
For a long time, too long, there was no response. I figured he was gone for good this time. I’d finally gone too far with my animals.
I hoped he made it home before the kids. Ladybug’s death three months ago is still pretty raw. Her resurrection would be emotionally scarring. The consoling would delay my evening’s imbibing.
Don beat the kids home and Billy Batts’ed poor Ladybug. I sprinkled baking soda where her carcass had come to rest. Don and I got cleaned up and patted ourselves on the back for deftly handling a grisly task without traumatizing the kids.
Later that night I let Pete out back.
Yeah. Ladybug’s juices still lingered in the yard, and Pete had gladly rolled in them, like licking your fingers to savor a just-consumed meal. The baking soda was not enough.
I’d have to deal with that tomorrow. For tonight, Pete would go out on a leash.
As Don and I reclined and reflected on our day, he told me how my poor cat had clearly been drug around the west side of the circle garden – a trail of her fur had been left like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs.
And that was when I realized I had not peeled Barbie hair from my foot the night before. It had been dead cat fur.
My obsessiveness began dictating in overdrive. I would never be Clean until my foot was gone. And all the places I’d stepped?! My house would never be Clean either. And he was Right. Right about not getting back in bed with a foot made Forever Dirty by dead cat fur. I should always listen to him, he shouted. Always!
He also wants to be capitalized, like The Cabin. Not obsessiveness but Obsessiveness.
That night, Pete woke up at three in the morning to go out. I had to hopscotch over slugs as he pulled me to the specific blade of grass that he knew was screaming for his urine. I held tight when he tried to run for a post-pee frolic in the liquefied remains of my cat.
In the morning, Google pointed me towards a myriad of websites. Vinegar, as I suspected, should do the trick.
I headed out with every bottle of vinegar and container of baking soda in my house. I had decided to start at the spot on the lawn where Ladybug had come to rest then work my way back to her grave.
Ladybug’s unwitting funeral pyre was covered in wet leaves. Very wet leaves. Suspiciously wet leaves. I grabbed a bag, intent on removing them. I feared no amounts of vinegar or baking soda would remove my cat from those leaves.
Only they weren’t leaves. I dissected two cats on the way to my master’s degree. Those were cat organs.
I immediately regretted both the shower I’d already taken and the flip-flops I was wearing.
Later, Don and I discussed the horror of Ladybug’s disinterment, what had likely happened, what had been the work of a wild animal versus what had been the work of Pete. Don gave me that look. That look that says I’m a crazy animal person. That look that says if it weren’t for me he wouldn’t be playing Joe Pesci with my cat.
I pointed out that, really, we both had our things with animals. His animal adventures lead to maggot-covered skull caps I stumble across in the garage. We’re even. Perfectly matched. He buried the cat, I cleaned up the mess.
We are yin and yang, I told him. He cooks while I bake. He’s swarthy where I’m pasty. He’s cool and flinty, like a stainless steel water bottle. I’m warm and gooey, like a fresh chocolate chip cookie.
Or a resurrected cat, decaying in the sun.
