Ah, the love of a cat. The neighborhood welcoming committee has visited our new home. He/she is a very large grey tiger cat, who is extremely affectionate. We have now made friends and it visits our work site when there aren’t any pieces of large machinery around. And, it has left me gifts to welcome us into the neighborhood!
Any of you who are familiar with cats knows what I am talking about. Last Sunday I had been working on our wiring all day. I had my bulky coat on to stay warm, gloves were off so I could actually hold the staples I needed to hammer. I had been going in and out of the garage and house, moving my ladder from wall to wall. At one point, I smelled what seemed to be sewage. I thought maybe it was our porta potty. But the smell seemed to be following me around. I started searching, until I finally realized whatever it was was on my hands!!! After a few minutes I was able to piece together the puzzle. The neighbor cat had come in under the garage doors (there is a gap until our garage floor slab is poured) and left a small puddle of poop in the middle of the hallway, that I hadn’t seen. Yes, I stepped in it, then spread it onto every other rung of the ladder, which the front of my bulky coat then got streaked with, and eventually my hands every time I had to move the ladder.
YUCK!!!
I used my drinking water to clean everything of poop and even cleaned the puddle up. Everything got tossed into the wash, and I took a long, hot cleansing shower when I got home.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
On Thursday I had to meet with someone about our plumbing to septic connection, which is in the crawl space under the house. To get to the spot I needed to be at, I either had to go over or under a large pipe. I chose to roll under. After our conversation, we moved back towards the opening, but stopped to discuss more near the spot I had rolled under. That’s when I got the whiff of cat urine. Not really a surprise, as we had had an opening from the outside cut to get the pipes under the house. We would close that today. He looked around and we both saw a small, yellow puddle under the pipe. Fast forward about an hour later and I am still smelling cat urine. Yup. I had rolled in the puddle. Once again, everything I was wearing was thrown in the wash, and another hot, cleansing shower was take. To remove the smell from my hair.
Again, YUCK!
In spite of the unpleasantness, I still like the cat that brought the welcoming gifts. He/she is just being a cat. The crawl space is sealed up now, the cat pee will be wiped up when it thaws and some Stink Free will be applied. The garage doors will now have a board placed across the front to keep the critter out of the house until the cement is poured. And I will still offer my hand in affection the next time it comes to visit.
Hope you belly laughed nice and hard reading this. I have been.
An Ordinary Life 