On Fevers, Fortuneless Fate And Felines

I don't tend to focus on my feelings when composing a blog post but today's post is the product entirely of intense, aggravated feelings.

Now that you've been warned, read on.

So, I had the flu. No big deal, right? Having the flu SHOULDN'T be a big deal but for me, it was. The main reason was because I had 3 quite healthy children in my house every minute I was sick.

Okay, so I thanked God for their health and I didn't want to discredit their healthy approach to life but man, it was hard to keep up with their approach.

Miracle of miracles, somehow the day had ended with a completed laundry project. That in and of itself is an incredible feat. Even for a healthy person. All my laundry was done, folded and put away. And as I patted myself merely on the back and thanked the good Lord for helping me achieve such an unreachable goal, I decided to tackle the avalanche of toys in our house.

Now, even for a healthy person, that is not an easy task. So to be unhealthy and achy and sore, this experience was unlike anything I had experienced in a long time. Actually, I think I've read books about people who scaled impossible mountains but it's been awhile since I had such leisure reading time so I could be wrong about my recollections of such unbelievable success.

By sheer instinct, I tackled the toys.

After telling Janae 5,000 times a certain number of time to pick up a certain toy, I realized she'd pick it up (if I was lucky) and them move it to a new location (if I was luckier.) But, the toy was never put away. That's the key word here folks: putaway. I noticed a lot of toys were also being moved but not putaway. (I know that's two words but for the sake of simplicity, we are combining them into one single word.)

That was it. I had enough. It was over.

I charged across the basement to a neat roll of trash bags and declared war on all the toys. As many toys as possible were going in a garbage bag.

Now, when my little kidlets saw my anger righteous indignation towards the cavity of toys (ie., toy box), they became quite concerned. In their effort to save as many toys from being cast into everlasting darkness, they began picking up toys quite rapidly and shoving them safely in the crooks of their little arms.

Lest you think I am a hard hearted mother who routinely throws her children's prize possessions (ie., toys) away, don't come to such a harsh conclusion so fast. These toys were not going to be thrown away. They were not even going to be GIVEN away. They were being permanently put away until I was ready to deal with their avalanching powers again.

But, my poor children only saw the trash bag. And the toys going into the trash bag. So, of course, they imagined the worse: a massive dumpster heaped high with bags of toys... watching the dumpster roll away and head towards the local landfill.... huge graters rolling over their bag of toys at the local dump... shredding their toys to tiny slivers of plastic and shards of doll hair leaving only their precious memories locked safely in the sorrowing little hearts of my children. (Wow, my poor kids could honestly have nightmares over this.)

I, on the other hand, imagined the best: a clean room. And not just ONE clean room but two! And not just two clean bedrooms but a clean family room! Which of course would mean the whole house could stay clean! And toy free!

Boy was I giddy.

In the process of time, I stressed explained to the children that I was putting the toys away that they never played with. After they saw that their favorite toys were remaining and that life wasn't quite as bad as that plastic garbage bag threatened it to be, things went much better after that.

I was just finishing in the boys room and noticing the pleasant aire my children now possessed since their home life had suddenly become much more predictable and somewhat Proverbs 31-ish without the reoccurring experience of one stubbing their toe on a stubborn tow truck or tripping on a stray jump rope or sinking their heal into a sink hole of sharp legos, when suddenly, my hand lighted on a damp comforter. A smelly damp comforter. A smells-like-cat-pee damp comforter.

It was at that moment in time that the earth's axle quit spinning. Time stopped. Air ceased to exist. Water dried up. Blood pooled to the top of my head. And I had a heart attack. Right there in my son's bedroom.

As I took a deep breath, everything began to turn again. A flame of energy sparked my temper. I was livid. I was angry. I was mad. A stupid cat had invaded the cleanliness of my home and I was helpless in her evilness on my abode. I was seriously quite mad. This point can't be stressed enough. But I tried to stay calm. You know, take it in stride like perfect mothers do all the time.

When the clock started ticking again, things proved to be far worse than initially thought. The cat's URINE had not only showered on the blanket but it had also penetrated another comforter. And an entire set of clean sheets. And the center of a once-clean mattress. All was saturated in the cat's URINE.

Truth be told, I had 3 more loads of laundry to do. And in my flu-ridden body, I had no energy wherewith to summon the lofty goals of duty. But, duty called and I attended it's beckon.

As I washed laundry and scrubbed the mattress and washed another load of laundry and continued to scrub and color-safe-bleach the mattress, my kind and ever thoughtful cat loving sympathetic husband asked if there was a repellent to put on the mattress. You know, so the cat wouldn't "do it" again.

Expressing a little more feeling than intended I assured him there was a repellent.

"It's called lead and you put it right in the cat's head," I blurted out, "They never do it again after that."

Now, the only thing (and when I say only, I mean THE ONLY thing) that kept me from using the repellent right then was because I knew if I shot the cat in the head, it would end up a bloody mess. And another mess was not what I was looking for. Plus, I didn't know how to load the gun and I naturally assumed my usually helpful husband would be unwilling to help me learn that task right then.

So, for the next two days, I shopped for pet urine cleaners and washed the mattress and dried it with a fan and re-washed it again. And set the fan up to dry it again. And made sure the cat didn't visit it again. And finally put the bed back together.

As the fever cleared my brain, life began to seem a little more livable again several days later. Actually, now that I think of it, the fever is back and I'm not better like I planned on being. And the mattress never did get 100% clean. And the cat still roams the house freely. But, the one redeeming factor is that I can look back on that fateful day though. And looking back is a whole lot easier than looking on to it. Especially when such harsh feelings of murder possess your usually kind hearted being and drive you to imagine the worst terror techniques with which to plague your cat with for peeing URINE in an inexplicable place.

But we all survived. Even the stinking cat.