Literal Shitty Taxes

I'M A MILLIONAIRE! Oh wait, that's a complete lie. Nevermind. I guess I'll start blogging again just as soon as I get my taxes out of the way.

Yeah, tax season. Fun stuff right? It is! When you know you're getting a refund, anyway. But what about when you have two very old cats? And what if those poor, wretched old jerks decided to barf and shit on everything you own? And what if that included all your tax documents?

Excrementy and vomity paperwork is difficult enough to deal with, but it's especially embarrassing when you have to give it all to your accountant. You know, because it's TAX SEASON.

How do you explain the brown smears to her? You can't just let her touch it... can you? And you certainly can't wash it off. Have you ever tried to wash paper? I'll let you in on a little secret. It doesn't work.

Okay, so there are two options. Option one is to keep your mouth shut and let her touch the number 2. Did I forget to mention it's not ordinary cat crap? No, kitty was having a bad day when she smeared her extraordinarily raunchy ass on our paperwork. This is the pinnacle of abominable bowel movements - diarrhea.

Despite the fact that my accountant is my cousin, and even though she herself has a number of cats and horses, that option just plain sucks. So I settled on option two. I took a pair of scissors and literally cut the brown spots out. Yup, it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Cut that shit out!"

Cat-lateral Damage

I don't know how people do it. I don't know how crazy old cat ladies can have dozens of insanity-inducing cats, except maybe for the fact that they're, well, insane.

To have multiple cats is expensive and exhausting. We learned this with our recent experience with three quarters of a half dozen cats. That's four cats for the mathmatically challenged. (That's "4" for the alphabetically challenged.) Our two girls, plus my parents two boys.

Every few days our house began to smell. The smell was like cats. Their food, their pee, their crap, their little pink buttholes, their litter. So every few days we had to clean out two litter boxes; one for the upstairs cats, and one for the downstairs cats.

The winter seemed to fly by as we spent every spare minute cleaning. If it weren't for Roomba, our house would be condemned right now due to inhabitable conditions as a result of an unacceptable build-up of unsanitary elements that would pose a health risk to anyone walking within 30 feet of our home.

But even Roomba couldn't fully compete with our kitties. Their fur wasn't the problem. It was the litter that got out of hand. Digging-litterbox action fired the tiny clumping granules all over the floor. And despite our best efforts, we couldn't stop it from getting underfoot.

Kitty litter plus hardwood - and gravitational forces pulling body weight down onto said litter/hardwood combination - do not go well together.

The damage is done. The granulated bentonite clay particles, which are normally used for absorbing our cats' excrement, have devalued our home by 0.1% as they've scraped our hardwood floors with their crunchy, sand-flavoured edges. Dang. Maybe I should've titled this post 'Collitteral Damage.'

Amputee Ghost Cat

The skeletons in my closet clatter with an uneasiness that sends chills reverberating throughout our house. The furnace mysteriously halts as an unstoppable cold fills each room. It is searching for something.

70-year-old windows rattle. Eerie wind creeps through the cracks and the coldness grows. Another being dwells in our home, and he is hungry. Strange noises emanate from unoccupied rooms... then suddenly...

The Amputee Ghost Cat appears!

Hovering, with no hind legs, the amputee ghost cat calls for food with a surreal, whispering meow. As faithful servant, I obey. Only the finest roasted, shaved chicken will do for the amputee ghost cat.

With his large paws he reaches for the food. The ghost cat makes contact with my hand - and it is cold. I tremble as I feed the starving spectre. His piercing blue eyes pierce my own eyes with a piercing stare that pierces uh, stuff. I must obey.

My hands shake like a diabetic on a sugar-low as I tear off another strip of tasty chicken for the phantom before me. I wonder what happened to his hind paws as I try and distract myself. I must stay focused. The amputee ghost cat can sense fear.

"Only a few more tender pieces of delicious chicken and he'll be satisfied" I think to myself. Sure enough, the ghost cat drops to the ground. His hind legs reappear and he walks away, licking his chops.

I have survived another feeding.

Royalty Is Visiting

This is Oliver. Or, as I like to call him, Shmeg, Shmeglin or Shmego-Bub. Shmeg is my parents' cat, a purebred Himalayan Lynx with a show-cat heritage. Recently he has gained a new name due to the fact he must be waited on hand and paw. Suz calls him the Prince. Yes, he's better than us, and he knows it.

While my parents are in Florida Suz and I are attending to the Prince's needs and desires. If we don't stick to the schedule, we'll both receive 40 Royal lashings.

And not the good kind, with a dominatrix standing over you with a cat-o-nine tails.

Shmeg is 14 years old, very old for a purebred, and is therefore on a strict diet of soggy, mashed up, scientifically formulated gunky crap which must be presented to him twice a day, along with a proper curtsy.

Apparently it's tasty crap. I wouldn't know. I've only ever tried dry cat food. Regardless, Prince Bub must be fed his soft raunch twice a day or he'll bite the big one.

Terrified and disoriented without his Royal Pillow, Prince Bub cowers in the basement, or slithers behind the fireplace; a crack so narrow my arm barely fits. The Prince must be coaxed out of these hiding places, and fed his Royal Dinner.

The only problem is, he prefers people food. And he prefers it fed to him by hand. And so I must sit, painstakingly tearing off strips of Schneiders Oven Roasted Chicken and holding it up for him to grab.

No, not with his teeth - with his paws. Price Bub sits on his hind legs and holds the chicken steady with his paws while he chews the nutrients out of it. Feeding time can last half an hour.

But it's all worth it for my little Prince Shmego-Bub, who shows his affection with mighty head-butts and a few choice vocalisations like, "Mmmcaaaaaaaaaw" instead of meow.

Hand feeding really isn't so bad, especially considering
*this* is the end result of Prince Bub's standard glop dinner. When finished, the Royal servant, me, sticks his plate into the royal dishwasher and wipes everything down. The whole process is a royal pain in the ass.