How the cat taught me the lesson of never using generic brand trash bags ...

So here it is, nearly 12:00am, and I'm not even close to going to bed. My husband is out of town working tonight, so it's just me and Kyleigh (and two dogs and a kitten).

Poor Kyleigh was crying, and I went into her room to investigate. She was only half awake but seemed in pain. I gave her some homeopathic teething tablets (she's finally cutting her left bottom front tooth) and tried to pat her back to sleep. Then I noticed a not-so-pleasant smell coming from her crib. I saw the cat sleeping there, so I picked him up, and sure enough, he smelled like .... well, he hadn't properly cleaned himself after a recent #2. *sigh* Fantastic, I thought, I have to wash the cat's butt at 11:00 at night. This is a first though, normally this cat is impecably clean. So I put the cat out of Kyleigh's room and continued patting her back to sleep. I kept smelling the smell. *great* So I started pulling stuffed animals out of the crib and smelling them one by one. Three of the five stunk. Woo hoo. So I put those in the hallway - they'll have to be cleaned. Poor Ky just couldn't seem to fall completely back asleep. I figure the smell must be in her crib. I leaned down into the crib, but can't seem to locate anything on the sheets. I moved her to the other side of the crib and within three pats she was out like a light. I'll wash the sheets tomorrow, even though I can't smell anything on them. Better than waking the poor child up completely when there's a perfectly good side for her to sleep on.

So - yes, the story gets even better - I went out to clean the cat. Put on some disposable gloves and, er ... cleaned the cat. He looked quite undignified, but didn't put up too much of a fight. (Now I know how poor nurses must feel.) I got him smelling all nice and "Dial Antibacterial Lavendar" fresh, and he ran away looking as though he felt slightly violated. Now he's hiding from me. So then I went to start a load of laundry and wash the blankets (which don't smell but I'm washing anyway) and the stuffed animals. One stuffed animal, a puppet Elmo, is not "machine washable", so let's just say that poor Elmo is no longer with us. The others are happily getting soaked on the "heavy soil" cycle.

After all this, I sit down and pull up google to see if my little three month old kitten could already be spraying, and to find out what this nasty smell was and how to keep it from coming back. Apparently, spray smells like urine, which is NOT what this smelled like, so at least he's not spraying. (Note to self - call the vet tomorrow to schedule the neutering.) One of the cat sites I was looking at said that sometimes poor feline hygiene can be attributed to an overly dirty litterbox, and that a quick and easy correction was tidying up, and washing the litterbox out with "mild" soap (can't I please use BLEACH?) and not using scented cat litter (what? I have to smell natural cat odors all day?). I decided that maybe I'd just ignore that last part for now.

So, now it's 11:30, and I'm cleaning out the litterbox. The kitchen trash was only half full, so I took the whole canister outside with me, in addtion to the litterbox. I very carefully dumped all the insides of the kitty litter into the only half-full trash bag. Then I took apart the box and went and sprayed it down good with the hose. Decided I'd leave them to dry while I took care of the litter.

Tied up the handles on the trash bag, started pulling it up out of the canister ... and yep, you guessed it ... 11:45pm .... and I'm cleaning up spilled garbage, kitty litter, and other *unmentionables* off of my front porch after the generic brand kitchen trash bag I was using ripped and spilled its contents everywhere.

So now that I've hosed off the front porch, swept up the mess, bleached the broom and dustpan, and put the kitty's box back together with some fresh (but scented) litter .... I'm finally able to come inside and relax - after scouring my hands with Dial, of course.

Next I'm going to go on ebay and find a "kitty toilet training litterbox" that actually trains the cat to go in the potty on its own ... eventually not requiring litterbox anymore ...

I know what I'll be dreaming about tonight ...