Horrors

Many years ago, my mother had some beautiful wool carpeting laid on the stairs and the large landing up stairs in her home. It was a gorgeous, as well as sturdy carpeting.

It's still there today. A little more worn, with some cat-inflicted damage on the stairs but still quite serviceable.

This evening it was defiled in a horrific manner.

I haven't been feeling well since yesterday. Due to this I've been staying close to bed and in fact spent most of it laying down and resting today. This evening I got a phone call from my sister to discuss both a wedding shower and a baby shower that we've been invited to this month. As we were talking, I rose from my bed and went out to the landing. As I stood there, my nose was assaulted. Did I say my nose? It was more than that.

At first whiff I merely thought someone had passed some gas. Awful, terrible, wretched gas, but simply gas nonetheless. On my second inhalation the hair in my nose was vaporized and tears welled up in my eyes.

On my third inhalation I nearly passed out.

With my consciousness fading, I yelled "WHO FARTED???"

There were denials all around. My husband was on the bed, my two girls were finishing up day-long game of Rock Band, my other girl was downstairs and my son wasn't home.

As the burning in my lungs increased, so did my frantic questioning. "WHO DID THIS??" In the absence of a gas mask I grabbed a washcloth and held it over my mouth and nose.

"ARGGGGGH!!"

This was wrong. All wrong. The stench of a fluff, of a barking spider, will dissipate as time goes on. This horror wasn't going away---it was worsening.

My father had gone to bed earlier---was this something he'd let loose and was seeping under the door like a green cloud of death? He had bragged about consuming an entire can of baked beans followed by a spicy hot link this evening, but no, this wasn't him.

Lance got up and gave the cat a dirty look. Had our kitty used his litter box in the hallway? No.

We thought we'd better look because the stench was worsening and my airways were closing off. Wash cloth firmly over my nose and mouth, I went in search of a toxic waste dump in my own home.

I found it.

Last night I inadvertently left some food on the counter. It was some old turkey roast, still wrapped up in a ropey mesh. This morning my father found a plate, licked spotless, in the middle of the kitchen. The culprit? Our rather large and not-too-bright black lab. Since we moved here, my father has put our pooch on a diet and Cassie believes she's being starved to death. In order to combat her starvation, she roams the house in search of food--any food. She's been known to tear into the dog food bag or the cat food container and consume entire loaves of bread until we learned to put everything where she couldn't reach it.

Last night she had a feast and our stairway carpeting suffered the consequences.

Apparently the turkey wrapped in netting didn't agree with her delicate constitution. We think she tried to come upstairs to announce her desire to take a poopy break outside and the effort of climbing the stairs was too much for her system and she.....let loose. Loose being the optimal word here. VERY loose. Liquid loose. Horrifyingly, disgustingly, tsunami-like loose.

Lance went in search of gloves as I drenched the house with Febreeze in order to return to normal breathing rhythms.

Needless to say, that carpeting will never be the same. I just asked my husband if he wanted to read this before I posted it and he blew some air out his nose and said "OOh, man. I still have some poop particulates in my nose!"