I’m sitting here on Sunday night trying to decide if I feel like writing a blog post. And I guess I will because my entire Twitter feed is about nothing but Game of Thrones and I’ll just go ahead and admit something right now.
Come closer.
I don’t even know what Game of Thrones is about.
I know people go crazy for it but I’ve always gotten it confused with The Walking Dead. I don’t even know why. Maybe because they premiered during the same season? I have no idea. And you really shouldn’t pay attention to anything I say about either of these shows considering I had to google The Walking Dead to remember the correct name because I kept wanting to call it Dead Man Walking, which is that movie with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn where he was a death row inmate. And there were no zombies at all in it.
I’m also very tired because I was startled awake this morning at 6:00 a.m. to face one of my worst experiences in recent memory.
Caroline and I stayed up way too late on Saturday night and I ended up going to sleep in her room so I wouldn’t wake Perry up. This happens a lot during the summer because P keeps hours like a farmer and Caroline and I keep hours like a couple of college students. Anyway, I was sound asleep when P woke me up at 6:00 a.m. with these foreboding words, “Mel, I need you to get up and help me clean up. The dog got sick and I need your help.”
I stumbled out of bed and began to follow him back to our bedroom when he turned to me and said, “You need to prepare yourself for what you’re about to see. You also need to change out of those flowy pants.” And nothing says catastrophe like the need to change out of your flowy pants. By this time I could smell the awfulness emanating throughout the house so I knew this was serious. Let me also say that a week ago, our air-conditioning started leaking through the bathroom ceiling at 3:30 a.m. and I thought that was probably the worst house catastrophe we would deal with this summer. How I wish I could go back to being the sweet, naive girl who believed that to be true.
Because I’m here to tell you that what I encountered as I walked through our bedroom door was like standing on the threshold of hell. One time when Caroline was about six months old, I was concerned about her lack of bowel movements and made the rookie mistake of feeding her a jar of baby food prunes and then putting her in her Johnny Jump Up about an hour later. That’s when I learned that poop can fly. This was worse than that.
P pointed me toward the box of latex gloves he’d already gotten from the back house, when he bravely believed the clean up was a one person job, and then handed me my own roll of paper towels and disinfectant. Here’s what you never want to think about at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday or, well, ever. How does a dog manage to get poop that high up on the wall? You know when people refer to something as a S*&% show? This was a literal s*&% show. I honestly wondered if we could just drag the garden hose through the window and spray everything down. Or if we should just set the house on fire.
It was on the dust ruffle, it was on the gift wrap storage container that I keep under the bed, it was a trail that led to our shower and throughout our bathroom. Mercifully, she spared our closet. We cleaned and wiped and sprayed and dry-heaved for the next forty-five minutes. Caroline woke up from the smell and began to open up every window in the entire house, light every candle we own, and turn all the fans and vents on high. Meanwhile, Piper stared at us through the back door like “What’s the deal? Where’s my breakfast?” as if she had totally forgotten this was all her fault even though she had basically been like this only an hour earlier.
As we were cleaning up the last of the mess and making sure every last inch of our bedroom and bathroom were scrubbed clean, I finally asked P what exactly happened and when he realized Piper was sick. He said he woke up to something bumping and shaking the bed and that’s when the smell hit him. He found Piper in the bathroom getting sick and got her outside, and then discovered Mabel hiding under the bed. She wanted no part of whatever was going on with her sister and ran for cover. And you know she wrote some haikus about it while she was hiding out.
Sister got so sick
Intestinal explosion
Do not eat dead things
Hiding from the stench
Told her she shouldn’t eat that
Plus, she didn’t share
I am traumatized
So much poo all on the walls
Guess I’m the best dog
Needless to say, Piper – or really any of us for that matter – didn’t feel much like eating the rest of the day, but she does seem to be doing better. However, I can assure you she’ll be sleeping in her kennel tonight to limit the fallout should another stomach issue arise. That’s the lesson we learned and, also, that there is no such thing as too much bleach.