Apparently, cosmic karmic shit storms have a longer shelf life than I had anticipated.
48 hours so far.
In spite of my best efforts to sit still eating nothing but Arrowroot cookies and lime-flavoured Crystal Lite, the shit storm just kept on blowing around me.
Diabolically.
Once I finally made it home, I wanted nothing more than to put on my flannel jammies and sit in the kitchen, working on my computer until I was to tired to even comptemplate a key stroke.
At first, things were fine. But a niggling ping in the my brain was sending messages to my nostrils that something was smelling like dried dog pee.
Of course, the fact that I was smelling dried dog pee wasn't a complete surprise. Between the excessive urinating and uncontrollable pooping the dogs have been producing, it would have been more surprised if I hadn't smelled anything.
I presumed it was because I had inadvertently missed a pee-drenched step going to the upstairs, so I hauled out my trusty bucket and scrub brush and scrubbed those steps and all surrounding them, just to be sure, within an inch of thier 1970s lime green carpeted life.
Satisfied that everything had been taken care of, I returned to my computer and resumed working.
Only to have the niggling ping tell me that the smell of dried dog pee was still present, but clearly not accounted for.
I called in the big guns.
Stephen.
Stephen can identify an unclean smell, no matter how faint, from at least 10 kilometers away.
In the past, I have tried to clean up messes so he wouldn't see them, returning everything to its pre-mess state, and he will still come into the house, walk over to the spot, kneel down and ask what happened here?
Tres annoying.
He sits beside me.
Indicates he, too, smells the dried dog pee.
On the one hand, this was reassuring because at least I wasn't imagining it.
On the other, there was obviously a dried dog pee smell I wasn't capable of finding on my own.
We looked.
Hunted around the house.
Got down on our hands and knees and actually sniffed every. single. stair. leading to the upstairs.
And at some point, Stephen stops.
He looks at me.
Eyes wide.
Mouth agape.
And then he utters those faithful words:
"It's you."
"Whaddaya mean, it's me?????"
"You. You smell like dried dog pee."
Just to be crystal clear, and leaving no room for ANY possible thought that I had wandered around all day at work smelling like dried dog pee, he was referring to my I-can't-wait-to-get-home-and-put-on-my-flannel-jammies me, and not the I-was-at-work-reeking-of-dried-dog-pee-me.
Although that would have been an appropos scent given the day I had.
At some point I must have come in contact with the wet dog pee, probably while trying to ascertain what I should do to address the mess, at 3.13 am, still three-quarters asleep.
And didn't realize it, as the dog pee on me was simply part of the overall melange of dog pee permeating our house.
A fitting end to a shit storm day.
Yesterday afternoon I left work at 3.30.
Early, non?
Oui, but, I just wanted to go home, and be left alone.
So that is what I did.
Stephen picked me up, we then traversed to Blockbuster to procure Mer, who has finished her labourious shift conjuring souvlakis and donairs, and for some reason just didn't want to walk home in the pouring rain.
And then, last but never least, we collected Em from FHS.
She had manage to live through another week of the trials and tribulations of teenage adolescents whose existance is fraught with saturated hormones driven, not by edicts as mundance as "right" and "wrong" but a simplified Cookie Monster mantra of "Me want!" "Me have!"
Home.
Finally.
Exhausted.
Must have sleep.
Even if its just for a short time because I had to take Em to work for 6.00.
While wrapped in the warmth and comfort of my duvet, nestled deep under the covers and dreaming of absolutely nothing, at least that I'm aware of, I am thrust into wakefulness by a stench so fetid, so putrid, so abominable, so rank that I had to fight to prevent myself from vomiting.
The air was so thick with this malodour, you could almost chew it.
Almost at the exact same time, I hear Stephen walking down the hallway, to the base of the steps, inquiring about the source of the suffocating stench overtaking every single air molecule of our house.
While Emily and Keith also emerge from their respective dens of teen solitude to query about the cause of this rancid stench.
Immediately, we start searching the usual places: bedrooms, offices, bathrooms, inside the bathub, under the beds, through the interiors of the closets, no centimeter of the upstairs of our humble abode was safe from our quest in search of the putrid stench.
Nothing.
Nada.
Just as we were about to collectively conclude that Frankie must have let out one hell of a fart, Stephen spewed explitives I didn't even know he knew.
And on Emily's purple Converse hightops was a large, steaming mound of peanut coloured dog shit.
Even more upsetting: before my sojourn to the land of slumber, I had taken both dogs out.
They are still medicated.
They are still peeing as if they want to create their own water table.
And we are still trying, desperately trying, to keep ahead of it.
The bathroom behaviours of our beloved canines has literally taken over our lives.
But I digress.
Stephen picks up the tray upon which this putrescent pile of poo is resting and immediately takes it outside.
Em comments she will never wear those shoes again.
Keith opens all the windows in an effort to repopulate the house with non-feculent air molecules.
The cats are frantically trying to capture all their fur that has fallen out as a result of contact with the rancid air molecules.
Tikka is looking at Frank with a level of disgust hitherto unknown to exist among canines.
I just stare at Frank in wonder and astonishment.
Frankie, laying on the floor oblivious to the hubbub around him, lazily lifts his head, looks at me for a millisecond, then lays his head onto the floor and goes to sleep.
Stephen gets the hose.
Sprays Em's shoes and the boot tray within an centimeter of their existence.
Leaves said shoes outside hoping that he has prevented the cloth from disintegrating as a result of the acidic, noxious pile of poo.
And brings the yet-again-rinsed-boot-tray back into the house, expressing his deep seeded hope that this would be the finale of Frankie's poop parade.
Later that evening, alone in our house, drinking glasses of a well deserved rosé, we are again assaulted with an eerily similar, and equally potent, stench.
Wasting no time even looking around, we immediately head to the previous scene of the crime and are greeted with yet another pile of stinking poo.
On Stephen's Crocs.
This is the second time Stephen's Crocs have been the inadvertent site of the Frankie poop parade.
Same procedure, except this time Stephen is loudly proclaiming his frustration with the situation and voicing his doubt that "all of this shit" is the result of one tiny pink pill.
I am forced to agree with him.
Frankie's poo parade does seem slightly excessive for one pill about the size of a lentil.
Even if it is pink.
Our investigations begin again, our earnest attempt to uncover the source of the poo parade.
We scour the upstairs, the main floor, and then, as we are walking downstairs to the basement, we have a eureka! moment.
Dog food.
Two half-full bags of dog food that we are no longer using on the advice of Annette-the-best-dog-trainer-in-the-world (http://www.barkbusters.ca/).
Two half-full bags of dog food ON THE FLOOR as Stephen wanted to be reminded to take them to the SPCA.
And our little canine poochie was helping himself whenever he wanted to what, in his mind, must have been a buffet of epic proportions.
Mystery solved.
Bags put up on a shelf so they no longer reside on the floor, beckoning Frankie with their come-hither-and-eat-me essence.
And, we hope, the end of the Frankie-stinky-poo-parade-from-hell.
Because Stephen will swaddle Frankie's poop-shute in diapers, if he has to, with not one iota of guilt in taking such drastic actions.
In keeping with the dog theme, we spent this afternoon at the first ever FSPCA Pet Expo. All sorts of vendors who provide dog services, from dog training, grooming, babysitting, keepsakes upon the passing of your pet, funeral services, cat clubs, ferret breeders, greyhound adoption info, portait studios, agility training groups, it was phenomenal.
The second I walked into the Exhibition Center, I knew I had reached what heaven must look like for animal lovers.
Barkbusters had a booth, and because Annette and Greg has to be present at this event and meet with their clients, they asked if we would be interested in volunteering a couple of hours this weekend to help cover the booth.
Spend two uninterrupted hours talking about how much Annette and Greg have helped us with Frankie, how far he has come, and what we have left to do.
All while spending time with their 5 year old purebred Newfoundland dog, Izzy?
Twist my gumby rubber arm.
Really.
It was a wonderful afternoon.
And it ended much too soon.
We could have stayed longer, however, we were out of milk, lunchmeat, grapes, etc., so we had to go to the Superstore.
And we had 30 minutes before we were due at the Nursing Home.
Because we were in Montreal last weekend, and I didn't get to see my mother, I called and told her I would be there for the weekly Saturday meal of beans and homemade bread.
Superstore on Saturday when Charmin 24 roll package of toilet paper is 4.44 instead of 8.99, and it happens to be 4.30 = no carts.
People were milling around the cart cavern, asking each other how come there were no carts.
No time and no patience = Dawne going outside to get a cart, leaving Stephen in the foyer of the Superstore holding on to rolls and rolls of toilet paper.
Because nothing brings shoppers out faster than a sale on asswipe.
Title Lyrics: Dog Food by Iggy Pop
No comments:
Post a Comment