Pet Cemetery

Indeed, one of the greatest adventures of living in the country is the wildlife escapades. Not every child missed the bus because their mother was chasing a woodchuck, or nearly hitting a deer in the driveway while attempting to read a library book or tie a child's shoes. 

It’s a long driveway, and thankfully gives warning sounds of approaching vehicles when dropping their transmission in its many potholes. Hearing the first visitor of the day pull up the drive; I walked to the door where I was greeted by a bunny head, yes...left on the porch by my favorite four-legged friend. The cutest little bunny, but only the head…

As I was removing the poor little furry head with the shovel, before my company stepped on it, or my already troubled children saw it-- I could hear the distinct sounds of my kids up to no good… They were in the house, but with a tortured, three-legged toad panting in a Ziploc bag. 

“Look Mom! My toadie!”  

“Yuck!” I chased them back outside, and told them to let the toad out. My two year-old mauled it in his hand while he road his bike, carried it in a pail, and on a sandbox shovel, and surely in no time, it also was among the pet cemetery…

After burring our friend, I got the urge to dig in the dirt. Like any other sunny day of gardening, I was disturbingly half-dressed, and would hit the deck like running from a grenade, if I heard sounds traveling up the driveway again. 

Less than adorable when digging in flower beds, surely not the typical attire of cute gloves and big flopping sun hat, kneeling so gracefully…rather, I generally wore an outfit most wouldn’t even wear to bed, or give to Good-Will. I was attempting to sizzle some of the glow-in-the-dark off a few fatty layers, with outlawed amounts of exposed skin, and sweat lathered like a plowing oxen, I dug...

I looked as if I had fought a rose bush for a candy bar, and flung dirt like a digging, wormy dog. To make things worse, I was earlier stung by a wasp, and my left eye bulging like I belonged on set with the costumed A-holes of Yo Gabba Gabba!

I was a hot-mess-- so, wouldn’t the sounds of driveway presence have timed so perfectly…spear chucking the spade shovel and with dandelion fuzz trailing my streak for the door, I rushed in as company was arriving.

Hiding in the laundry room, as a woman at the door was between me and the rest of my wardrobe. I was in search for clothing that wasn’t 2T sized, or covered in ketchup and marker, or under wet washcloths-- I came up finding the only thing to fit was a quite extravagant and covered in sequence blouse, and a pair of pajama shorts. My hands covered in dirt, and trying to change my bottoms like sliding layers of saran wrap down off my thighs, and my top was nearly the peeling of old shingles off a rooftop in July. Crashing between the washer and dryer, “just a minute, be right there!” My lungs were burning from over exertion, my skin burning from too tightly fitting clothing, bites, and the pickers…and sounds of laboring on the railway filled my laundry room.  

Flailing like on fire, there I was flushed and panting, in my dressy gown top, pajama bottoms, weeds in my hair, and inches of dirt all over my body and the giant sting display.    

A lady, staring through my door, studied my body with three passes, and almost forgot why she was there... “Aaa...Do you have a cat?”

Well, by looking at me currently—sure, you would think I was rather the crazy cat lady type. And possibly, looked of helping a cat bury its shit pile in the yard, fought off a threatening dog, and then climbed a tree to rescue that cat, while on my way to attending the Prom…

Then I thought; A cat? …are you kidding me?  All of this for a pet survey… I have no cat, the head of a rabbit, a bloody mouthed and vicious 7lb wiener dog, and a smashed toad, in a bag… but no cat!

“I just hit a cat in the road! It was awful…the worst thing I’ve ever seen and... it suffering…” 

Well, if it was the cat that had been getting into my garbage you did it a favor and diverted my next plan for it... but really? …the worst thing you’ve ever seen? ...luckily for her, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of me before my runway outfit wrestle in the laundry room, or seen the suffering endured by the seams of my original outfit… Not to mention the sight of a joy-filled toddler tugging legs from an upside down toad, or witnessed the earlier bunny slaying, surely all could have been worst sights! 

Sorry about your worries, but hitting a black cat didn't make you as unlucky as you thought...had she only traveled that driveway any faster or earlier today, she wouldn't even have looked back after nailing a cat... 

Later in the night my dog introduced us to the remainder of the decapitated bunny, and as if a night couldn’t be anymore eventful-- my husband always picked the most tiring days for insisting on a haircut…certainly on the only day of the week I had actually swept the kitchen floor and already showered the other critter episodes away.

Out came the clippers, and also came a puff of smoke, and rumbles of firing-up a diesel engine… Obviously, I was just mere back round noise when I had told him, “They were for hair, not beard trimmers...you'll ruin them!,” each time he was too lazy to shave for weeks.

He took them apart, attempted cleaning them, and as I refused to obtain the electrical shock and jack hammering throbs, he began a self-haircut. He was screaming, and I laughing, with every dull yank and the vibrating so profusely screws fell out, and the blade dangled. He now had a look of a Backstreet Boy, with shaven sides, a fluffy duck ass in the front, and non-functioning clippers.

He was in such distress, and I was not going to miss out on inflicting such marital torture, so I fired the tractor sounds once again, and mauled through his head. With each whine, I simply mothered him with, “you’re fine,” and efficiently mangled his head with more nicks and wounds than sheering of a sheep. Pausing to pull off kids’ socks, and chase them away all Clydesdale footed, my patience quickly traveled south in the Barbie car ride through the hair pile.

It was like trying to cut a 50 year-old maple tree using a weed eater, occasionally some bark would fly, and then the sounds would stall. With clipper blades now so hot, I attempted cauterizing each and every hair follicle, to ensure I’d never have to cut his hair again. Singes of hair and nearly a fire hazard, “Ah! You’re burning me!!”

“Hold still” and I cranked on his head to leave railroad track looking, clipper marks burnt in his neck.

Perhaps, they were a bit warm, as I threw the damn things out, they melted the trash bag. Next time it may be safer for him to lay under the mower deck, or remove his head like the dear bunny, and trim all the angles himself
...and just maybe my kids will get to bed on time if I’m not rinsing six little hairy feet off, and then unclogging the drain with a sucker stick! 

Late for bed again...

“Lay down, mommy!” and then it starts…

He brushed his teeth, went to the bathroom, turned on his fan, got a drink for washing down all his dad’s stray hair, kissed everyone goodnight and snapped Daisy ‘einer’s leg backward giving her paw a high-five, …so what was it going to be tonight?

The heat! He was sticky and overtired, and so was I. Both of us were seeking comfort in just a Tee and cotton bottoms. Well, I can vouch, there is no comfort in exposed sink when wild bird handling and gator wrestling a small child to bed. I was kicked and scratched, and all is well until there’s a small toe nail slicing at a hemorrhoid.

Determined to fight his exhaustion, he was flailing as gracefully as an old lady attempting to tackle a pair of nylons, with a bad hip and wet legs. Surely, I could have sustained less injuries and jerking outbreaks by competing in a three-legged race along side a partner with turret syndrome, and shoes on the wrong feet. He sprung from one end of the bed to the other, pressing his feet up against the near window, and tilling at his covers like a three-bottom plow. His window blinds now look like the little tattered waxy sheet found in the bag with the last slice of deli meat.

Then a tuck and a roll, and then finally a crash…after one hour and 35 minutes of being the rodeo clown, mauled by a restless Brahma, he was finally sound a sleep. Naturally, sideways across the bed and over top of my thigh, but quietly sleeping.

Now what? I can tell you any mother would rather amputate a leg with gnawing of their own teeth, than wake a finally sleeping toddler. But, the magnitude of this pair of heat rash hams was even more than my appetite could sustain, and there would be sight of day’s light long before any possible breaking through the circumference of a thigh like my own. So, inspired by craving an evening bowl of cereal, I wiggled free, dodged the squeaks in the floor, and the child slept!

I sat down long enough to drip milk from my overflowing cereal on the couch and whistle for the dog. Then, there it was…a loud noise!

Now what? My husband and I looked at each other…but, it wasn’t coming from the kids upstairs, rather the kitchen way and toward the outside door.

Don’t even tell me the stray cat has lived to mangle my garbage, once again. He

My husband gets up and as heroic as he is tiptoes, passing the bathroom door, he knocks! Was he waiting for a robber or wild animal to say, “Just a minute” …yank your tail out from between your legs and go see what it is. I however, stay back and continue with my cereal.

Then, I hear the noise again and his yelling…

“Are you bleeding,” I asked.

I go and see four fully-stocked shelves in the panty end of the laundry room have collapsed. He says, “I could have caught it…but, I feared there was a raccoon under it all…” Really, some strange things go on inside theses walls but, never anything larger than a mouse or toad to yet been found.

Now, 10:00pm and it looks like a B.J.’s wholesale truck has been jack-knifed in my dryer, and he dares to tell me it could have been avoided.

And there it was; all the aftermath of ridiculous buy two, get three free sales, shit bought just for gas points, and the coupon stock-aide smashed and heaped everywhere! A slight illness in fact, as apparently it became more sensible to collect out dated food, than to ever consider throwing out an expired coupon.

Attempting to unbury and reassemble, still in unfitting bottoms, inflamed lacerations to the hemorrhoid, and with every bending reach, wouldn’t it be my husband to mistaken such agility as an invitation for sex…  

“Poor Perry the Platypus,” I say, referring to the picture on the can of soup mangled, as bending for another, he’s thinking how to “bury the platypus,” and I’m trying to figure out how to get “Perry the platypus” and chicken noodle back on the shelf!

Wasn’t he a lot of help…stacking crap on the washer, like it wouldn’t have to be used, and sitting on a laundry basket eating the things that he hadn’t noticed on the shelves before.

Thankfully, I finished cleaning up my explosion and without finding a raccoon or a sticky-faced toddler at the bottom… I was going to bed, and not to bury the platypus, unless it was out with the toad, cat, and bunny!