Barely Normal Activity: Attack of the Pooptergeist

I'm half awake or, half asleep, however you look at it. Either way, in my haze, I must tap into a vivid memory from last night. I was thinking about yesterday's BLOG entry. All the difficulties in getting my cats to eat something good for them and all that they suffered and all that I spent...well...I neglected to add one little thing about diet changes and the possible lasting or, please-God-I-hope-NOT-lasting side effects. The dreaded litter-bomb. The smell that shook the earth. Yes, I'm talking about cat poop. Feces. Crap. Turds. There. I said it. I'm duty bound to be honest on my humble web site, and even though my cats have shiny coats and bright, sparkling eyes, they drop the foulest bowels I've ever had the unfortunate experience to encounter. It's as though they're either releasing the past year's worth of built up toxins from their little bodies, or the combination of foods I'm giving them is some sort of toxic brew, the secret recipe, the one that could be used for chemical warfare. I kid you not! I fear these feline fumes are adding to greenhouse gases. I know they're helping increase the hole in the ozone layer. Though, one could argue it might make the hole recoil and close back up, just like my nostrils tried to do last night. There we were, sitting on our almost completely blown out sofa, innocently watching a miserable movie; Jindabyne; about a woman who's murdered and the men who find her body in a remote area during a fishing trip. Instead of running to the authorities to report the body, the men continue on with their trip, as planned, then report the body much later, when they've had a few days of good fishing! Needless to say, their families, the family of the deceased and the members of the town, are not too thrilled about this. Meanwhile, there's a serial killer roaming around and his next victim might just be the wife of one of the fishermen! There's also a seriously twisted kid in this movie who kills small animals, yecch!...and it takes place somewhere miserable and hot in Australia. All the characters look soggy and unhappy. As the plot dragged along, I heard the familiar sound of a cat digging in the litter pan. I tensed. Waited a few seconds. Prepared myself for the foul-odor-shockwave and nothing happened. "Whew," I thought to myself. "Close call." Whichever cat it was must have only peed. No problem. Back to the movie. The movie was long and slow and plodding and even though Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney are in it, it wasn't enough. I won't spoil the ending, though really, why bother watching it? Nothing blows up and there's no thrilling climactic ending. Also, there's a scene at a funeral that reminded me of a failed audition for American Idol. Time for bed. Good. I'm tired. Nice coincidence. Now I'm in bed. I haven't seen enough crap, pardon the pun, on TV, so I decide to watch a show I Tivo'd, called Paranormal State. I'm really digging deep into the pit of desperation to watch this. It's a show about a 12 year old, okay, maybe he's in his 20's, tops. He's a Paranormal investigator. He and his crew of babies, errr, 20-somethings, go off on a chase to help people who feel they're victims of ghosts or evil spirits. They say they hear voices, see figures. Of course during the taping of the show, no one ever sees or records anything, but they all look around at each other and claim they feel an unexpected cold draft. Live in my house if you want to feel a cold draft! I'm a cheapskate and keep the thermostat at 60 in the winter. I feel not-really-unexpected cold drafts all the time! Oh and this is a "reality" show, too. Ugh. Why can't My Fair Brady: Maybe Baby start airing? Now that's what I call quality television programming! Can't wait to see it! Speaking of crap. Suddenly, the ghost of a demonic-doo-doo entered my room. It wafted in a brown, milky haze over my bed. As the smell fully entered my screaming nasal passages, it was clear that this was no ghost, but fully real and easily documented! Nicky the cat had unleashed the "Bowels of Hell" upon us. No..not literally ON us, but heck, we're on the SECOND floor of the house and the litter pan is on the floor below, yet the stench from this barely normal experience was so strong it must have filled every corner of the entire house. It was like getting slapped with stink—something yeasty, tangy, smoky, rotten and sticky. Somehow the scent stuck to the inside of my nose. I sniffed at my freshly laundered pajamas to soften the blow, but it was no use. Once the demon took possession, it was going to be tough to get rid of it. The only thing to do was to exorcise the demon-doo and I was tired and didn't feel like getting out of bed to perform the scooping ritual. I looked at Sam. Sam looked at me. My eyes widened in horror as the stench grew stronger. Sam's eyelids began to flutter, his nose ran. I asked him coyly if he smelled anything, to which he could only reply by getting up and stomping down the stairs. I heard the door to the pantry open and then a litter bag rustling. Then, I heard Sam was begin the ritualistic scooping of the litter pan. As he scooped, he called out for help; "Oh geezus! Geezus! What the ___ are you feeding these cats??!" I heard more stomping and scooping and swearing. Finally Sam was back to bed looking a bit worse for wear. We sat side by side, in silence, watching the babies of Paranormal State sit in a candle lit circle, supposedly talking to the spirit of a dead home owner. The stench in our house had mellowed, but hadn't yet gone to the light. "I still smell it." "Sam, where is the bag of dirty litter?" "I left it by the front door." "You didn't take it outside and put it in the garbage can?" "No." "And you wonder why it still smells in here?" Stomp, stomp, stomp. "Geezus!"