The sales tactics of an elderly gentleman from behind the counter at a Pet Store.

I love to be sold.  I don’t know what it is, but there’s nothing like encountering a salesperson that is truly good at his craft. 

Being in sales for over 12 years now, it’s not often that I encounter someone that really knocks my socks off.  This past Wednesday evening I encountered a situation where I was “sold” and walked away feeling good about my decision. 

On my way home from work I stopped by the pet store to pick up food for our cats.  Easy enough, right?  Wrong.

We have two cats, and a third on loan from my younger brother while he is away with the Army.  The third cat (Casper) is old and will likely spend her final days on earth with us vs. my little bro.  With that said, these three cats are ridiculous with their diet.  Wet food for all three and some dry food for Casper.  So, as I will filling my cart with cans of cat food, an elderly gentelman walked up to me and made a comment about the amount of cat food I was buying. 

“Geez, how many cats do you have?” 

“Two cats and a third that we are permanently house sitting.”

“My name is Fred, and I am with _______” (I can’t remember the distributor that he mentioned but pointed to the name on his apron)

“Have you ever tried Greenies?” He asked.

“No, what is it?” I replied.

“It’s like crack cocaine for cats.” said the elderly gentleman. 

“Sold!” 

He went on to explain all of these health benefits about treats that will clean cats teeth and how his cats love it and blah blah…blah blah…blah blah.  After the crack coaciane comment I turned into Charlie Brown in the classroom hearing trombone noises as he spoke because I was fixated on the clarification my brain needed that this was truly someone’s grandpa (possibly great grandpa) that just said the word crack cocaine during a sales pitch. 

Seriously though, I learned Wednesday night that you haven’t lived until you have heard a guy bordering the north side of his 80’s reference crack cocaine in his sales spiel.  It was totally worth the 3.00.  Now that I think about it, it provided such fun in my brain that I have contemplated what other fun words would be worth three bucks to hear old people say. 

Here is a link to the site of the product I was sold on.  If the company needs any marketing help, they should bring this guy in, video tape him saying “It’s like crack cocaine for cats” and have that as the welcome flash file to anyone when they go to their site. 

In regards to the product, I have yet to open it.  The last time I bought treats for the cats they tricked me into leaving the container out, and proceeded to eat every single one of them.  Which since these treats aren’t designed for an all you can eat buffet setting, it was followed up of course by my having to clean the carpet at several locations when the cats realized it was a bad idea.  They haven’t had treats since. 

Nice little weekend ahead.  No balloon parties this weekend, which is nice, but I will be heading downstate to celebrate Mother’s Day and my Mom’s Birthday a weekend early since I can’t go down next weekend. 

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Filed under: Cats, Crack Cocaine, stupid, vomit, weird

Bamboozled

This morning I was bamboozled by my wife.  Let me explain…

I have 2 cats.  Both of which are on the upper echelon of yakkers. Both short haired cats, but they like to puke.  A lot.  I am house sitting my younger brothers 12 year old cat as well while he is away for the Military.  His cat is a long hair and coughs up a fur ball no less than twice a week.  I can’t say I blame her. 

To combat all of this puking, we have bottles of carpet cleaner laying around everywhere.  We even invested in a carpet shampoo machine, which in hindsite, we really didn’t because the thing is a piece of shit.  (on a side note, don’t skimp on price when it comes to carpet cleaning machines because it is a waste of money.)  So, on a frequent basis either myself or my wife will walk into the house to one or more nice new stains on the carpet.  To combat those stains we prespray with large bottles that we have filled with carpet cleaning solution and water.  Those large bottles filled with the solution have big red letters written on them that say ”Carpet Solution”.  I also use the same sized bottle to keep normal water in for when I iron or need to spray some water on my hair to remove the Dennis the Menace spike of hair I sometimes wake up with.  I shower in the evening which leaves me with wet hair when I hit the pillow.  That leads to some pretty funny looks when I wake up in the morning.  The looks aren’t as funny since my hair has slowly been leaving me. Anyway…

This morning when I went to reach for the bottle to spray down my hair, I smelled something funny.  After 5 or 6 big squirts into my hair it dawned on me that where I keep my normal bottle of water, my wife had placed a bottle of the carpet cleaner.  She didn’t do it on purpose.  I assume that she used the regular bottle of water at some point last night and mistakenly put a bottle of the carpet cleaner in it’s place without realizing.  It would help if I would actually open my eyes in the morning before grabbing a bottle to spray at my hair.    So, I wrinsed out my hair at the sink, but I was running late for a meeting so I didn’t have time to jump in the shower, so here I sit with carpet cleaner scented hair.   I must say that it isn’t that bad.  I don’t think I recommend it and who knows, by tomorrow I could have 5 lines in my head where hair may fall out. 

It’s been 3 days since my partial root canal, and the pain is still there.  24 hours my ass.  I can’t wait to go back and do it all over again!

Filed under: Cats, achy, body, puke, stink, weird, wife

You are the last dragon…

 

 Can I just say that the movie “The Last Dragon” is one of the greatest movies of all time.  I haven’t seen it in like 10 years, but I keep thinking back at that movie and I recognize something amazing in someone.  For those of you who have seen it, you will remeber “The Glow”. 

 

 (spoiler alrert!  the picture gives away the ending)  For those who have not, the entire movieline is based on a young martial artist who is trying to achieve “The Glow” or become a Master martial arts person.   Once he has mastered all there is, he could take on a “Bruce Lee like Glow”.  Or something like that.  So anyway, lately when I see someone who has truly mastered whatever it is that they are doing, I recognize that “Glow”.  It’s kind of weird.  I wonder when I glow.  Is it when I twist balloons?  When I am playing pool extraordinarily well?  When I exhibit love for my wife? 

When do you “Glow”?  That is a question that I think we should all ask ourselves.  Believe it or not, I think we all have something that we glow about without realizing it.  Sorry for the cheesyness but I can’t seem to get those thoughts out of my mind lately.

I have a sore tooth.  I have to chew out of the right side of my mouth.  I just know the tooth is going to completely crack while I am in Key West. 

Speaking about things I have not gotten done before the trip, I have a mole on my back that I planned on having removed.  It is too late now because it will not have time to heal before this Tuesday.  I tell Jeanne that it has become a part of me, and that it is not that bad.  Her response was one that I will never forget.  She told me a story about one time that I fell asleep on my stomach and my cat Mr. Wesgrs (don’t ask) started batting at it on my back and trying to play with it because he thought it was a bug.  I couldn’t help but break out in some serious laughter because it would not surprise me if this was true.  Actually, I know it’s true because you don’t just make shit like that up. 

One more random story and I will sign off for the weekend.  This morning on the radio, Eric and Kathy were doing a segment called “and then the police showed up”.  Callers were calling in to share stories about funny situation they were caught up in where the police came.  The best story won tickets to go see the Police this upcoming Thursday at Wrigley Field.  I know I lost a firm grip on my man card by admitting that I listen to Eric and Kathy in the mornings, but I think it is better than listening to the Teeny Bopper DJ’s in the morning that play rap music and cater to the preteens.  I think I have a good mix of listening.  Eric and Kathy in the morning for the humor factor to start my day.  Mac, Jurko & Harry on the way home for my Sports news info.  I trump the gayness of my mornings with the hardcore sports talk in the evening.  Or something like that. 

Anyway, this mornings segment reminded me of a hillarious story that I wanted to call in and share, but by the time it hit me, the bit was almost over.  When I was slinging Yellow Page advertising around I would spend my entire day in the car.  I would average around 100 miles a day in windshied time and because my territory wasn’t near my home (45-60 minute drive).  Sometimes there would be a two hour break inbetween appointments, so I became a car nap connoisseur.  There was nothing quite like blasting the AC on a hot summer day, tilting back the seat and dozing off.  I would typically listen to Kevin Matthews because I was as addicted to him on the radio as I have ever been to anyone until he left me for some radio station in Michigan.  On a side note, I can not count the number of times I would be woken up by someone knocking on my window asking me if I was “OK”.  I hated when this would happen, because it would usually interrupt a great nap.  I had several people say that they thought I died while the car was running.  Funny stuff.   So, on this particular day I had a gap between appointments and looked for the nearest large parking lot.  I found one that was down a grass hill from a building and pulled in.  I found a corner spot (better positioning so that cars can only park on one side of you to lessen the number of people that could potentially think you have died) and on this one day, I didn’t recline the seat back far at all.  I had my sunglasses on and proceeded to doze off.  I heard a knock on my window and looked up and it was a police officer looking in my car.  I immediately looked around and saw that my car had been blocked in my two squad cars to prevent any sort of escape.  I had 4 officers walking around my car staring in my windows and it was probably the worst awakening I have to date experienced in my life.  I rolled the window down and one of the officers asked me what I was doing there.  I proceeded to explain the “nap” thing and that my next appointment was at a location less than a block away.  They asked for my drivers license, insurance, and a “business card” to confirm my story.  It was at that moment that I looked up to see what building I was parked near, and it was a bank in Wheaton.  It all became clear to me what was going on at that moment.  I thought that the bank may have just been held up, but why would a robber go back to their car and take a nap?  The Narcoleptic bandit?  I don’t think so.  The police called my office to confirm I was an employee and they called the business that I had an appointment with to confirm that aspect of the story as well.  It all checked out.  After I was cleared, they explained to me that the bank that I was parked near had been knocked over 2 times in the last month by “The Wheaton Bandit”.  I apparently fit the description of what he might have looked like, so they thought I was scoping out my next heist.  Funny Shit.  I was told by the officers to never park in a Wheaton Bank parking lot again while I kill time becuase apparently the people in the bank were getting prepared for me to come in and rob them.  I wonder what they were doing.  I often wonder what types of steps they took after about 15 minutes when they saw that I was sitting there watching the bank, which I wasn’t, but I had sunglasses on, so they didn’t know I was dozing off.  That was definitely the most unusual situation I have ever been in involving the police, and I can easily say that not only did I not pull off in a bank parking lot to take a nap ever again, but I stayed the hell away from Wheaton, Illinois.  It is defintely a “no Illinois nap town”. 

Have a great pre Fourth of July weekend.  I am amidst a week of drunkeness.  Tue, Thur, Fri, and Sat are all days this week that have and will include drinking, so it is a good week.  I will catch up with you on Monday unless something nutty happens this weekend that prompts me to jump on. 

Filed under: Cats, Cops, Schief, The Glow, beer, billiard, confused, fun, grouchy, romance, train wreck, weird, wife, wikipedia

Let’s hit the road!

 In continuance of the holiday saga weekend today I will cover my last Saturday and the comedy of errors that was the trip down to see the family. 

III.  Saturday 

    A.  Travel day…I thought. 

After the debacle that was the Friday night wedding, and the fact that we were home relatively early from a function that included open bar (suprising even for me!) I thought that we would be able to hit the road early Saturday for our 4 hour trek to central Illinois.  Now that I think about the open bar bit, I am shocked that I left an event with an open bar.  If you were to ask me at any given time what I would do to have access to an unlimited supply of alcohol, I would say that I would clean a sewer for an hour for access to that.  I would chill out in a black leather see through mesh shirt men wearing spike collars and leashes gay bar and not care as long as the drinks would continuously be poured.  It saddens me to think back at the opportunity I passed on simply because of some porn star kissing.  What kind of panzie am I? 

 a.  Lets clean house/cat puke/cat pee/cat poop/litterboxes/vacuum/shampoo carpet/mop/dishes/laundry/pack before we leave. 

Anyway, Jeanne and I ended up sort of sleeping in Saturday morning.  I knew that I have to take on the task of cleaning up cat yak and cleaning out the litter boxes before we hit the road as well as pack, so I anticipated a 10-11am departure.  That was not the case.  For some reason my wife turned into Super house cleaning lady and went berzerk on the house.  Not that that is all bad, but when she turns into the cleaning monster, I can not just sit on the couch and watch tv.  I am forced into the closet where I put on my frilly apron and become her super hero cleaning side kick.  7 hours later, the house had been bent over by our supercleaningpowers and almost looked cleaner than it ever had.  This made Jeanne happy.  She could now feel easy about our trip knowing that she would come home to a very neat and germ villan free home on Monday evening.  We ended up leaving at 3:00pm.  (5 hours later than originally anticipated) 

The drive down pretty much sucked.  Not many other ways to say it.  As we left Chicago, the news reports were saying that a Tornado warning was in effect for Grundy and Will counties for the next 20 minutes.  Jeanne asked me if we were driving in that direction and I said no.  She asked me if I was sure, and I thought I was pretty sure.  Little did I know but 30 minutes later I saw a Grundy County sign.  We were driving right into the storm that had already produced a tornado.  By this time though, they had canceled the Tornado Warning and had scaled it down to a severe Thunderstorm warning.  We made it through without anything other than rain.  Half way down my mother had called to inform us that she was heading over to my grandfathers camper on the lake in Canton to meet with my aunt, uncle, and cousins that were in town from Texas for a funeral.  This added an extra 45 minutes to the drive which was just grand.  It was rainy out which made the drive that much better.  By the time we approached Pontiac, Jeanne mentioned that she needed to use the restroom.  I personally don’t know what is up with women and having to pee so much but this is something that I hear is not just a Scott family issue on roadtrips.  So, as we approached Bloomington/Normal there were the freakiest looking clouds raining down bolts of lightning over the town.  I asked her if she could wait as I did not want to exit and drive into the storm and that was a big negative to that answer.  So, we drove straight into the storm and it was probably the worst storm I had ever driven into.  Lightning, Thunder, Rain, Flooding, and then Hail.  (I use caps to try and stress the craziness that ensued.)  We tried to tune into the weather to hear about how we were going to be tossed by a tornado and have our lives viciously ended by mother nature.  Jeanne asked for me to pull over, but I wanted to get somewhere that we could go in just in case, so I continued to drive.  We pulled up along a beer truck…beeeeeer….and the truck in the right lane hit a flooded stretch of road and launched the biggest wave over our car and we were now driving 40 mph in pure blindness.  I slammed on the brakes and Jeanne screamed in a horrific manner.  I decided to pull over under a gas station so Jeanne could go inside and use the facilities as well as wait out the storm.  After 10 minutes it had pretty much cleared.  We continued on our path and then….

       b.  almost die in tornado wielding storms on drive down to central Illinois. 

…once we got back on the highway we noticed even crazier clouds. These were low and swirly.  I know storms and I am not usually afraid, but this was easily one that was ready to spawn a funnel.  We hit hail again, saw a police officer and a car pulled under and overpass, and when the wind hit us at around 60 mph we pulled over quickly under the overpass.  Scary shit.  Within another 5 minutes the scary stuff had passed and we were on our way. 

    B.  See family drink 

We finally made it to Canton and saw the family.  If my family were to be created into little plastic figures, they would come equipped with little plastic pieces in the form of beer cans that would snap into the hand that is perfectly formed to hold a beer.  I can’t really recall a family gathering that didn’t focus on the consumption of alcohol beverages.  So, we hung for a few hours and then decided to head back to Pekin to check in the hotel and prepare for what was sure to be a difficult Sunday.  I will finished up the weekend saga tomorrow in my final post of the week. 

On a different note, can you believe that Miss America fell on her ass in front of the world during the Miss Universe pageant?  It wasn’t like she was attempting a triple lutz or a double sowcow.  The woman was simply walking in a dress during the evening gown segment.  Way to represent! I think that next year for the Miss America competition, we should include a difficult walking circumstances portion to the competition.  That way we will know for sure that we have a good walker for future Miss Universe competitions. 

Filed under: Cats, Pee, achy, beer, confused, excuse, fight, fun, funny, grouchy, mean, scared, sore, train wreck, weird, wikipedia

Holiday weekend debacle

I do not have time today to explain exactly what went down over this past extremely long holiday weekend.  I think I will break up the weekend over the course of this week, because seriously….it was re-damned-diculous.  Let me give you an outline for what is to come this week on the explanation of my weekend.    Too much to post at once, so I will touch on it one day at a time as it played out over Friday-Monday. 

I.  Introduction (todays post)

II. Friday  

    A.  Day off from work

        a.  Balloon Twisting for the Monsassori overprivledged

        b. Shopping/Haircut

    B.  Wedding Bells 

        a.  White Trash wedding 

        b.  What sent the Priest home early? 

        c.  What sent us home early? 

III.  Saturday 

    A.  Travel day…I thought. 

        a.  Lets clean house/cat puke/cat pee/cat poop/litterboxes/vacuum/shampoo carpet/mop/dishes/laundry/pack before we leave. 

        b.  almost die in tornado wielding storms on drive down to central Illinois. 

    B.  See family drink 

IV.  Sunday 

    A.  Let’s go fishing 

        a.  Holy fishing Batman! 

        b.  Where are the damned Cicadas?

        c.  Dad, I hate to tell you this but you have Mad Cow disease….

        d. Grandpa’s secretly upset. 

        e. Grandma’s got alheimers? 

        f. Grandpa wants to sell the house? 

    B.  This isn’t what I signed up for! 

        a.  I have no desire to meet new cousins. 

        b. Meet Billy, your 28 year old cousin with 5 children who pretends to be adopted and not related the the white trashiness that is my family. 

        c.  Once again, this isn’t what I or my mother/mother’s fiancee signed up for.                                                                  

        d.  Mom has already had too much

        e.  Why are they sending my wife and sister in law to the store to buy my mom’s fiancee some whiskey? 

        f.  Let’s take Shawn(little brother who was back from the Military on leave) out for drinks for the first time ever since he is now 21 so we can get away from the banjo music that is my family gathering before the whiskey is opened. 

V.  Monday

    A.  Let’s see my little bro off to the Airport! 

        a. What’s wrong Shawn? 

        b. What’s wrong Mom? 

        c. Why is everyone crying?  

        d.  Let’s go hang with the relatively normal side of the family.  

    B.  Let’s head home. 

        a.Let’s pick up my car that we left at your fathers on Friday. 

        b. Let’s piss off the wife. 

        c.  Let’s just get home and lick our wounds from this retarded weekend. 

VI.  Conclusion

If the outline doesn’t give you a slight glimpse into how wonderful of a weekend I had, I don’t know what would. I would equate the weekend to a big old punch in the nuts.  It hurts at first…real bad…but the lingering effects still hurt for days after. 

Filed under: Cats, In laws, Pee, achy, balloon, beer, cicada, confused, dad, excuse, fart, fight, friend, fun, funny, grouchy, mad cow, mean, poop, scared, sleepy, smelly, sore, stink, train wreck, weird, wife, work

Busted!

 I have to say something before my excitement wears off.  I am unable to say where I work, but I will say that we are a fortune 500 company.  I am in sales.  I sit behind a desk and talk on the phone.  Sometimes I blog simultaneously while I talk to customers. 

My management team has come up with a contest to motivate us sales people.  Every month they come up with a contest.  Last month if you were a top performer you got to compete at flying a remote controlled helicopter.  The 2 months before a predetermined obstacle course for a remote controlled truck.  The month before it was a miniature golf course.  The bottom line is that if you do well here, you get to compete in funny office games at 4:30 on friday.  So, this month I must say that the powers that be worked extra hard to come up with a contest.  Usually if you win the contests there is gift card or prize money associated.  So, this months competition offers a chance to win 250 clams…or does it?  I am going to reveal the contest now:

If you are above Goal when numbers come out on Friday, you get to Roll the Dice.  You get 1 roll if you are above 100 percent.   Top Percent to Goal: 3 attempts.  Above 150 percent: 2 attempts.Above 100 Percent: 1 attempt. You roll 10 dice at once.  How many like dice determine your prize.   

8 Out of 10 – Jackpot of $250!

7 Out of 10 – Potbellies Breakfast served by a manager

6 Out of 10 – Starbucks coffee of your choice delivered to your desk on Monday

1 to 5 Out of 10 – No prize, but a THANK YOU from the Management team for your success!

Sounds appealing enough, right?  Well, if you look at the numbers, it reveals a different story. 

I am not a math guy.  My best friend Chris is. I have a whole slew of math buddies.  Gigi, Jeff, Ben, and Chris all have more knowledge of numbers that I would ever want to brag about anywhere other than for this blog call out.  Anyway, I sent this over to him to use his superior math skills to give me some odds on truly winning the jackpot of 250.  He in turn had our friends check his work and this is what he came up with. 

This was his response: 

Hey, I figured out this solution with some of my math kids: (Ben, Gigi, Gomberg, check my work and ideas) You can win $250 3 different ways, rolling 8 matches, 9 matches, or 10 matches. To get 8 matches, you have to find the amount of combinations of 10 items taken 8 at a time, then multiply times 6 since there are 6 numbers on each die. So you do 10!/8!(2!) for 8 matches, 10!/9! for 9 matches and 10 nCr 10 is just 1 (only 1 way to roll all ten doubles, then times 6) So the ways to get 8 matches are 270, 9 matches, 60, and 1 match, 6.The total number of combinations of 10 dice would be 10!So the probability of winning the $250 would be 336/10! or 336/3,628,800= or about one out of 10,000 times. You would have better luck finding $250 in your couch cushions.

In summary, my friends are very smart, and my company sucks at motivational ideas.

Filed under: Cats, Schief, confused, coworker, friend, fun, funny, grouchy, scared, weird, work

Not so finger lickin’ good

So, late last night I was faced with the scariest moment in my young married life.  At a very early hour this morning my wife had gotten out of bed to go feed our monster cats who really know how to let us know when they are hungry.  My male cat (Mr. Wesgrs…I will explain later) has trained my wife to feed him by shuffling through papers on her dresser or the floor.  He also has mastered knocking any and all cups/bottles/pictures/alarm clocks/keys/phones and all other things on the dresser to the floor.  Many a night have I been woken up by a cup full of water hitting the floor and water shooting up and getting me in the face or body.  I digress…

So, my cat was buggin Mrs. Dennis the Menace and she decided to feed them.  I am laying in bed and all of a sudden I hear screams for help.  I have never heard my wife scream for me like this before.  It was a scream for help out of a horror film.  The only problem was that I am so achy that it took me seriously 10 second to roll out of our bed, stand up and start walking.  I don’t move so quick nowadays. 

So, I finally get up and start running to the kitchen to find my wife standing over the sink with blood flowing out of her finger.  She says “I cut myself!”  I was relieved on one hand that there was not some man in our house, but on the other hand, it dawns on me that I have never seen an ounce of blood exit the body of my wife.  I honestly felt helpless.  I immediately ask if we need to go to the hospital without seeing the cut and she said yes.  An even bigger problem is that I have come to the realization that I have no clue where a hospital is in my new neck of the woods, much less the closest one for an emergency. 

By now I have identified the cut and it is on her ring finger and is still bleeding pretty badly.  Since it was cut on a can of cat food I immediately tell her to rinse the cut so that we can see how bad it is amongst the blood.  After rinsing, I see that it is not that deep, but covers a pretty large area.  There is a large flap of skin barely hanging on and covering the whole cut.  I also realized that we have nothing at home in regards to anything that would resemble a first aid kit.  My first thought was that I recently bought my first roll of duct tape and lets rap that thing up in a roll of tape!  For fear of a divorce I did not offer that solution.  So, I went down to her glove box to find a baggie with a few antique bandaids.  I also found a tube of neosporin in the bathroom and went to work.  I applied the antiseptic with a Qtip and applied the bandaid.  All better?  I wish…

It continued to bleed a little, and we went back to bed.  I had hoped to wake up to the realization that it was a dream, but that was not so.  She is a teacher and showed the wound to the school nurse this morning with the confirmation that she will definitely need stitches.  So, at some point this afternoon I will leave work and meet her to hold her hand while they do the stitches thing.   If you were curious, my wifey’s finger is the second row middle pic from above. 

What a traumatic experience.  It dawned on me this morning that in our almost seven years together, I have never experienced my wife in pain.  I didn’t know how to react.  I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be for a parent when their child is in pain.  That is some scary stuff.  My hat goes off to all mom’s and dad’s for how strong they must be. 

On a funny note, I called my grandparents yesterday morning to announce that the wifey and I would be journeying down to central Illinois next weekend for a visit during mothers day and my mothers birthday.  It was during that phone call that my grandmother said, ”I am having surgery on my knee tomorrow morning, and I just got back from picking your father up from the bus stop.”  My father lives in Southern Georgia, and apparently he is going to be in town through the middle of July.  If this little paragraph isn’t indicative of my relationship with my father, I don’t know what would be.  I joked with my wife last night in that I bet I would have not found out about my father being in town until I went down next weekend.  A phone call would have been nice.  For her surgery as well as my fathers arrival.  My family is a bunch of non phone calling  introverts?  I don’t know. 

On CNN this morning they have a story about Lindsay Lohan turning 21 on the 2nd of July and how she wants to celebrate.  She is clubbing in Vegas and having dinner with friends and family in Malibu.  She wants to milk the occassion since she will now legally be able to enter clubs.  Not that I am a fan or anything, but hasn’t this girl been clubbing since she was like 13?  I started clubbing when I was 19, and it got old by the time I was 26.  Based on that timeframe, I would assume that she has to be getting tired of the same old scene by now.  And the fact that CNN is writing about her birthday that doesn’t happen for another two months is weird. 

Filed under: Blood, Cats, achy, body, confused, dad, excuse, pain, romance, scared, sleepy, sore, weird, wife

Who is smarter?

Quick funny note.  Every day I want to title each of my posts “Today I ache”.  I just turned 30 and I shouldn’t ache every day.  Last night I had softball practice and today, I do ache.  I just joined the church softball team and it is a 30 and over league.  Funny thing about it is I am the youngest person on the team by at least 10 years.  I think I am dealing with more soreness/body issues than any of the others.  Man, I am out of shape. 

So, this morning I had another one of those mental debates as I did some chores around the house.  Rarely my wife will request that I do something in the morning before I go to work, and today I was lucky enough to experience one of those mornings.  Last night she asked if I could clean out the litter boxes for the two cats that rule our household.  Not a big deal, but it seems to become more of a pain in the ass as time goes on.  The reason?  Too many litter boxes.  I think we are up to 6 litter boxes for 2 cats.  The reason?  Because every so often one of our cats will decide that she is sick of the geographic location of where she goes and she will pick a new place to dump in our house.  My wife and I hardly ever being home are very smart because the solution that we have come up with is to buy another litter box and place it in the new general preferential area of her royal poopiness.  

Before we bought our new house we only had 2 litter boxes.  We lived in a smallish apartment so there were not a lot of options for her to choose from.  Since last july we have gradually increased to a total of 6 litter boxes.  By my math that is 4 new litter boxes in 10 months.  Or roughly .4  new litter boxes  every month.  Once we hit the year mark, it will average one new litter box every 3 months.  At this pace, by the time we hit the 3 year threshold we will be up to 14 litter boxes if this cat continues at her poop progression.  That is a lot of litter boxes to clean.  I’m angry because every time we add a new litter box, the livable square footage of our house decreases. 

Not that I am complaining about simply doing a chore that I have done a thousand times since we have gotten these cats, but I believe that it is getting out of hand.  I know that there is machinery out there that you can buy that will scoop the litter box for you.  Those things are pretty expensive though.  I don’t think it would work for our situation anyway, because we would end up having to buy a new poop robot every time she decides she likes the feel of a new area of the house. 

Who is the smarter species anyway?  The cats or humans?  I can’t say that we as humans have found a way to get cats to clean up after us when we go to the bathroom.  Every time I clean the litter boxes and I see the cats watching me, a little kitty voice goes off in my head saying “look at him!”  “he has to clean our poop!”  “haha”  I know if I was a cat I would be thinking the exact same thing.  

I could continue on about how our cats dictate when we sleep, and when we feed them, and when we clean after them, but the conversation would go on and on.  I will share in other funny cat tales as they unfold. 

Filed under: Cats, Church, achy, body, confused, excuse, fun, grouchy, mean, muscles, poop, smelly, sore, stink