So after becoming intimately familiar with the joys of a pus-filled oozing cat abscess last night, I decided I would just go to bed early rather than stay up and worry about it (and he is fine, btw- vet called a bit ago and I can pick him up whenever). I went to bed, and at around 12:30 was woken by the familiar and horrifying sounds of a retching animal. All of you who own pets or have kids know the sound. The sound was coming from the far side of the room, so thinking I had room to maneuver, I jumped up to turn the light on and… instantly stepped in a pile of Rosie’s vomit placed strategically by the side of the bed.
Unlike the other night, this did not go in between my toes, as I hit it firmly with my heel, but I did manage to mash it into my jammie bottoms. After hopping around suppressing the dry heaves, I tossed my jammies in the basement, washed my foot, and put on new pajamas. I then picked the vomit up with toilet paper and cleaned up the area, threw it in the toilet and… the toilet started to overflow.
At that moment, I had what I think seers or oracles or people who should be on psychotic drugs but are not and some who are on psychotic drugs and should not be would describe as a moment of clarity. A flushed sense of awareness bathed my entire body, as I said to myself:
“I need to put plungers on my shopping list.”
TheNickronomicon
“Yeah. I was sitting here eating my muffin and drinking my coffee when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.”
–Jules, Pulp Fiction
Brilliant.
Corner Stone
You’re not fooling anyone. We all know you wear footie jammies.
mistermix
I’d be really impressed with Cesar Milan if he could teach dogs to puke on tile rather than carpet.
beltane
Dog vomit is the worst. They sound like they’re puking their stomachs inside out. Cats are different. They have elevated vomiting to an art form, and will do it strategically to send a message.
Josie
I think Rosie was sent to you to prepare you for parenthood. I think you are almost ready.
cathaireverywhere
Plungers, betadine, saline wound-flushing stuff and neosporin. Wow- you might need a basket! The betadine is expensive (even the generic one) but worth having for cleaning wounds.
Poor Rosie. Wonder why she’s throwing up?
New Yorker
wait a minute….who DOESN’T own a plunger? Seriously?
RSA
I think you should install surveillance cameras in your house; you could post youtube videos: “Out-takes from John’s life with pets.”
cleek
oh yeah. many times have i clogged the toilet with hairball-filled paper towels.
elmo
Welcome! Welcome to the world of multiple animals, where they strategically tag-team their sickness so that you’re never without at least one wounded, retching, coughing, sneezing, scratching, or diarrhea-ing beast to look after.
It’s lovely here. We have cake.
CynDee
Oh, John, these moments of Enlightenment are magical.
And this one will affect your entire future.
Rosalita
@beltane:
LOLZ! they get so much practice–at least my kittehs do!
Poopyman
@New Yorker:
My thoughts exactly. You’re not fresh outta the dorms into your first apartment, after all. For such a neat freak I find this … interesting.
cathaireverywhere
p.s. at least Tunch has short hair, so the shaving won’t look as ridiculous on him. My Onyx is fluffy, and he still looks silly weeks later with the whole butt area plus halfway up his tail shaved.
beltane
@Corner Stone: No one should be wearing any jammies at all in this heat.
Third Eye Open
@New Yorker:
[Raises Hand]
I use the Pray and Curse method.
Poopyman
@cleek: Vomit-filled paper towels go into a garbage bag, which is tied off and taken out as soon as practical. Paper towels should never go down the drain.
Bill H
Well, just wait until you have a cat in your lap when a 5.4 earthquake happens. You will definitely need the Neosporin.
elmo
@cathaireverywhere:
High tide.
Noon.
Thursday.
The phase of the moon.
The alignment of the planets.
Boredom.
It’s like guys and sex. Dogs don’t need a reason to vomit; they just need a place.
MattF
The oceanic feeling. You’ve joined the immortals.
Laura Clawson
Oh! I just remembered a truly fantastic abscess story. My friend’s mother told it to me when I was a teenager.
Her husband had been a dairy farmer, and one time they had a cow with a HUGE abscess. The vet came out and looked at it and said it wasn’t ready to lance yet, so to do it themselves the next day if he couldn’t make it. Well, they ended up doing it themselves. And she said that when they first lanced it, the pus directly under the skin was thick, kind of like cheese on a pizza, and they had to pull it out in handfuls. Then behind that there was liquid pus that had built up so much pressure that it came shooting out, spurting several feet. I like to tell this story whenever I have the chance.
Anyway, glad Tunch is ok.
cleek
cat owners should have one of these shirts, too.
Shalimar
Been there, done that. And still have 3 cats that occasionally have digestion issues. Unfortunately, the cat who liked to pee to send a message died last week at 15 years old. I don’t miss the washing sheets at 2am, but I do miss her.
frankdawg
Yeah, the worst is when you hear that sound & you know the cat is on the bed next to you! I start flailing around to interrupt the poor dear’s efforts.
Used to have one that was a good mouser & loved to bring its catches into the bedroom at night to dine. Waking up to CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH is a treat too. plus you knew when you got up there would be a tail & 4 tiny paws waiting to be stepped on.
martha
At least it wasn’t the oozy soft squishy stuff the comes out the other end…that greeted mr. m about a month ago when he went downstairs in the dark. Fortunately, the sweet thing (golden retriever) decided to lose it on the tiled kitchen floor. She was so worried he’d be mad…he was more shocked than anything.
We discovered why later that day. Finding, stealing, and eating 2 dozen giant dog bones from Costco will do that to a dog. Needless to say, the storage location in the basement is now on a much higher shelf than before!
Egilsson
Are you sure you didn’t jam your pajamas into the toilet and throw the toilet paper into the basement?
How much toilet paper did you use dude?
Alice Blue
Glad to hear that Tunch is gonna be okay.
Bella doesn’t barf much; the cats cough up hairballs on a regular basis. Buster, our Persian, has a nifty trick of throwing up part of a hairball in one room, then dashing off to one or two other rooms to finish the job.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@cleek:
Why would you try to flush paper toweling down the toilet?
Annie
@elmo:
LOL…Just shared this comment around the office.
Since we spent last night talking Tunch butt remedies, I think it is only fair that we spend some time dissecting Rosie’s bad stomach….
beltane
My moment of clarity came when my kid had a bloody nose and was shaking the blood all over the carpet. It was then that I realized that wall-to-wall carpeting is one of the most stupid, impractical things to ever have been sold to the deluded masses. Room by room, year by year, I am determined to eliminate the foul carpeting and replace it with wood.
El Tiburon
Always pictured you as a tighty-whitey kind of guy.
Beeb
I’m so glad Tunch is OK. I hope Rosie’s tummy trouble is gone too. And look on the bright side — at least she didn’t throw up on the bed.
Jason
“They have elevated vomiting to an art form, and will do it strategically to send a message.”
Man, you said it. I’ve got one who’s sharpened strategic, early morning vomiting into a weapon of pure malice. This is almost always done at the foot of my bed or exactly in the middle underneath it, so that cleaning it up is as unpleasant and difficult as possible.
Randy P
I’ve done a lot of my own plumbing, mostly reasonably successful. I’m probably going to install a new toilet this weekend to replace one which has been getting slower, and slower, and sloooower…
I’m with the people who ask “wait, you don’t have a plunger?” I thought these are always around. They don’t always work, but it’s the first line of attack. Hell, I’ve been in restaurant bathrooms where I wasn’t shy about using it. I was just reading toilet reviews and was stopped dead by comments like “now I don’t have to keep a plunger next to the toilet…” with the same thought. “Wait, who doesn’t, etc”
The next line of attack is toilet snakes and those various drain cleaning chemicals. Maybe in the hands of a pro, or if the issue is some object blocking the drain, those serve some purpose, but I’ve basically found them to be useless. The thing is that over the years all drains build up a coating of stuff you don’t want to think about, like deposits in your arteries, and the flow gets slower and slower. There’s no alternative but to replace the toilet.
Anyway from the reviews it sounds like the Toto Drake toilet is the best-working home toilet out there, so that’s what I’m getting.
booger
I call dibs on “pus-filled oozing cat abscess” as a band name.
General Stuck
Somebody put a curse on you Cole. It could have been any one of the usual suspects. Maybe even a conspiracy.
Charlie puked one time. I think it was because I put some pork chop grease on his puppy chow for a treat. The chops were baked in Canola oil, so I think that’s what made him do it.
And a toilet plunger is like a fire extinguisher. You don’t need one often, but when you do, you really do need one.
Rosalita
@frankdawg:
Oh wait! I have something to share! I have a new man in my life. Last Friday, I stayed at his place for the first time. When I came home Saturday morning, I had a special reward for my desertion: I found that not only did I have a mouse mauled and paws-up, I had a mouse mauled paws up-on the KITCHEN COUNTER!
Usually one of the cats will act all proud of their kill but no one took responsibility for this one…
elmo
Anybody remember my story of a few months ago, picking up a starved little black dog by the side of the road? Well, that little guy quickly found his place here in our home, so much so that we started letting him sleep in the bed with us (he’s so small!).
Unfortunately, he’s what we call a stress-pooper. When he’s stressed, he gets the runs.
Going to bed with the people was great, he loved it. But apparently there came a time that he had a nightmare, or something, and woke up on the bed and got scared.
Yeah. Like that. At three in the morning.
My partner and I said that you know we’re dog people when our main reaction to “the dog just had the runs all over the bed” was, “Oh the poor thing, he was scared!”
Alice Blue
@beltane: I’m right there with you on the wall-to-wall carpeting. Over the last couple of years, we’ve replaced all the downstairs carpeting with hardwood. All that’s left of the carpeting is upstairs in the hallway and two bedrooms. Getting rid of the nasty old stuff is one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.
LarryB
John, At least Rosie was across the room from you. One night I woke up in the dark to hear my cat gagging right next to my head. As I slung the f**king thing off the bed, it spewed vomit in an arc like a flamethrower.
LiberalTarian
Lol.
Comrade Mary
You clean house naked but you wear pyjamas — in summer — in a HEAT WAVE?
Damn, you really are German.
(Great to hear that Tunch is fine. I think you agree that you will need to prove to us that he’s fine by providing a new picture of him. It doesn’t have to be clinical or embarrassing.)
frankdawg
BTW – John, do not throw paper towels down the toilet they are not designed for that.
But you may have figured that out last night :)
Kristine
The following is based on my experience only and may be a gross overreaction, but you don’t know Rosie’s history to this point so here goes:
Hate to say it, but speaking from experience with the Gaby-bomb, monitor the frequency of Rosie’s chucking-up, and when. Gaby would either lose it immediately after she ate, or around 4-5 hours later. This was intermittant over the course of the first year, and at the time I didn’t worry too much. Then she got her first ear infection, and the vet mentioned the possibility of food allergies. Then came a serious bout of food issues, with the usual messiness at both ends, that ended with a consult with a specialist and a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. Now the Gabster is on a restricted diet–in her case, duck & sweet potato–and 5 mg pepcid 2x a day. Her weight has stabilized, her coat quality has improved, and while she does have the occasional upset, it’s nothing like it was. I will add that she was seriously underweight when I got her, 26 pounds of skin and bones. She weighs 40 pounds now, and she still looks slim. Rosie is overweight, so her upset tum could just be one of those things, so. Take this for what it’s worth.
Chat Noir (iPhone)
@Rosalita: Classic!
After urping, my cats usually are back at the food dish eating.
And I’m very glad Tunch is fine! I assume Rosie is fine as well and that her throwing up isn’t a sign of illness.
geg6
I’m with the completely puzzled group standing here in the corner of the blog, going “Cole doesn’t have a plunger in his house? WTF?” and shaking our heads.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@elmo:
You and your partner got frosted.
About 20 seconds in.
Randy P
@Chat Noir (iPhone):
Ours urped on top of her food the other day. It was an easy cleanup since it was confined to the food bowl, but somehow extra disgusting. Plus I felt sorry for her thinking about her not being able to eat while waiting for the cleanup, which interfered with my normal laughing at her.
@Comrade Mary: I guess the ultimate test is whether John carefully plants individual flowers with wide separations between them. That seems to be the German style from what I’ve seen.
Annie
@LarryB:
LOL. I just love that we are spending the morning sharing animal puke stories.
One thing with my cats is that I have learned to differentiate in the middle of the night between a hairball gag, which means nothing, and a “I am really going to throw-up,” which means a race to get my T-shirt off and under his/her mouth before I have to get up and change the sheets.
Mumphrey
We had a Brittany Spaniel who would eat anything when I was in high school and college. Once she jumped onto the dinner table and from there onto the top of a bookshelf and ate a whole bowl of pears. There must have been 10 of them. There was nothing left but 10 stems. She had a long, long night, and needless to say, so did we.
This was the same dog who, after we got her from the pound at about 3 years old, came home from the vet after we had her spayed. The vet didn’t want to bandage her up so she’d heal faster; she just had some stitches holding her innards in. Well, the next morning, everything was great. For about 2 hours. Then somebody walked in on her in the back hall, where she had pulled out her stitches, and was licking her own bowels that had come spilling out onto the floor. She seemed happy enough, if a bit confused by everything, though we were all freaked out. We scooped her up, and held her upside down, and her insides all slid back inside, and we ran her over to the vet, who stitched her up, and then thoroughly bandaged her.
She was a hell of a dog; she had a lot of personality. She lived to be about 16 or 17. I still miss her…
Dead Ernest
Shopping List – …and a bed-side lamp you can reach without having to get out of bed.
cathaireverywhere
My dogs seldom throw up and the cats do just during shedding season. I guess I am lucky. I seem to have the only cats on earth that don’t love hairball medicine. As I tell them, they’d be hacking a lot less if they would just eat it. Someone told me to put it on their feet if they wouldn’t eat it outright, but they just shook it everywhere instead. Luckily, the dogs like hairball medicine, so they helped clean it up.
My dogs do seem to have stomachs of steel, however. Mayzie, in particular, has no problem eating birdseed from under the feeders, (the vet said it won’t harm her) pencils, crayons, littlest pet shops, Barbie feet (just the feet for some reason- they are pretty creepy-looking afterwards) I tell the offspring to pick up toys so they don’t become dog treats, but it’s a full-time job trying to police it.
Jay in Oregon
If you ever decide to get out of the political comentary, I think you could still have success in telling pet stories.
Certainly less controversy at any rate, the hydrogen peroxide debate notwithstanding.
Mnemosyne
For some reason, only my male cats throw up. I don’t know if it’s because they are/were the fuzziest ones, but the females almost never even make a hairball sound.
Of course, Keaton has appointed himself Head Groomer and keeps both Charlotte and Annie bathed, so that may have something to do with why he constantly has hairballs and the other two almost never do.
cathaireverywhere
After the failed attempt to make the cats stay inside, we slowly replaced the gross carpeting with laminate wood. Luckily, we already had the laminate in the kitchen/family room/hallway when we moved in, so we only had the bedrooms to do. (tile in the bathrooms and laundry room) Laminate is so easy to install- we just bought more of the same stuff, clicked it in and kept going. You can’t even tell that the rooms were done 4 years apart- they look continuous. I have one of those hard floor cleaners now, and life is much easier. It has a switch for vacuuming, washing and drying.
Poopyman
I’m pretty sure it’s comment threads like these that weed out the non-pet owners.
Brachiator
After a flurry of lengthy tests stretching out for days, the doctor finally figures it out. The patient had a small, oozing wound, and the doctor determined that …
Abscess makes the fart go “HONDA.”
Hope that Tunch heals well and that Rosie is OK.
And good luck with those plungers.
@TheNickronomicon:
Excellent reference.
wmsheppa
We just brought a new cat home, so my entire apartment is currently a demilitarized zone. At 1:30 last night Gypsy (existing cat) woke me up yowling to instruct me to clean her (already clean) litter box, and then wouldn’t shut up until I went to sleep on the couch so she could sleep with me away from Shallot (the new cat).
Shallot? Well, she promptly decided sleeping on the couch would be fun. Gypsy didn’t take it well, and I ended up on the couch with Gypsy under it and Shallot locked in the bedroom with my girlfriend.
On the plus side, there was no vomit involved.
Skepticat
@elmo:
So true!
This is a thread that only pet lovers could love. And it could get into the triple digits with war stories.
twiffer
wait, you wear pjs? and long ones? in this fucking heat?
lunatic. boxers or nothing is the only way to go.
John Cole
Yes I was wearing very light pajamas because I had the ceiling fan on MAXIMUM and the only happy medium I could find was wearing light pajama bottoms with no covers. No pajamas and sheets and I still sweat. Boxers and no sheets and my calves got cold. Pajama bottoms with fan on high- WIN!
ellaesther
John Cole, I love when you’re funny.
‘Cause when you’re funny, you’re stinkin’ funny.
Yukoner
@geg6:
If you have a well designed toilet you don’t need no stinking plunger. I have become a Caroma groupie ever since I installed them in our new house 7 years ago. Haven’t needed a plunger even though there are 3 growing boys testing the limits of that 4 inch trapway with great regularity!
Just Some Fuckhead
Sounds you need to be going to bed in saran wrap, not pajamas.
Alice Blue
@cathaireverywhere: The old cat we had when I was a teenager loved hairball medicine; her pupils would actually dilate when she saw the tube. I once made the mistake of putting a dollop of it on the tip of my finger for her to lick off.
The scar is still there.
Rosalita
well now we know you’re a boxers guy…
Jennifer
After years of having cats that woke me up at the crack of dawn, I finally have one that doesn’t. Not to go out, not to eat – she just never wakes me up. She often sleeps in hours after I get up – in fact, she’s in there sleeping on the bed right now, 3 hours after I got up.
Comrade Mary
Ah. Very clever hack of your sleeping situation. This usually naked French girl approves.
I usually sleep with only the radio on and the windows open because most summer nights are reasonably cool. But during this heat wave, I turn on the central AC at night, when it’s greener and cheaper, not because I need it to sleep, but because I need to pre-cool the house and give me a fighting chance of getting through the next work day in my second floor office.
But because the house is still steamy at midnight, I also put a fan on low at the foot of my bed, which lets me get to sleep but leaves me chilled by morning, so I have to snap off the fan or grab a light comforter to cover me. It feels ridiculously wasteful to have a fan and AC going at the same time, but one is a current need and one is an investment for the future.
Svensker
@Laura Clawson:
Oh, gag. Aaaaackkkkk. LOL.
gnomedad
@frankdawg:
John did NOT put paper towels in the loo; he was misquoted. Anyway, the point is TP is designed to disintegrate and papers towels are designed not too, as the commercials are so eager to assert.
Mike E
I sure do hope Monty Python isn’t reading any of this–I shudder to think how projectile pus will come across on screen.
Kirk Spencer
For two reasons, when a cat or dog loses control I’m the one who cleans it up. First and foremost, I am not SWMBO. Second, I don’t usually react. 9 times out of 10 a vomiting person or animal nearby evokes no sympathetic spasms from me, and I’m even less likely to react to having to clean it up.
There’s always that one time, however….
peej
My cats like to sit on my desk when I’m on the computer. Needless to say, one of them upchucked all over the keyboard. I had to get a new one. At least I didn’t have the laptop at the time.
rekster
Between the always excellent political commentary and the travails at Casa Cole this has to be the best blog out there. I am so thankful I found you when I did.
Where else can one find futbol commentary, Home and Garden information and The Animal Planet all wrapped up in a neat package with liberal commentary that doesn’t make my head spin around.
This morning when I woke up I saw that Glee, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men were all nominated for numerous Emmys. It’s my Birthday, I’m am now eligible for Social Security. What could be better.
All you kiddies keep working so the checks will keep coming in.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Same here, my boy cat is the one who gets the most hairballs, he grooms the girl cat, who actually is the more fuzzy one. I think grooming may be a sign of dominance.
Comrade Mary
Honouring SWMBO is a good rule for life. I’m just sayin’.
I envy your lack of sympathetic heaves. I can’t even watch and listen to THAT SCENE in Python’s Meaning of Life without having to leave the room. Covering my eyes or ears and waiting for it to stop is fine, even though I know that’s just tinned vegetable soup all over the screen.
Betsy
This is the best post and thread I have had the pleasure to read in weeks.
Chompers likes to puke on the oriental rug, where it blends into the pattern and is more likely to be discovered with our feet than our eyes. Special little kitty.
WereBear
When James Bond was younger, his nickname was “Hurl Boy.” But getting the grains out of his diet fixed that.
It’s my personal theory that they prefer throwing up on carpet because their claws can dig in and stabilize them. Imagine throwing up in a teflon bathroom…
What I don’t get is why the cats will throw up dead center in a tangle of wires. Do they mistake it for a tuffet of grass? And what kind of instinct is that?
bemused
When one dog vomits on the floor and the other dog runs over to eat it, you have to move fast to cut dog #2 off at the pass. After the screaming, gagging and cleanup was over, we didn’t have much of an appetite for dinner.
russell
After a bout of living with a senile elderly cat that thought anything made of plastic was her litter box, and two zebra finches who apparently had contests to see which could fling their poo the furthest, I vowed to never again live with any being that wasn’t able to deal with their own excrement.
I’ve never regretted it.
TaMara (BHF)
@John Cole: I just don’t know if this falls under too much information or the perfect tonic for a stressful morning at work. Either way, thanks for the visual.
My gross out story – until I figured out my big girl Dane was allergic to corn, she’d eat her 4 cups of food, sit at the top of my stairs (all 15 of them) and then puke down them. Couldn’t get mad at her, because she really had no warning – no retching, just spontaneous projectile vomiting. No corn=No puking. But it took me an entire year to figure that out.
HyperIon
JC wrote:
hah!
i hate it when the toilets don’t work.
even more than stepping in vomit.
WereBear
@TaMara (BHF): My malamute used to love his doggie beef stew, but it came with peas. I dunno why, but I pretty quickly figured out that is what made him come over to me, look apologetic, and then urp it all up.
TaMara (BHF)
@WereBear: You know, I am sympathetic to everyone’s gross out stories, but really, I just laugh because until you have an extra large dog puking all over you the rest is just an inconvenience.
EDIT: Just to add I love malamutes, they are so sweet, like most big dogs.
I had a friend who would complain about her elderly 12 pound mix peeing on the floor, until she pet sat my danes and had to clean up one of their bladder missteps.
QuaintIrene
And if you don’t , you’ll never forget the first time you regretted not owning one.
And I’m not talking about the Plumbers Helper/funny hat type. The heavy duty cone-shaped one should be in residence beside the toilet.
Redkitten
John, to your shopping list of a plunger, Polysporin and saline, you might also want to add The Clapper or a bedside lamp, so that you can turn the lights on before getting out of bed. When you’re a pet owner, it’s a necessity. When we had Dreyf, we had to put a night-light in our bedroom, because he liked to sleep next to our bed, and his fluffy, fluffy tail matched our hardwood floors perfectly. So in the dim light from the window, you couldn’t tell where his tail was.
So we had three nights in a row of this:
(Husband gets out of bed to pee).
Dog: ARK! SNARRL! (Fanging motions)
Husband: MotherFUCKER!
Me: (if asleep, groaning with exasperation. If awake, snickering quietly to myself).
Redkitten
@Comrade Mary: You’re lucky. I’m a total sympathy puker. It has made motherhood interesting.
QuaintIrene
Or it can replace ‘greasy grimy gopher guys.”
Svensker
@Redkitten:
Let’s not talk about the time the kid got stomach flu right after consuming a large tuna sandwich. 15 years later and I still can remember the look and smell.
Sorry. No pet vomit stories tho.
WereBear
@QuaintIrene: Then I call dibs on “Erupting Anal Abscess.”
Though really, it’s more of a concept album.
Comrade Mary
@Redkitten: Oh, I’m a total sympathy puker in real life, too. The nose, the eyes, the ears: they all work, and they’re all wired to my gut. It’s just cinematic puking (odour-free, unless you’re dealing with John Waters) that I have workarounds for.
When SamKitten is a grown man, you be sure to let him know how much you suffered for him. (You have started your list already, haven’t you?)
licensed to kill time
I’ve refined my dealing with pet vomit techniques over the years. I’ve gone through:
1. Loudly yelling at the animal to stop (doesn’t work plus freaks them out)
2. Grabbing the animal and running to the nearest exit (merely spreads vomit over a larger area)
3. Hearing the sounds of horking and saying “aw, shit”, then politely waiting for them to finish.
4. Checking to see if they hit the newest blanket, pillow or rug in the house (for some reason, it always seems to be that thing you just bought)
5. Resignedly wiping up yet another pile o’ puke while said animal looks on in puzzlement.
6. They’re worth it, though sometimes ya wonder…
This also reminds me of my mom, who had four kids. If one of us puked in the night and called out to her, her first question was always “Did you puke in the toilet?”
A Guest
@beltane: You know what is really spectacular? When you break your nose, thoroughly loosen (to the point of bleeding) your front teeth, and cut the crap out of your lip in a snowball fight/log bench incident, and then sneeze repeatedly on a snowy beach. Beautiful pink cloud, pink shadow on the snow, with crimson dots herethereeverywhere.
Ah. Boy Scouts was fun.
WereBear
@Comrade Mary: This reminds me of a story about the making of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
Dr. Seuss’s only movie.
The centerpiece of the set design is a giant piano meant to be played by 500 boys (the 5,000 fingers of the title.) For budget reasons, they had 150.
And when one of them got sick on a lunchtime hot dog he threw up on the keyboard of the giant piano. This set off a chain reaction so that there were 150 boys all throwing up on the keys of a giant piano.
Kinda sticks in the mind…
elmo
@TaMara (BHF):
Hee! Seconded on the big dog mess vs little dog mess, but it really is different when he’s pooping all over us and the bed at 3 am.
But for big dogs: my first German Shepherd was a medical mess, and one of his ailments was epilepsy. Which we discovered when he had a grand mal seizure in the bedroom at one in the morning, complete with teeth snapping, body flipping, and compete loss of both sphincter and bladder control.
Forever after that, my partner’s nickname for him was “Flips-n-shits.”
Rosalita
@QuaintIrene: @WereBear:
What? No one wants last night’s entry:
Rosalita
great, I block quote something JC said last night and I’m in moderation….
kommrade reproductive vigor
I don’t know. After the mop incident maybe you DON’T need a plunger.
suzanne
@licensed to kill time:
LMAO. Puke in the toilet. I WISH.
A couple of years ago, my daughter, who was about three or four at the time, wasn’t feeling too well, so I let her sleep with me. At about three in the morning, she stood up in bed, and just started horking everywhere. I woke up to see her standing there like a little statue before vomit splattered all over my face. The sheets, the walls, the floor, on me, on the cat, puke running all down herself…. it was just so unbelievably disgusting. And then she started to cry that really pathetic “I feel AWFUL and I want my MOMMY!” cry, and it was even sadder than the rivers of puke was disgusting.
#2 is due in December. Oh man. All this. Again.
licensed to kill time
@suzanne:
Aw, poor little thing. And poor YOU! I have been there in the kid puke department, too.
I used to think my mom was kinda heartless with the emphasis on the puke hitting the toilet instead of our obvious misery, but once I had kids….I understood, boy howdy.
edit: Congrats and commiseration on #2 ;-)
D-Chance.
While you’re getting the plunger, don’t forget to buy a snake. Valuable tool to have around the house.
Also, beware the humidity. I hadn’t mowed in a couple (or three or four) weeks due to my schedule and general laziness. Everyone else on the block cleaned up for the Fourth. I finally made my knee-high (in places) lawn look nice this morning. Upper 70s, cloudy, muggy. I got nauseous and light-headed and had to take a long break with only a few minutes left to finish. Almost couldn’t stand back up to walk the final few rows between the carport and the street to complete the task. Heat wasn’t much, but the humidity was enough to send me into near heat exhaustion. Two half-liter bottles of cold water, a long cool shower, and sitting in front of the a/c has helped tremendously. But, be careful outside.
D-Chance.
#21… the next time you get the urge to post, don’t. I felt my nausea returning from reading that…
Linda Featheringill
@Shalimar: Sorry about your loss.
The ones that cause trouble are missed the most.
Kristine
@elmo:
God help me, I’m laughing. I feel so sorry for that poor dog, but still laughing.
Kristine
@Rosalita: I’ve been relegated to moderation on one of the computers I use to post. On my Macbook, apparently, I can be as immoderate as the situation demands.
Rosalita
@Kristine:
I think in this case it was the p*** word…
Kristine
King, my other dog, was pretty close to my Mom. When she went into the hospital three years ago for the last time, King’s world went into freefall and so did his stomach. He would eat, then throw up about 4-5 hours later. He also started eating and chewing on all sorts of things–mulch, the dirt out of planters, the edges of furniture and the corner of my mom’s statue of Mary. Absolutely frantic foraging, darting from one thing to the other. One doggie ER visit, upper GI series, and $$$ later, the diagnosis was severe gastritis which we were lucky didn’t turn into an ulcer. He was treated just like a person with H. pylori–a couple of weeks of stomach meds, antibiotics, and acid inhibitor. Turns out that while people with ulcers feel better if they eat, dogs with ulcers feel better if their stomachs are empty. But they get hungry, so they eat, then their guts start to ache, and they look for anything to make it feel better–hence, the puppy pica. The problem was, after King’s stomach healed, he still had the urge to eat mulch. By the time I replaced all the mulch in the backyard with lava rock, he had gotten over the urge.
Life with Pets is never boring.
Craig
Animals are crapping in our houses and we’re picking it up. Did we lose a war?
QuaintIrene
Oh, forgot to add. Glad that Sir Tunch is on the mend.
Craig, that should be embroidered on a pillow.
Monkeyfister
Bil Lepp– “A Plea For Plungers”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6r5NNkfM2U
A very funny story, from one of the Nation’s greatest Storytellers.
–mf
cathaireverywhere
My dogs eat grain-free food (Taste of the Wild) so perhaps that’s why they very seldom throw up. I started them on it because my elderly dog has such bad skin issues.
The snake suggestion is a good one. We have a small one especially for toilets that has saved us a bunch in plumber bills. We ended up getting a larger snake for the kitchen/laundry room. They don’t take up much room.
Michael Sheridan
John apparently did not take to heart the lesson posted at “Learn From My FAIL” just a week or so ago:
fucen tarmal
@Rosalita:
i thought you were more polite than i could possibly imagine being in reference to cold calves.
bad dad
Our new low flow toilet doesn’t do partial flushes, the kind where you just fill it to the rim and let go of the handle to stop, hoping that the weight of the water pushes the paper through. I learned that the hard way.
My true moment of clarity in that overflow situation was to grab the plastic lined garbage can next to the toilet, place it under the side yet above the rim and start scooping water with my hand into the can.
Had to have saved a half gallon from the spill.
It helped that I had done a courtesy flush first.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Ahem. Dr. Seuss’s only live-action movie. Who wants to see some Chuck Jones/Dr. Seuss “Private Snafu” cartoons from WWII?
geg6
@Yukoner:
Yeah, well, I won’t hold my breath for the time my landlord goes out and buys me a fancy toilet. Should happen right about the same time he gets me the new carpeting and kitchen flooring (you know, manufactured after, oh, maybe 1995…that would be really coming into the modern world) I’ve been asking for for the last 6 years. Of course, the plywood deck at my front door hasn’t had any I/O carpeting since the wind storm took it up 3 years ago and putting something non-slip on a third-floor deck hasn’t seemed like something he feels any need to hurry on, so that new toilet may be pushed back to some point in, oh, maybe 2050.
daryljfontaine
My two cats have very distinct noises and styles for their vomitous discharge — the elder (and smaller) of the two makes the usually moist sounding heaves one associates with a standard “vomito de gato.” If she makes a moaning meow prior to starting the heaves, it will usually be hairball-driven instead of merely bringing up the food. She doesn’t eat dry food anymore, but when she did, I could usually count on an at least twice-daily pile of softened cat food to clean up, as she ate like there was no tomorrow and then drank water to expand the dry bits in her tiny stomach.
The younger cat makes a noise that sounds like a bad starter in a car, full of nasty, dry, clacking sounds… then projectile vomits whatever was beleaguering him, attempting to set new records in distance and area. Sadly he usually does this while standing on top of paperwork of some kind, like on the guest bed in the office. When I hear him begin to crank up, I attempt to swiftly but gently redirect him to the floor instead.
Unrelated, but also:
@Comrade Mary:
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
D
Gravenstone
@suzanne: A few years ago we had a get together with several friends/co-workers and their families. As the adults were sitting down to lunch and the kids were cavorting in the living room, one of the little girls came walking slowly towards the dining room. She stopped, looked directly at me , gave me the big, pleading eyes of childhood discomfort and confusion, then proceeded to make like the Exorcist, only in pink (and without the head spinning). I promptly stood up and walked around the corner to get away from the carnage to keep myself from unloading in sympathy – as I’m terribly, terribly susceptible to such. The rest of the parentally inclined adults simply resignedly dealt with the problem and all went on with their afternoon. Fortunately, she’d made it onto the hardwoord floor so clean up was relatively easy. I do not know how parents ever manage to get beyond that.
Ruckus
OK, Ok, as long as we are sharing, can’t resist telling my on the road story.
In an unnamed town in the south, on a 5 day work road trip we ate breakfast at a very large fast food place everyone has heard of. I of course got food poising and about 4 hr later had to find a place to hurl. Linda Blair had nothing on me, as I swear my stomach turned inside out. Bright green, moving a almost supersonic speed, 5-6 feet straight out before striking everything, Walls, mirror, sink. In the gas station restroom. Now the interesting part is that I had to clean it up and about 15 min after that hurled again. And cleaned it up. Did I mention that I had a fever of 104 and it was July with temps around the same? What a fun weekend.
No pet puke though. And I don’t eat at that chain anymore.
suzanne
@Gravenstone:
I don’t really know, either. I’m a sympathy puker, but…. you just feel so BAD for them that it outweighs the absolute vileness of all the assorted output.
AKA, “It’s a good thing they’re cute. Otherwise, you’d kill ’em.”
That is often said about both pets and children in my family.
Yukoner
@suzanne:
Suzanne, that is epic. I have three boys (8, 6, and 4) but none has managed to achieve that level of carnage in the vomit department. My eldest did manage to fill his shoes and socks once though, along with soaking down his shirt and pants. Thankfully we had just gotten running water going and didn’t have to dip him in the lake.
Yukoner
@geg6:
Yes, I can see that your landlord might be a tough sell on a relatively expensive (but well designed and excellent!) toilet.
Years ago I was renting a dive for a few months and the toilet was cracked and it leaked. My landlord first accused me of breaking it, then said he’d deal with it and then didn’t. I went to the building supply store, bought the cheapest toilet there (on sale for $59.99) and installed it myself. Took the cost off of the next month’s rent cheque. Had the landlord threaten to punch me out. Found that amusing as he was a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. Moved out shortly thereafter.
asiangrrlMN
Cole, I was gonna suggest the au naturel way of sleeping with the amount of getting up in the middle of the night and stepping on shit (literally) thing you have going with your animals, but then I read your explanation. I sleep nude sans sheets no air, and that’s just bearable (no fan in my bedroom). Shadow eats very quickly which results in him horking sometimes. Raven has to gobble his food fairly quickly in order to not have Shadow steal it–therefore, Raven also horks from time to time. Sometimes, the food isn’t even all-the-way chewed. I have not stepped into any vomit yet (knock on wood), so there is that.
Pocky
The greatest 8 minutes of standup featuring a plunger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjIYlpZB83A&feature=related
Maxcrat
I’ve only recently started reading your blog, but this post had me laughing out loud and has made Balloon Juice the new #1 on my daily read list!
Big Badger
(wiping tears of laughter from my face…)
We have 3 cats, each of whom emits their own distinctive “warning gag” before leaving yet another permanent stain on the carpet (one of them likes to eat brooms which makes for an interesting clean up) and a Pembroke Welsh corgi. You know, the darling, little, short, foxy dogs with no tail that the Queen drags around by the dozen. Their behinds are too cute – all fluffy and white – and are commonly known as “pants.” They look like jodhpurs. Charming to the max until our Juju eats some microscopic thing that disagrees with him. Then it’s like trying to clean sludge off a mad goose. Ick.