Less than a half hour ago I was laying in bed, reading. Jack, my little part Siamese kitten was sleeping soundly next to me, and my black and white lady, Elphie, was sleeping on the blanket on the floor, a few feet away. Out of nowhere, Elphie makes one of her meowing cries, but just once, so I call to her, thinking she's looking for some attention. But she doesn't come, so I go back to my book. Not a minute later she's whimpering again, but still refused to come to me. So I got up and walked over to her to investigate. I found her sitting, very poised and lady-like, on the floor in front of my bed, having abandoned her soft blanket, and she was looking around at the carpet as though searching for something. This could only mean one thing. She saw a bug. Or at least thinks she saw a bug. Unfortunately no amount of wishful thinking could rid me of the roach I found, looking for solace from the evil monster kitty, under my Vera bag. Luckily I had a shoe handy and hit him a few times before he could get away.
Rarely do I hesitate to kill a bug that I (or Elph) find because I know it will come back to haunt me, and I'll never be able to sleep with a loose creature crawling around my apartment. I do however, have a problem with the clean up. So, to be prepared, I went into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat cover (for easy access of dumping the smashed, but possibly still wiggly bug) and grabbed a nice wad of toilet paper (to be sure there is absolutely no chance of the nasty little bugger touching me).
As I turn from the bathroom, with every intention of grabbing the bug in a hurry and running it back to the toilet, I hear a splash. I don't even need to turn around to know that Jack has leapt into the open toilet. Not only because he's tried this before (luckily the last two times I've caught him) but also because my legs have now been sprinkled with dirty toilet water. I turn around just in time to see him leap out of the bowl, splashing nasty water all over the toilet seat, bathroom floor, and then my carpet as he makes his way out of the bathroom.
So, just to make sure you get the full image here, I've got Elphie in my bedroom batting at a (mostly) dead roach, a soaking wet (and probably smelly) kitten sitting in the hallway licking himself, toilet water all over my bathroom, and me... standing there like an idiot looking between the dying bug and the toilet, trying to decide which catastrophe deserves my attention first.
The bug won. So I scooped him up, threw him in the toilet, wiped off the toilet seat and floor, flushed the toilet, grabbed a dirty towel from the laundry hamper, dried off the kitten, and then decided tonight was the night to start this blog. Now here I sit, writing, as my smelly kitten, and my noisy bug hunter both sleep soundly next to me. Tomorrow I will have to bathe Jack, which he will not be very happy about, and probably clean my bathroom. But for now, I'll relax and enjoy the quiet, with no bugs and no splashing.
