Dudey's Dooties

Ms N came back from a three-night business trip today, so naturally I was up early this morning cleaning all of the parts of the house I had failed to clean during the previous three nights.

The kids were at my babies' momma's apartment overnight, so I had no worries of having to break from any tasks to go wake my son up for the third time or anything like that. Today was "schlep your kids to work" day, so I did have to pick up my daughter on my way to the train (which we missed by 2 minutes anyways), but other than that the morning was mine.

I had my schedule planned out perfectly: Get up at 5:15, go feed the cats, pull the sheets off the bed, get the extra bedding stuff out of my son's room (he got new sheets on Sunday, the old ones were still in a pile on his floor), take all the aformentioned linens downstairs, put the sheets and pillowcases in the wash, scoop up the cat crap from the litter boxes, go back to the kitchen and get the dishes, take the trash outside (it did, after all, have a bag of cat crap in it), put the sheets in the dryer, straighten up the coffee table, clean up the rest of the stuff in my son's room, take a shower, fold the two loads of laundry that I did on Tuesday, put my portion away, put my son's portion in his room, put Ms N's portion in a nice stack, brush my teeth, gather my stuff for work, get the sheets out of the dryer, make the bed, and head out by 7:25.

You know, a typical morning.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite work as I planned. I didn't have time to bring the sheets back up and make the bed, and I left at 7:32, hence the missed train.

Oh, and one more thing ...

Ms N came back home and Leo, the primary cat, was acting a bit strange. Dude, the emergency backup cat, didn't so much as come to the living room to see her. She mistook the attention Leo was paying to her as some sort of "I missed you" gesture. (Ridiculous, I know ... cats don't miss anybody unless they are not being fed. I doubt the cats even notice that we're gone.) When she got upstairs, however, Leo ran straight to my son's door and started meowing.

That's when it dawned on her ... Dude wasn't being lazy or indifferent; he didn't come to see her because he was stuck behind a closed door.

Apparently, while I was in straightening up the room, Dude wandered in. He just failed to wander out before I left.

I got home soon after Ms N and she told me about Dude's traumatic ordeal. He seemed to be recovering well. Then again, Dude always seems to be doing well. If you translate his meows, he says, "Dude".

As I walked into my son's room, I quickly realized that Dude had, ahem, done his dooty while trapped therein. You can't blame him - when nature calls you can't send it to voicemail. The problem is he's a cat, and cats have some sort of turd-topping instinct. When dogs mess on the floor, it's always easy to find (especially if you have bare feet); they let their chips lay where they fall. Cats, though, are modest.

It took a few minutes of searching, but I finally found them ... neatly tucked underneath my son's stuffed turtle. Now matter how hard I try, I can't stop picturing the cat pushing that turtle across the floor just to have something under which he could hide his dooties.