Extremely Foul and Incredibly Close

We wake to a horrible lung-searing, nose-hair-singeing stench.  G groans in abject misery and claws the CPAP mask off his face.  He has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP machine nightly.  The malodorous odor has permeated his mask and is trapped within.  I grimace and dive beneath the covers.  Huck Finn has dutifully made his daily predawn deposit in the litter box that now sits literally two feet from our bed.

Since his return we have struggled to integrate Huck Finn back into our family.  However, living in a fifth-wheel with a cat has created a major problem.  Our prodigal son is recovering from his year of riotous living, so we don’t dare let him outside yet, and we no longer own a house with a yard; we park in campgrounds.  A litter box sits in our walk-through bathroom in front of the door to the tiny laundry closet which is right next to our bedroom.  In these close quarters there is nowhere else to put it.

“Do you want me to get it or will you?” I mumble from beneath the quilt.

“I’ll get it.” G replies swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Feline waste has to be one of the most wretched smells in the entire world!  This is one of the reasons that G and I are not cat lovers. 

G quickly scoops out the offensive mass and whisks it away – far away – outdoors.  I stay beneath the covers.  It isn’t safe to stick my head out yet.  The air still reeks with a noxious odor.  I hear the whir of ceiling fans working frantically to suck out the foul air.  A few minutes later the fans cease, and I cautiously poke my head out from underneath the quilt.

“That’s no way to wake up in the morning,” G grumbles.

“We need to rethink this,” I agree.

Each morning since Huck Finn’s return we are awakened by the vile smell and unwittingly tread barefoot across unseen Tidy Cat granules that he has tracked across the bathroom floor.   

So, G and I put our heads together and came up with a new plan.  Before bedtime we’ll move the litter box out to the kitchen and place it in front of the door – well away from our bedroom.  The added bonus is that it will also protect us against home invasions.  Intruders will be stopped in their tracks, die from the miserable, concentrated stench and fall backward out the door.  We won’t even have to shoot them.  We’ll sleep better and be protected at the same time; a win-win situation.

Lately, we have been pondering the question of how many of his nine lives Huck Finn has used up, and we are secretly wondering how soon he will be leaving on his next adventure.