I found that when my girls were babies that something inside me transformed and the person I was, that ate fried chicken with a knife and fork because I couldn't stand to get my fingers all sticky, became the mom who rushed to position her cupped hands in just the right spot to catch the vomit erupting from her child's mouth so it wouldn't ruin the carpet.
The kids grew older and the carpet got ruined anyway and I went back to ordering boneless chicken and started using my knife and fork again. I really thought I was home free.
I don't know why, the kids still lived here and now there was a plethora of animals they'd drug in with them. From hamsters to sugar gliders, we have homed all manner of critters and still have a rogue armadillo I named Lightening (those suckers are really fast) who is steadfast turning my entire lawn into a scene from Caddy Shack and Carl is just about ready to press the detonator and blow the whole flipping thing to kingdom come. If you've never seen the movie, well shame on you, go rent it and then you'll know better than to walk across my yard after dark.
The kids and animals in our home throughout the years have ruined more things than I care to mention, but the one item that chaps my butt the most is my chocolate brown leather sofa. It has a twin, because for some reason I have this thing about buying two of most everything. What is even worse, the sofa was ruined by a combination of Abby's cat Fatty, my little dog June Bug (may she RIP) and Alex's dog Roxie.
Fatty decided the left arm of the sofa made the perfect scratching post and so it now looks like I took a cheese grater to it. Roxie decided the seat cushion was the perfect place to throw up, so there's a suspicious spot there now, and June Bug was slightly more stealthy in her shenanigans, and it would figure, since she was my dog and she just ruined the whole piece of furniture altogether.
June Bug it turns out was one of those canines that loved to eat everything from the corner of my lovely leather sofa to her own excrement. Well, not just her own, she followed Roxie around outside like she was hiding chocolate Easter Eggs every time they were let out to go potty. Quite the gross little habit.
I even bought some rather pricey tablets called "No More Bad Habit" they had cayenne in them. I'm guessing so the turds would be too spicy to enjoy. Ha! June Bug was a chihuahua, pretty sure they're Mexican, so spicy was right up her alley.
And what's with the name? Bad Habit. Bad Habit? I'm sorry but eating shit is a bit more than a "bad habit" dontcha think? Picking your nose, that's a bad habit. This is a deficiency of sort, and mental at that because I can tell you she loved nothing better than to snatch up a mouthful of crap and run like the dickens and gobble it down before anyone could grab her up and make her drop it.
Her favorite place to enjoy her morsel of yummy yuckiness was of course, my scratched up, gnawed on sofa. More crap crumbs that I can count have fallen down into every crack, crevice, and fold of that sofa. She learned to be sneakier and she got to be a little more stealthy with her snacking. She reminded me of me hiding in my closet eating Oreos when the kids where little so I didn't have to share. Yeah, like anyone was gonna want a bite of crap.
No lie, right before she met with her untimely death (may she RIP) she would follow you to the bathroom and sit there at your feet looking up at you as if to say; "You gonna eat that?"
Sadly, June Bug did not live a long, healthy, shit eating life. She dashed across our street one day, in an attempt I am certain of scavenging little nuggets of shitty goodness from the neighbors yard, and she met head-on with the tire of a passing car flying up our street.
I miss the little shit eater, sometimes, but I'm forever reminded of her on nights like tonight when I'm working on a project, perched on the edge of this sofa that no matter what I've done to clean, vacuum, or fumigate I cannot get that oh so faint smell of shit out of.
Tonight is its last hurrah for tomorrow it shall greet the trash pile, thank God I had the foresight to buy two. Salute!