Home Sweet Home

Every time I travel, I have a little anxiety attack just before I return home. In my mind I picture starving or dead cats. I fully expect that when I drive up to the house I'll find a nothing but scorched walls, a burned out shell of my home. I imagine walking into the back yard and finding a green pool, filled with an algae soup three feet below the rim, with the pool pump fried from pumping air. None of that happened.

We arrived home in the afternoon and found that other than weeds growing a foot tall, which happens even when I am home, nothing was out of place. Upon stepping into the entry hall, I could see out the back door that Lindsey and Britney, the outdoor cats, were lounging next to the sparkling blue swimming pool, fat and happy. Everything looked to be in order. My tenants had followed my orders precisely, and all was well. Then I opened the door.

The odor hit me like a sucker punch. A stew of stale cat food, and sixteen days of dirty kitty litter assaulted my nose. It was my own fault. I did not spell out exactly what to do in my instructions. Yes, I left a detailed note on how to feed Carlotta and Fat Kitty, at what times, and what pill to give which cat. In plain black and white I told the folks who would be watching the house, all about how the back yard cats were to be fed, at what time, and how much. What I forgot to make clear is that they needed to rinse out the cat food cans before throwing them into the kitchen trash can, and also to scoop the kitty litter every day and throw it in the garbage can outside the kitchen door.

After airing out the house, throwing out the garbage, and using up an entire bottle of Frabreze, we managed to make the place habitable. We were home, and glad of it. Oh, and both Carlotta and Fat Kitty were alive and glad to see us, and happy that we cleaned out their litter box so that they wouldn't have to piss on the bathroom rug anymore.