Last Night Sucked

We've been climbing with some friends and their wives the last couple of Saturday nights. When the arm pump and burning hands gets to be too much, we all head out to dinner. It's enough fun, I've almost gotten to the point of looking forward to Saturday nights.

Unless they're going to be like last night.

Rolling home from the restaurant, Jen and I were really looking forward to getting to bed at 10pm. Both of us had a long Sunday of work (work-work, not house work) planned, so it would be good to end a great night with some great sleep.

Not last night.

We pull the car into the garage, open the door to the basement and step over the first puddle of what turns out to be copious amounts of smelly diarrhea. There were explosive puddles the length of the hall. It wasn't hard to see where they hit the floor and splashed the walls.

They went all the way onto the carpet and couch downstairs.

"Holy Crap!" I said. "No Shit!" without pun Jen replied.

"Wonder who's sick?"

We'd seen this sort of thing twice in CJ's 13 year history, though Gretchen's the one that eats everything in the yard that's not nailed down or running away.

Neither dog gave any indication they were sick.

Upstairs there was more. It was in the hall and eat in Kitchen. It looked like whoever it was, was trying to get to the outside doors and left explosions everywhere in between. Luckily the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom had been closed.

We started the clean up. I got the wet/first pass and Jen followed through for the dry concrete like stuff with clorax cleaner. In an hour we filled two kitchen trash bags with paper towels and still didn't have it complete.

Standing downstairs exhausted and disgusted I rolled my head back to stretch my neck. Right there above me on the ceiling was a brown spot in the ceiling tiles.

"Are you kidding?" I touched the spot with my finger. It was wet. Had something soaked through from upstairs - something we hadn't seen? I pushed the tile out of the way to see this.

On top of everything else, the water line to the fridge decided to start leaking tonight.

We went to bed after 11pm wishing our whole house was linoleum.

3:20am I wake up to hear some pacing and panting then what sounds like wet pasta being dumped onto the floor.

It was Gretchen. She had let out one last huge explosion in the doorway to our bedroom. It was on the floor, door, trim, walls, dresser and electrical socket.

Finally cleaned up, we confined her to the downstairs hall to keep from making any more messes.

5:15am she wakes me with whining and her claws clicking on the floor downstairs. I go down to check on her and let her outside. In the dark I can hear the wet pasta hitting the grass. She comes back in and goes back downstairs whining.

6:30am Jen gets up to go to work. Gretchen's so far ok. Jen cooks a pot of rice, defrosts some chicken and heads off to work.

9:30am I get up, make some coffee and bacon for myself, then start boiling chicken for Gretchen.

Chicken and rice is supposed to be the toast and ginger ale for dog stomachs. She houses it like she hasn't eaten in a week.

Noon:30 I go and rent a steam cleaner.

I swear dog ownership would cease to exist if these things weren't so readily available.

It works wonders on the carpets except for the little throw rug that was by the sliding glass doors. Little guy appears to have taken the brunt of it.

Once the carpets were done it was time to hit the hardwood floors and chairs.

The only real way to get the floors clean was on your hands and knees scrubbing and scrubbing.

Took all afternoon, but now it's done. Whole house smells clean and bleachy and things are back to normal for some of us.

- b