Dressed for the Dirty Duty

In “Anecdotal Tales”, stories will be told.  Some will be fun, some will not.  Some will be great, some will be less so.  Some stories are true, some are merely possible.  This is one of them.

Dressed for the Dirty Duty

(Over at her site, kiradault suggested that folks write about a funny memory.  If this story amuses, you have her to thank.  If it’s just all kinds of odd, then blame me.)

As I was growing up, my two siblings and I had our share of pets.  My mom had her birds here and there, my dad was indifferent, and there seemed to always be a fishing floating around in a glass container somewhere.  There was the giant fish tank that I had no desire to ever clean.  I still remember Jamie, the fish that I kept in a small bowl on top of my dresser.

Jamie met his end at the paws of a cat.  I know what you’re thinking, but Jamie did not die in the typical fashion.  Our cat at the time felt it deserved a more unique kind of death.  Instead of putting her paw in the bowl, catching Jamie, and eating him for dinner, our cat took a more sadistic option.  She used what kitty-strength she had and knocked over Jamie’s bowl.  There we found Jamie, gasping for air (or in his case, water), as the cat looked on.  Maybe she was gloating about her triumph and was going to eat Jamie but we interrupted her?  It seems possible, but I always figured that cat simply wanted all the attention for herself.

I, being the youngest of the three, thought I should get all of the cat’s attention and none of the effort.  My brother, much like my dad, did not really have any interest in our cats.  So I happily let my sister do all the dirty work.  One day, for a reason I do not remember, I was assigned the task of cleaning out the litter box.  Thinking back on it, this was not the greatest hardship that could befall a small boy.  But for me, this sort of smelly task required reinforcements.

First and foremost, I donned a pair of woodshop glasses.  You know; those flexi-plastic light-green things that hug to your face to keep the sawdust out.  For some reason, I thought it was imperative that I have those over my eyes.  Quickly added to my supplies list were gloves.  Now, one hears “gloves” and thinks perhaps some food handlers gloves or maybe some mittens.  Nope, I once again raided my dad’s woodshop and got the thickest, roughest, most industrial gloves one could ask for.  One never knows where a cat has been or what trouble they have gotten into; clearly their poop required extra protection.

You would think that would be enough. Perhaps this eight year-old in his hyper-color t-shirt (tie-dye orange, thankyouverymuch) would wear a bandana to cover his nose.  For some reason, that was the one part of me I did not cover.  No, in the middle of summer I decided to don my winter coat as protection against the two or three pithy clumps that needed to be scooped.

So there I was; a young fellow with combed-“enough” hair decked out in jeans, the aforementioned tie-dye shirt, a puffy winter jacket, green worker glasses, and burlap-like gloves.  I of course felt the need to top it all off with a hardhat.  Bright white; to contrast the black winter jacket, I’m sure.  And I did it.  I comically held my breath long enough to get those three little pieces of pee and poop into a milk carton.  I made quite the show of exhaling the now “clean and refreshing” air.  I am not entirely proud of this overly dramatic show of wackiness.  I would like to just scoop it up, toss it in a carton, and pour some cat litter over it.  But I cannot.  There is one obstacle standing in my way; my family.

I have a family that remembers far too much.  Should my family ever forget?  They have photos of the whole thing.  So whenever I get too full of just how spiffy I am, they have the perfect ammo to deflate me.  Darnit.

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