Erma Bombeck Moment

I likely won't forget this Wednesday for a while.

It started out like any other: I got the kids ready for school, went for a run, and started on my day of errands. Melina and I saw the cat to the vet, went to Trader Joe's, and had a meeting with a teacher. I helped with homework, and unloaded the dishwasher. I didn't get my house clean, but then again, on a usual day, I don't. Therefore, it was a busy, yet completely ordinary, day.

Until after dinner, when it started to rain in the kitchen.

I heard the drops before I saw them. They dropped from the recessed lighting and hit the stool and the floor beneath. The kids bath is above the kitchen, so I ran up the stairs.

What did I expect to see? Perhaps a leaking toilet or a spilled bowl of water that the cats use for drinking. Maybe, but probably not, the kids had plugged the sink and left the water running. A whole number of things must have gone through my head as I skidded to halt in front of the bathroom.

There, in the hallway, was Mr. Diabetic himself, Ferdinand. Squatting. Urinating on my wood floor, just outside the bathroom. Don't ask me how, but the cat who cannot manage to put his piddle or poop into a litter box, somehow managed to finagle his stream through a crack in the floor between the linen closet in the hallway and the outside wall of the bathroom. Gross, right? I know.

Tim and I shooed the kids and dog out of the kitchen, and started cleaning up. We wiped, we Lysoled, we bleached, we pulled apart the recessed lighting. In all, at least a quart of urine must have fallen through the lighting into the kitchen. How much did I find upstairs? A couple of tablespoons full. That is how good Ferdinand's aim was. Amazing.

In the end, the day turned out to be slightly out of the ordinary, and one that I hope not to repeat anytime soon. As for not cleaning today? I guess I need to look at this in the half empty or full kind of way. At least my kitchen floor is now spic and span.