Don't eat while reading this entry.

This is posted as a warning to all pet owners, and maybe even baby-owners (aka parents). Don't do what I did!

Ok. So.

Last night I was taking a later-than-usual nighttime bath -- butterball bath bomb from Lush, complete with soothing cocoa butter that left me silky soft all over -- when one of the kittens started crying as he came out of the litter box.

Oh god.

I look over the rim of the tub and see him dragging his behind along the rug. There's a long, poopy thing trailing out his butt. "Oh great." I think to myself, "The cats have really big gross worms now."

I call out to Tim, who opens the door when he comes in (I had the door shut because the TV was really loud in the next room). "What?" he asks as an orange blur rushes past him, trailing about a foot of poopy string behind him.

I sigh. I calmly explain to Tim that he needs to catch the cat and gently and slowly extract whatever it is from his rectum. Use toilet paper, I suggest. He blinks at me. "What?" he asks again, a bit more bewildered this time. I sigh. I get up out of my warm, buttery, silky bath and put on my slippers, not even bothering to dry off. "Fine. Help me do it."

I coax the cat out from under the table where we can't reach him. I have Tim hold him down while I very slowly pull about another foot of poopy camping rope (narrow width) out of the cat's butt. Yes, using toilet paper. The kitten didn't cry the whole time, which reassured me I was doing the right thing. I checked his little bottom later and it was clean and pink and looked ok.

My co-worker, Heathen, told me this morning that I shouldn't have pulled it out, no matter how gently, that I could've "pulled his junk out" as she put it. I should've snipped it close to the anus and had him pass it natually. This freaked me out, so I called the vet, who told me that, yes, that's what I should've done but that it's natural to want to pull it out instead, and that he's probably fine but to keep an eye out for exceptionally bloody stools.

Great.

Heathen sniggered at me for using words like "bottom" and "pass" and "stool". She said, "You sounded like a little old lady over there, using polite language!" Yes, it's all ass and shit around this office, but I was trying to be appropriate, you know?

Anyway. So, you know, the next time your pet is trailing poopy whatever behind him, cut it off and wait for the rest to come out on it's own. That's the moral of this story.

Hey, I warned you it was a disgusting entry.

After cleaning up the floor, my hands and spraying the hell out of the rug, I got back in my tub of lukewarm water and finished my bath. Hard to relax after that, though.

We're running out of throw rugs around here.