Once upon a time, I lived with three (then two) irresponsible potheads. While they were not bad people, per se, they often did stereotypical potheaded behavior: one lived off of Hot Pockets and Chinese take-out, the next would get high and stare at various tv dramas for hours on end, while the third would often play a game I call “Stoned Build-a-Bong.” (The rules of which are simple: get stoned and then use household items to build various drug paraphernalia.)
In addition to her bong building ways, the third roommate had two cats. I picked up a squirt bottle one day to correct the cats, and when my boyfriend would come over, he made a game of correcting them with it. (On more than one occasion, he’d get them right between the eyes. Oh, how they hated that.) My roommate didn’t really care for this. Her attitude was “let cats be cats.” This attitude resulted in all of my dining room chairs getting shredded and the destruction of many a knick knack. But the worst thing about it was that her one cat vomits. Like, on a regular basis. Sure, she could have taken him to the vet’s office, but, well, please refer to the first sentence of this passage.
This cat also had a knack for darting into my room in the 37 seconds the door was open and my back was turned. He’d dive under my queen bed that filled the room, so I often didn’t know he was there. One particular night, my boyfriend and I were getting ready to go to bed. I opened my bedroom door, the cat ran out, and my nasal passages were subsequently violently assault with the odor of cat vomit. (Or cat shit. I’m still not 100% certain which it was.)
The stench took about a week and a half to get out of my room, even with the window opened (in mid-February!) and a coffee mug filled with vinegar. When I approached the roommate about it, she laughed and said “the cat pukes! There is even a blog entry about it.” Okay, cool, but did he really have to do it all over my damn bed? Seriously?
Every time I get a little misty eyed and reminiscent of living there, I simply remember the cat puke incident. It kills the majority of my nostalgia in about 37 seconds.
