I’m sure after you read my title, you rolled your eyes and told yourself to just humor Suzanne and read through the whole story, even though Cat Puke is really not a big deal. Certainly not as big a deal as going into labor or any of the other insane stories that she seems to come up with.
Humor me, here…in this instance, cat puke was a huge deal.
So, first things first…you need to know one huge thing about me. I LOATHE PUKE. Theo has never seen me throw up. I have never seen Theo throw up…because I always run as far away from his as possible when he is about to. When one of our pets starts heaving, I literally get up and RUN out of the room in utter terror. I’m actually not exaggerating. I went through all of pregnancy without throwing up. When my doula asked me what I was most afraid of during labor, I answered, “throwing up”. I seriously dread the day that Tera Evelynne will hurl. Oh, I pray that Theo is not gone on that day!
Anyways, now that we have established how much I hate puking, let me give you the background to this story.
Our church was doing an outreach weekend where a member of the church was working with his former college to minister to international students. A couple had a ministry with international students, and they decided to make a weekend trip to Dayton, OH. So our church asked members to sign up to host several students. We signed up to host two international students. We didn’t know the students, and the students actually didn’t know each other, either. We had a great time and some good conversations with them. It was a blast. They stayed over Friday night and Saturday night, and were to head back on Sunday morning.
Of course…Theo had to work on Sunday morning. No biggie, I could handle serving the students breakfast and driving them to church. Tera wasn’t born at this point, so that was not a big deal at all.
Or so I thought.
Sunday morning dawned and the students emerged from their respective bedrooms to eat the breakfast I provided. I don’t remember what was for breakfast. Conversation was a little bit awkward as I was the only one with these two male students who didn’t speak English as their first language. But, hey, nothing I couldn’t handle.
And then it happened. Right in front of all of three of us. At the breakfast table.
Our cat. Puked.
Now, we had two cats. Moose, our large baby, has always been a puker. He pukes all the time. BB, our frisky and wild cat, never puked. Never.
Until that fateful day.
Now, remember…I hate puking. I didn’t know what to do. I think if Theo had been there, he would have calmly picked the cat up and thrown him outside to finish his (disgusting) business. But me? I just sat there, trying not to gag myself, watching the whole thing unfold.
Now, not only did this cat puke…he puked up something red. Very red.
HE’S GONNA DIE! I thought to myself.
I excused myself to grab some cleaning supplies and approached the poor kitty who was looking alittle sheepish and sickly (yes, cats totally express their emotions in their facial expressions!). And what to my wondering eyes did appear….a large, long, thick RED ribbon. Yes, a ribbon. Apparently BB had tried to eat something and else and got the ribbon with it. Of course, the ribbon got stuck, so BB expelled that thing, along with all the other contents of his stomach.
In front of our guests.
When Theo was gone.
Now, that is embarrassing!