Nauseating November

I had the bright idea last summer to start a garden. I am not a gardener, nor do i have a green thumb. However, you have to be a special kind of plant murderer not to have a successful plant or two in Washington.

We bought a raised bed from Home Depot, potting soil and seeds. I thought pumpkins would be great! I hate paying the big $$ to the You-Pick farms.
So we built it, I planted, we all watered, and waited. A little while into waiting i decided to look into fertilizers. I. was at Target- you know, where all the premium blue ribbon gardeners go- and checked out the aisle of poo. I decided to start small with the inexpensive $5 bag of blood meal fertilizer. Gross, right?

I put it in the garden and moved on. The very next day I found our Corgi mix face-deep in the dirt snorting and digging like a coke head on a pile of fresh cut blow. He. Was. Covered.
He stunk, but that was it.

I left the bag and some gardening tools on the hose box beside the garden. I tell myself I would be a much more organized person if i didnt have a husband and kids. I used to keep my apartment clutter-free and laundry done pre-kids.

Anyway, last week we had a storm come through and wind littered the yard with branches and thrown yard paraphernalia. I let the dogs out Friday and they disappeared! I let them romp in the rare sunshine, and thought nothing of it.
A little while later I open the door and our 7lb gargoyle rescue is not begging to come back inside as per usual. I go investigate and find my two mutt crackheads face first snorting and inhaling the contents of the fertilizer bag the wind had blown over and dumped all over the ground.

I reprimanded them and brought them inside. Later that night I put my gargoyle into her crate and went to sleep. I had woken up to various noises from her throughout the night but decided to deal with it in the morning.

I woke up to what looked and smelled like the bowels of a very petite Satan had exploded all over the crate.

I gagged.

y’all, I have worked in pet stores and experienced all sorts of foul smells including dead rodents ripening over night.

I have worked in a kennel where nervous animals get put up in a loud, scary, fenced cement floor kennel side by side with other scared nervous dogs. Do you know what scared, nervous dogs do? They poop. They poop nervous diarrhea. Also, scared angry possessed cats have the ability to poo out their feelings. It isnt pretty.

I never gagged.

I shot two squishy goo-covered babies out of my hoo-ha. I have seen The Placenta.

I did not gag.

I wiped and cleaned out all the body fluids of two children for the past 8.5yrs.

I never gagged.

The contents of this crate made me run to the nearest sink and gag.

I cleaned up my mongrel, took her outside and watched her puke, try to eat it, and then try unsuccessfully to poop.

I realized something about myself. When a situation arrises that causes me to lose sleep, clean, monitor, and bathe an animal I get resentful and frustrated instead of sympathetic and worried.

I dont like this about myself, but there it is. Perhaps its the sound of a cash register chiming in my head as the situation worsens. With every guttural urping heave I hear the vet scratching down one more test to be ordered. Each unsuccessful hunched butt-squeezing squat causes the old school credit card machine swipe across my brain.

I tentatively fed her small bits in the morning – shes only 7lbs after all and cant afford to loseweight – and she kept it all down so I thought we were out of the poorhouse woods.

This morning she threw up her food from the night before, and still hadn’t pooped.

I reluctantly called the vet:
“Hello, Moneybags Vet Hospital?”
“Hi. Do you have any available appts today?”
“Drop off only. So we take the pet and the vet calls you later with a course of action and you can pick up in the afternoon.”
“Ok. i’ll take it.”
“Whats the pet in for?”
“She ate fertilizer and has exploded all over 2 crates now.”
“…. let me talk to the vet please hold!”
…..
“Ok, the vet would like you to bring her ASAP. Can you come now?”

Thats not terrifying, huh? The only consolation was her not saying “Here’s the nearest emergency vet. Now Go!!”

I dropped her, and my bank account, off with instructions to slap her around freely and then give her a job. They laughed, and that’s why we go there.

And to think this all began with my cheap ass not wanting to spend money on the ‘expensive’ $10 fertilizer.

This has been a painful lesson to put shit away at the end of a long week of sadness. My mom, who lives with us, had to put her cat to sleep last weekend. My son is just now moving on from that. My husband’s mom passed away this week so he’s been in Arizona dealing with all the things that involves. (with the help of his ex wife, her friends and their spouses and kids… not at all complicated, right?!) And my daughter contracted an eye infection that has us all keeping our dried out over-washed hands to ourselves.

November so far can just suck it. Im now going to revel in all the premature Christmas songs and decorations just to spite it.