Today, I discovered, the cat shat in the basket of Lego pieces J and I have been separating —by color—into nice little silver bowls of organization, a task that I’d say is oddly therapeutic. There is little opportunity to do it wrong (white pieces go into one bowl, red pieces into another, and so on) and a very simple effort equates to great success. Until . . .
This morning I discovered where the cat poop was. We smelled it the other day, could not find it, but I knew it was there somewhere. And I found it this lovely morning.
Louis the cat had dug into the white Lego pieces basket he had mistaken for a litterbox and left me a nice gift all over many a Lego pieces.
Not only that, he shat on the rug (next to the basket). Huh?
I put on the pet rubber gloves. Dumped the basket of Lego pieces onto the bathroom floor rug. I found the soiled ones, a shear pleasure, especially the little connector circles of the Lego bricks filled to the brim with Louis’s rejected material.
The dirty ones I rinsed in the toilet, another most pleasurable experience, if you have never tried it I suggest you never go there. Then, after getting off as much off as possible in the toilet bowl swirl that smelled divine, I dumped the pieces into the sink of hot water and Pine Sol. I swished around, praying I didn’t have to get out toothpicks and Q-tips to remove it all.
Back to the carpet, I sprayed on carpet cleaner (never ever do I run out of this stuff) after removing large pieces and scrubbed the rug clean. Back to the bathroom. Then to the laundry room to get plastic bags for the color-separated Lego pieces … no more Lego litterboxes (baskets or bowls). And yes, the thought went through my head to throw it all out after seeing what Louis had done, but those dang pieces go to the umpteen boxes of Legos (with instructions) that are all over the house. The point of this great organization was my idea to J to “put them all back together” vs having all of these empty boxes hanging around.
I figure if I missed a Lego and it is sitting on the carpet tonight when I come downstairs to lock the door in the dark and I step on the Lego, my day will be complete.
Yes, today I earned a stripe. Who cares if done could start a fire with a couple sticks in the wild, today I survived the Lego shXX basket.
—SBM
Single Busy Mommy 