Everybody's girl...Izzy joins the ranks of kid-dom...

I was sitting on the couch when she handed me a hand written note and walked away. It read; 'I love you Daddy. Do you like me?'
Daddy: "Izzy, come here."
Izzy: "Yep?"
Daddy: "Gimme a hug."
Izzy: (hugging me) "Why do you want a hug?"
Daddy: "Why did you ask if I like you in your note?"
Izzy: "I put that in all my notes. That's what you're supposed to put in a note. 'Do you like me?' and 'What boys do you like?' "
Daddy: "Oh. That's not what I thought you meant. You know I like you, right? How many daughters do you think I have?"
Izzy: "Nineteen?"
Daddy: "No honey, just you."
Izzy: "Whew, I didn't want to have to share my room"

I have said on several occasions said that I didn't want to be a parent but a parent I am and when I am asked to account for everything in my life (whether real or deathbed fantasy) I will know it is at least one thing I did right. I hope. It changes you, hopefully for the better. There are those who it changes for the worst and I know a couple but it does change you. Marriage doesn't change you...well, it didn't change me the first time round. I was still the same selfish prick I had always been but throw one or two children into the mix and you change. You have to. That person, that little loveable parasite demands everything from you and you give it willingly. (OK maybe begrudgingly but you give it)
And there is an unspoken understanding with other parents. A look perhaps, usually one of exasperation about new parents or a look of pride while you are out walking hand in hand with your kids. People joke about the hollering and griping that all of our parents did to us and we do to our kids but there are those rare occasions when you are all together on a summer afternoon and you truly belong.

I said it wouldn't write about this, I made a conscious effort to avoid it. But I am a parent, I am father and my heart aches for a family and the horrendous ordeal they are going through. I am likely to ramble and leap around from thought to thought but I am finding difficulty in making any kind of sense out of something that at it's best, is a senseless random act of violence and at it's worst, a cold and calculated act of cruelty and barbarity that couldn't have been committed by a human being and yet was. They say that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. I don't know that I am any more good than anyone else and I don't know that writing about this in a half-assed blog will ever do anything but I felt I had to. If only to say to another father, 'I am so sorry.'
The Tori Stafford trial has been going on for three weeks or a month now. For those that don't know, Victoria Stafford was an eight year old girl from Woodstock who was kidnapped on her way home from school, raped and murdered. The details from the trial have been coming out fast and furious and for Canada, unbelievably graphic. I won't go into the details here, I don't have the heart for it. I tried to avoid reading about it or watching it on the television but it is the lead story in every local paper and every news program.
I remember when she went missing, everyone talking about it. It seemed that everyone I knew was hoping and praying for this kid's safe return, hoping above hope that she would be found alive. I wondered aloud if we would all have felt as strongly about it when we were younger? Of course we were still human and it was a horribly sad thing but we were all parents now and suddenly this was hitting awfully close to home. It wasn't just anybody's little girl anymore, it seemed like she was everybody's. I remember the the quiet deflation that was in the air when her lifeless body was found.
Two people have been arrested and charged in this case and one confessed to her role in it. Her stories have changed several times as to her exact part in all of this but her guilt is undeniable. She is either responsible for the child's death or worse, allowed it to happen. And that is what I am really having a hard time with. What in the blue fuck is wrong with you that you could allow this to happen? How can you turn off 200, 000 years of evolution that makes want to care for and protect the young? Ever wonder why babies and puppies and kittens and every other young thing is cute? Ever felt like you needed to feed/ cuddle/ protect any or all of them? How do you turn that off?
And that is just it. Normal people can't. So if they're abnormal, do away with them. If killing them isn't palatable, then their life should pay the forfeit. Life in prison should mean LIFE in prison. I am not so certain that they deserve life of any sort but we are far too polite for that kind of retribution in Canada.
I'm angry and so are many, many people. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen in small town Ontario but it did. It has made many people cry out for justice...not the nice clean justice you get in a court room but the kind of justice that comes with the rough music of a lynch mob and I can't say I think it would be wrong if it happened.
My heart aches for this little girl I didn't know and for her father. I imagine her mother is going through hell too, how could she not be but her father is the public face of all this. He has shown remarkable restraint in the face of two very evil people. I have spoken at length with a co-worker, who assured me that were it him, there would be no need for a trial. It is a common sentiment and one that I imagine the little girl's father has entertained.
When I was a kid I tended not to do a lot of goofy getting in trouble type stuff because I knew full well that before I got home my mother would have known. By way of the original information super highway, other parents around my town. My mother would know exactly what I had done and be waiting for me. I hated it at the time. In retrospect, it was a very good thing. It was a small town we lived in and my mother looked out for the neighbour's kids as much as her own. It is what a community does. I still think it's a good idea. Rat my kid out and I may tell you to mind your own business in front of him or her but I will come over later and thank you for keeping an eye out for my kids.
What is the point of all of this...I don't think there is one. Look after one another, get to know your kids' friends parents. Look out for their kids and they'll look out for yours. I'm over simplifying I know but maybe something that simple can start a change for the better in the way we deal with each other... A hope maybe, a wish for some sense of peace for her parents. For some kind of justice...is there such a thing? What sort of justice is there for taking away everything a little girl had and all she ever will be?
I'm no authority on anything. I am not the voice of anyone of any importance but I am a father. Love your kids, do everything you can to keep them safe. Spoil them rotten, let them get away with too much. They are the best parts of you and the legacy you give the world...hell, let them maul the cat once in a while.


I picked up Izzy from school the other day and she was no different than any other day. We walked to the car and she ran and sang and danced her way into the back seat. We got the mail like any other day and headed home.
"Daddy, look at my owie." she said.
She had a large nasty blood soaked through bandage covering the middle of here knee, held in place by two tape sutures and two smaller bandages just below the bigger one.
"What happened!?!" I asked.
"I wiped out on the playground," she said. "I was running to get to the climber and I slipped on the pavement."
"That'd do it," I said. "Did you cry?"
"Daddy," she said in that tone that says you are the stupidest father on the planet. "Have you seen this bandaid? Of course I cried."
I told her that it should be cleaned up and re-bandaged. I was not allowed to touch the bandage in any form but I could re-apply the new one. It was a doozy of a scrape. A truly well skinned knee and her first. Were she a scab picker such as I was, this would be a momentous occasion. Her first real pickable scab. Somehwere during all of this bandaid removing, Mrs. Narrator came home and I was relieved of medical duty. The dressing was changed and for two days there were lengthy discussions of pus and non-stick tape. The bandaid is presently off and has been for several days. The scab will soon be ready to be picked, I can tell she is dying to have a go at it.
"I don't feel it at all when I touch it at the edges." she said. That's just how it starts...
Two days after the knee, I picked her up from school and noticed a pink tint to her face. For a girl that colours herself on a regular basis, this was not an uncommon thing but something was different. It was too symmetrical. Like a racing stripe from the bridge of her nose to the center of her top lip.
"What the hell happened to your face?" I asked her.
"Face-plant on the playground." she said nonchalantly.
"Did you cry?" I asked.
"Oh yeah." she said.
We got home and I said "go show your mother your new look."
Izzy ran into the living room and stuck her face in Mrs. Narrator's.
"What happened to you?" asked Mrs. Narrator.
"I'm a hot mess." said Izzy.
I am taking solace in the fact that, unlike the couch incident of a few years ago, I had nothing at all to do with her falling on the playground. Father of the year here I come! Incidentally, I've seen the note Izzy gave to Mrs. Narrator. It doesn't ask whether she likes Izzy or not. Either my daughter thinks I don't like her or she thinks I'm one of the girls...

Daddy's little girl comes back awhile...The Two Rings..

We went to the mall, just Izzy and me. To buy magnetic earrings and eat mall food.

Izzy: "Daddy, can we get my earrings first?"
Daddy: "No honey, I'm starving we should eat first."
Izzy: "(disappointed) OK. What are we going to eat?"
Daddy: " What do you want to eat?"
Izzy: "Chinese food!...Chinese food!...Chinese food!"
Daddy: "Do you want Chinese food?"
Izzy: "Can I get my own drink?"
Daddy: "What the hell, you only go around once."
Izzy: "Can I get the drink or not?"
Daddy: "Yes."
Izzy: "Doo...doo...doo...Chinese food!"

Isobel and I got to have a bit of a Father Daughter date night this past weekend. Off we went to the mall and I realized how long it had been since the two of us were on a road trip together, even if it was just to the mall and back and secondly, I had forgotten how honest and hysterically bizarre she can be. I'll share some of the choicest bits of conversations we had.

Spring is in the air and Izzy has assumed her usual spot on the hood of my car or playing inside of it. I figured now was as good a time as any to do my yearly cleaning. After many months of being forgotten, Santa was found under the front seat and returned to his rightful place of honour...
"Look who I found." I said.
"Santa!" she exclaimed upon emerging from under a pile of newspaper. She grabbed hold of him and hugged him and rocked back and forth.
"Well, we can't throw him out." I said.
"Oh Santa, I missed you so much." and she rained kisses upon him.
"OK Pick, are you gonna help me or play?"
"Me and Santa are going to play." she said.
"I thought you might. Alright I'm going to clean up some stuff in the garage."
She gave Santa a kiss and placed him gently on the hood of my car. She the proceeded to crawl up the hood and sit on the roof of my car. She had done it millions of times before but maybe she was a little out of practice since the last time she did it the previous summer, she slid off the hood as she was trying to get down and landed on the ground. It's not far to fall, even for her but I think it startled her a little. She winced a little and then stood up and held her arms up in triumph. Mustn't let the underlings see your weaknesses. She then gingerly took Santa from his perch on the hood of my car and set him on the ground, just as gingerly. She then booted him square in the face.

We were sitting in the food court. She was staring past me, looking over my shoulder and concentrating very hard.
"S-M-A-T."
"What?" I asked
"That's how you spell smart." she replied matter of factly.
"No," I started. "That is how you spell smat."
"What's smat?" she asked with a giggle.
"How the hell do I know? You spelled it.
She thought about it for a minute or two.
"Oh , right." she said. "S-M-R-A-T. See? SmarT-T-T"
"You know what?" I said. "That's plenty close for a Friday night."

She had nagged a little and whined a little more and threw down with the giant pouty lip and I finally relented and took her for ice cream after supper on Saturday. It was a nice night for March and who doesn't like ice cream? The Boy, apparently as he didn't want to go. He is getting to that age where being cool by not being spotted with his step father and baby sister far outweighs he desire for frozen treats. Or he found a good youtube video...tough to tell these days...
So off we went, just Izzy and I and she held my hand the whole way there.
"Daddy?" she asked.
"Yes my tulip."
"Daddy, do you think we will see the llama?" she asked.
"The what?" I asked.
"The llama," she repeated with a tone that said you are the stupidest man on earth. "You know, the one we always see when we are walking downtown."
"We see a llama when we walk downtown?" I asked. I scanned the back parts of my brain, trying to think what in the hell she meant. We passed a ratty old horse on the way to a restaurant in Mexico. And then like a shot, I got what she meant. One of the houses we pass on the way to the ice cream place used to have a small statue of a LAMB tucked away in one of their flower boxes. She noticed it when she was two years old and has clearly never forgotten it. We walked past the house and she saw it was gone.
"I was going to ask them if I could have it." she said with a note of sadness in her voice.
It was to be a day of disappointment, the ice cream store was closed. She stood there in the doorway, looking in side and I thought she was crying. I turned her around to comfort her and was met with a look that bordered on rage.
"We'll go to the store and get something instead." I said.
She followed me slowly and I heard her mutter, "I bet their ice cream sucks, that's why they're closed."
As we were walking home, she stopped and looked at a house that we have both always liked. An older Victorian style home. Not a mansion but no shack either. She gave a chuckle like someone revisiting memories from a very long time ago.
"What is it, Pick?" I asked her.
"I was just remembering something." she said. "I really like this house."
"I really like it too." I said.
"I was just remembering it when it had Alphagetti on it."
"When it had what on it?" I asked, obviously not hearing her correctly.
"When it had Alphagetti on it." she repeated.
No doubt about that one, that was what she said.
"Wait, what?" I asked. "When it had WHAT on it?" I was so not understanding something.
"Alpha-getti." she said.
We walked home not saying much but we didn't need to. She was still holding my hand (she held it the whole way there and back and I even got a kiss out of it) and in her other was a fistful of candy. She was happy and I was happy to have my pal back...I still don't have a fucking clue what she meant.


As I mentioned earlier, we went to the mall to get Izzy magnetic earrings. Six pairs per package! They were a bust. They don't stay attached unless you put all six magnets behind one earring. So I started thinking what would the harm be in the real thing?
I don't think Mrs. Narrator is too keen on the idea and maybe I'm not either. I did mine the old fashioned way, ice cubes and a safety pin but I do remember them getting a bit infected and what a pain it was to get them healthy again.
I'm not certain what a good age is? I don't know when Mrs. Narrator got hers done or my sister for that matter. I know Mrs. Narrator does not currently wear earrings and I know that I have seen babies...literally babies with earrings.
I also know I am no role model for leaving one's 'temple' the way it was found. I am virtually sleeved with tattoos and have had earrings and a nose ring at one time or another who am I to come out against self mutilation...even in a six year old?
She hasn't said anything in a while so maybe we'll just let this one alone for a while. It doesn't say anything about piercing the sleeping dog's ear after you've let him sleep...does it?

Endgame...Foosh...

Isobel is getting to that age now where she will avoid cleaning at all costs. There are unquestionably rare instances where she will clean of her own volition but it is only to acquire some new bit of shiny excitement or to distract me from something else she has done.
Isobel: "Daddy, can I have a snack?"
Daddy: "Sure."
Isobel:(ten minutes later) "Daddy, can I have a juice box?"
Daddy: "Sure. Did you pick up the bowl from your snack?"
Isobel: "Yup."
Isobel:(five minutes later) Daddy, can I have some cookies?"
Daddy: "Sure."
Isobel: "See ya."
Daddy:(getting up and walking into the living room only to discover three empty juice box containers and two empty snack bowls.) "Isobel, get in here."
Isobel: "What?"
Daddy: "What do you mean what? You told me you cleaned up this mess."
Isobel: "Well I didn't think...crap."
Daddy: "You didn't think you had to clean this all up?"
Isobel: "I didn't think you'd get up and look."



When The Boy was younger, it was always a difficult thing to play games with him. Any game. He always had to win and would want to bend the rules to make certain he did. When he was very young and we were playing games like snakes and ladders and tiddly winks (the rules of which have apparently changed from flipping coloured disks to lets see who can spread the little coloured disks around the table and then knock them on the floor in a fit of blind rage the quickest) it was fine to let him win. Hell, who could it hurt? The Boy didn't socialize with too many of my peer group and I was fairly certain Mrs. Narrator wouldn't rat me out for losing seven consecutive snakes and ladders contests.(In reality, I don't know that we played the actual game of snakes and ladders. But you get the drift of the game scenario, yes?)
As time went on and the wind started to whistle in the willows (wait, what?) Seriously, as The Boy got older and the games changed, he started to play things that I used to play. Monopoly and Risk and games that were fun, not just distracting bits of fluff. He also started to get better at video games. Much better. Where before he would actually ask me to play the game while he watched. Now he wanted to play and he did it well.
He still wanted to win and would get upset when he didn't. It was difficult trying to teach him that you can't always win everything and trying to understand that maybe his ADD was having an effect on his not understanding that. It was frustrating for me and more often than not, it was me who would stop playing any of these games. Partly because I didn't want to get angry over something as simple as a game of Monopoly and partly because I enjoyed playing these games competitively too and it wasn't much fun if you always knew the outcome. In retrospect it seems petty and stupid...it's monopoly or any other silly game for Christ's sake. The end result was if board games came out, he would no longer ask me to play. Before you get all boo-hoo on me, the video games never stopped. We still had those to play together and still do when he isn't playing one of the games he loves.( that I just don't get)
Fast forward a year or two and we are on vacation at Blue Mountain ( a quasi ski resort in Ontario. Naturally we went in the summer) In the resort there are many sweet shops and sidewalk cafes, that sort of thing but there were also giant outdoor chess and checkers sets. After a few rounds of stack the giant checkers with Isobel and declaring her the winner and champion of the universe, The Boy asked me to play chess with him.
"Do you know how to play chess?" I asked.
"I'm learning at school." he replied.
I was on the chess team in high school for a time. I am no Bobby Fischer by any stretch but I do enjoy the game. I figured this was a good way to teach him about losing well and gracefully. I figured at this age there was still a better than average chance I could beat him. I did. He didn't take it well and tried to talk his way out of it BUT he took it and I was proud of him for it. That year for Christmas, Santa (or maybe it was us) got him an electronic chess set. The pieces of which are tiny and my fingers, despite years of being stretched around the neck of a bass, are still too large to move pieces without knocking over six or seven others in the process. I beat him a second time but by a much narrower margin than before. He didn't ask to play chess with me for a very long time after that game.
One day, not that long ago he came home with a queen (stop it, not that kind) that had been spray painted gold.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Oh, I won the chess tournament." he said nonchalantly.
"Your class had a chess tournament? How many people did you play?"
"Not just my class," he said. "The whole school, everybody who plays chess. I don't know how many I played. A lot."
"You are the chess champion of the whole school?" I asked.
"Yeah."
He didn't ask me to play again until almost a week later. I figured he might. I was dying to play him again but I figured I"d let him decide when. Soon, I thought, I would be whipping the proverbial ass of the school champion...You don't get a gold queen for nothing.
We set up to play and within the first ten minuted he had three of my pieces. His game was organized and merciless but not flawless. I took a couple of his pieces and I could tell he hadn't expected me to get any. He doubled his efforts and poured on the pressure.
And then there it was. He had me but he hadn't seen it or didn't believe it. He made a different move altogether, one that did him no good what so ever...I tried, as best I could, to exploit this mistake on his part but and remember the part where I said I wasn't Bobby Fischer? Icouldn't stop the inevitable. He beat me soundly. Not only did he beat me, he whipped my ass. He insisted on taking every piece of mine off the board...because he could. At eleven years old, he is a better player than I was ever or ever will be...I should take him to Central Park and get him into some of the big cash games...hell, within a year or two we could pay off the house.



Foosh....I'll bet that's the sound it made. It couldn't have been any other sound. Not like dropping a toy which might be a 'bang' or spilling a glass of milk which is kind of a 'ker-splosh'. Snapping crayons go 'Krek'. Throwing a cat against the couch makes a 'Gafuffle-mrow' kind of noise. And the best is shaking the bottle of ketchup and opening it only to discover that air has built up inside and your easy pour dispenser is now a condiment cannon 'Fart-splock'. You know the sound, don't pretend it's never happened to you...but Foosh...
Foosh is very likely the sound it makes when your six your old daughter goes into the bathroom with an entire bottle of body glitter dust and decides it would be a good idea to close the door and let the good times roll.
She went in there, ostensibly to put on her regular six year old Barbie type make up. I saw no glitter. I heard the door close and still thought nothing of it. Maybe she wanted a little privacy to do her business or maybe she wanted the fantastic make up job to be a surprise for everyone. She is creative, I didn't want to stifle it if she was having a moment.
She was in there for five or ten minutes and I heard the door open slightly and out came a cat, running and shaking it's head. I didn't recall the cat being sparkly when we brought it home and went to investigate further.
If the blue fairy had knocked on our door begging to use the toilet because she had a hellacious case of the screaming shits and locked herself in for twenty seven minutes, there could not have possibly been more glitter in the bathroom. On the sink, the floor, in the floor mats, the ceiling , the toilet cover, any concievable surface where glitter could get, it got. The one place it didn't seem to get in any amount was my daughter. She was remarkably glitter free save from the generous portions around her eyes. I'm guessing this was her original target, somehow gone horribly awry...if there is anyone out there with any PCB's or toxic waste they need to get rid of, feel free to bring them over here. They have to be easier to clean up than disco glitter...FOOSH

Channeling the Old Man...What the F@#$ is that Smell!?!

Isobel and I are both sufferers of the Scottish curse. We are not creature of the sun. We were sitting down for supper after the first full day of Mexican sun.

Isobel: "I don't want to eat anymore."
Opa: "Aren't you going to finish your burger?"
Isobel: "No, I can't."
Daddy: "What? But it's one of Oma's best burgers."
Isobel: "I can't, Daddy."
Daddy: "Why not?"
Isobel: "Because of my sunburn."
Daddy: "Huh?"
Isobel: "When I eat, my eyebrows go up. When my eyebrows go up, my sunburn hurts."


I often find myself listening to the sound and words that come out of my mouth when I talk to the children. Most of the time it's me but every now and then, it's The Old Man. Not some random old man mind you but THE Old Man. My Father. It's inevitable, I think that we turn into our parents...or distilled versions of them. My grandfather, my Father's Father was a miserable, violent drunken sonofabitch who hated his own kids, never mind the little gutter snipes they had managed to spit out.
My father, in his younger days, was a mellower version of his father. He could be a handful when he drank and he had a snap temper that he would unleash when he got frustrated.( which seemed to be often) I am an even weaker version of the the original cocktail. I do shout more than I probably should and I mutter and grumble when I am drunk. Come to think of it I mutter and grumble most of the time. What do you want from me, I'm old...see, I am wandering away from the point. Old people do that a lot.
We had a dog when I was a kid. A schnauzer. I loved that dog though he didn't have much time for me. I remember seeing movies like Old Yeller, seeing a boy and his dog romping through the forest primeval OK I know the boy shot Old Yeller in the face at the end of that movie but right up to then it was the two of them through thick and thin. I hoped like hell that one day that would be me with our dog.
Now one very clear memory I have, every time I would get within ten feet of the dog I would hear; "Quit mauling that god-damned dog!"
It wouldn't matter where he was, my Father could sense me around the dog. He was in the garage once (completely detached from the house) he came in and wagged his finger at me. I told you to leave the god-damned dog alone! You keep mauling him like that and he's going to bite your ass!"
I was on the couch and the dog was on the floor...how in the hell did he know that I had been terrorizing the dog and running it ragged around the house trying to get it to be my best and only friend short moments before?
A little while after my Father unleashed his psychic prowess, the dog had surgery. A cyst or something removed from it's neck. He was groggy and grumpy and I was told in no uncertain terms that "If you maul that god-damned dog, you'll be sorry and I don't mean maybe." I'm still not clear on what he would have said if he did mean maybe. The message was received and duly noted. The cruel looking bandage wrapped around his neck with just a small spot of blood weeping through was enough to keep me away from him. But not for long.
For whatever reason, the dog chose to sleep with me. I took it as a sign. A sign from above-as clear as any I had ever seen in any movie or TV show. He had finally realized that I was the boy and he was the dog and this was Old Yeller! I was exuberant, overcome with the new found love that a boy can only share with a four legged best friend. I hugged him...tight. And he bit my face...hard.
I screamed and cried and my parents came running in. My face running with snot and blood and tears.
"Quit mauling that god-damned dog!" said my Father.
Every family has it's over zealous animal lover. We are no exception. Izzy cannot not touch the cats. She doesn't have a particular favourite, she loves them both equally...and incessantly.
We have tried to tell her on many occasions that if she doesn't stop, the cats will hate her and run when the see her coming. She was getting upset enough with us telling her to stop, that she said she was trying to get the cats to hate her...but even that didn't stop it.
The other day she had both of them tucked under each arm The cats were yowling and squirming and I snapped.
"Quit mauling those god-damned cats!" I said.
She dropped the cats but instead of the lip all a quiver, she looked at me puzzled.
"What's mauling mean?" she asked me.
"It's when you constantly pick something up and hug it and love all over it. Cats don't like that...nothing does really." I replied. "I have a scar on my lip from where our dog bit my when I was a kid, because I kept hugging on him and he didn't like it. That's how he told me to stop. Do you want the cats to do that to you?"
She shook her head.
"Of course you don't." I said. After she walked away looking slightly confused and defeated, I picked up the little black cat and mauled the holy creeping jesus out of it. If I have learned anything from having pets it's that he who controls the food can get away with murder...I don't even feed them the most, I can't imagine how much mauling Mrs. Narrator is getting away with.

We are no strangers to bodily functions at the Fuzzy Blue Chair. We have all in our own way developed a mastery of the bottom burp. Some of us more than others. Really Harold, is he talking about farting again? I'm a guy...and one that barely grew up...farts make me giggle and my kids too...occasionally my wife will laugh but strenuously deny it afterward.
But there is a new sheriff in town and a deputy too for that matter.
The kids and I were sitting around on Sunday afternoon. I had been sipping my favourite ale and was percolating nicely, thank-you. Izzy got up and said she needed to go to the bathroom. I'm not sure why but both kids insist on leaving the door open when they go to the toilet, regardless of what they're doing in there.
I was suddenly aware of a hellacious aroma wafting through the house.
"My god Izzy, that's terrible." I said. You need to close the door or turn the fan on or something."
"Daddy, I didn't do anything."
"What?" I asked.
I didn't do anything, I didn't go to the bathroom yet." she said.
I am acutely aware of my own bouquet and knew it wasn't me. The Boy was sitting motionless and blissfully unaware on the couch playing video games. He is unfamiliar with the smelt it/dealt it regulation and were he the guilty party, he would be happily sniffing away. The poor fool, he hadn't gotten a whiff yet. I didn't have the heart to tell him what was on his way, I figured he'd find out soon enough anyway.
"Oh my god, Sid!" said The Boy. "That's awful." And then he put his head down and went back to his video games. Smelling his own gas all these years has given him some weird kind of immunity.
Words cannot describe adequately what the smell was like. If you took a dead squirrel that you had rolled in week old dog crap and then stuffed it in a sweat sock that had been left in a gym locker in 1974 and then set that on fire, you might get close.
It was the cats...two little kitties. And it wasn't a full litter box, I checked repeatedly. Organic cat food, while I'm certain tasty and delicious has set these two furry little gas bags on a bodily function pedestal. Between the two of them, they can't weigh more than two pounds soaking wet but they have managed to make the entire house smell like Satan's bunghole...my biggest fear is that after the fifteen cans of the rotten stuff we got for free, the little buggers will have developed a taste for it...as I type this, I can smell the stench in the air and the nausea rising in the back of my throat thank christ we all quit smoking...open flame near this would just be whistling past the graveyard at this point...