The Ass of Terror!

The last week and a half has been a whirlwind of birthday parties and back-to-school parties for all three kids. At one of them, the Wee Ginger Beastie acquired a balloon. Bright red, cheerful and fat with helium, it floated merrily on the end of its yellow curly ribbon.  We tied it to the foot of her bed. She was pleased to no end.

Bitey considers all things ribbon-like to be edible. He also considered the balloon to be his mortal enemy. Last Wednesday, while we were out, he attacked, deflated the Red Sphere of DEATH and summarily devoured its Unholy Yellow Tether of Tastiness. Drama abounded. The conquering hero rested on his laurels (actually, a ladybug pillow pet) with an exceedingly smug look on is face as he was scolded by his teary mistress.

Thursday night, I got home from class to find everyone in the house asleep, despite what sounded like a thundering herd of wildebeests rampaging through the dining room. I dropped my messenger bag and flipped on the light to be confronted by quite a scene.

Bitey, frantic and wild-eyed, being chased around the dining-room table by a piece of his own poo.

It seems that the ribbon had made its way through his digestive tract largely whole. He crapped out a ball of poo-compacted ribbon...but the remainder of the ribbon was still in his butt. There was a golf ball-sized turd tethered to his pucker by about five inches of ragged yellow ribbon. Bitey found himself terrorized by this smelly follower, and was unable to escape from it no matter how fast he raced around the table.

I grabbed a handful of paper towels, cornered the cat and gently tried to remove the menacing piece of excrement, only to discover that there was still a great deal of ribbon lodged inside the cat.

Have you ever watched a magician perform the "never-ending scarf trick?"
Have you ever struggled to pull-start a chainsaw?

Close your eyes and imagine a twenty-pound, wildly flailing, howling, spitting, hissing Cuisinart with a shit-soaked pull-start cord.

Yeah.

Fucking cats.