You know how sometimes people say having pets is like having kids? It’s true. Especially when it comes to the gross stuff. Let this serve as a warning right now to those with weak stomachs.

Of all of my cats, Vlad is the fastest eater, and this means many times he winds up barfing up what he just ate. This morning was one of those mornings. It’s funny, when I first brought my little 5 pound boy home, anything like kitty poops or barfing would gross me out. Now my boy weighs 16 pounds and quite frankly at this point, it no longer phases me.

This morning he had finagled his way up on top of the fridge and in between Kiska and her plate of food. When this happens, Kiska jumps down to Vlad now empty plate, and I take her plate, split what’s on it in half, and give Kiska half of what she’s left and give Vlad the rest. It’s not totally fair, but Vlad is bigger than her, not just in weight, and in reality, he does need a little more food than she does. Anyway, everyone went about their business, finishing their food and me washing plates as they were all done. I was at the sink, and I heard the tell-tale sound of Vlad getting ready to spew. When I hear this sound, I immediately go into panic mode!

I say panic because Vlad doesn’t just barf, he turns into Linda Blair kitty and what comes out turns into projectile grossness. AND he was on top of the fridge. Not a good place to barf from. I won’t go into what happened the last time he barfed from on top of the fridge. I looked up and he was getting ready to go and all I had was, well my hand. Yeah, you know what happened. He actually barfed on top of the fridge, but close enough to the edge that it came down like hot lava down a mountain. The paper towels were in front of me, but I wasn’t fast enough in tearing a piece off, so I had to block the flow with my hand. Ack! I wouldn’t have been so panicked about it expect my fridge is like most, sandwiched (sorry for using food reference at this point) between the wall and my counter. The space between the counter and fridge is millimeters and cleaning anything between that space means pulling out the fridge, cleaning the fridge and cabinet side then pushing the fridge back, and I had no time for that.

Well, I stopped the flow with my hand and by that time I had some paper towel in my other hand so I managed to sweep the rest up to the top of the fridge, where Vlad was patiently waiting for me to clean up the mess so he could go on eating what was left of his food. He made sure not to barf on the plate. I washed my hands, and it took me all of 5 seconds to clean up. I’ve become a lean mean barf/poop cleaning up machine.

I remember when my friends were always talking about their kids bodily functions when they were babies. This was all the time! I always had to just sit there and listen, not saying anything because I didn’t want to offend them! Not long ago, I was doing the same and my friend reminded me how I would complain about her talking about her kids stuff. I calmly said, “Yes, I complained about it, only after you had bitched and moaned heartily about how much diarrhea your kid had and the color and bouquet. So I think I’m entitled to the same.”

So there!