Toilet Paper And Litter Boxes

The last several years were turbulent. I would like to say I came from a dysfunctional family. I would like to say that, but that is a vague assumption. Truth is I’m dysfunctional. I can try to fit in but come across as fake. Best I can do is damage control. I had everything I could ever want and no plan. What were my resources. Money and BS.

As I was entering the scary teen years, my mother asked me if I wanted to get married someday. I said yes, I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. She laughed. I wished I could find the humor in it.

Then came probably the scariest part of my life, I was glad to leave everyone else’s version of my problems, but what was I going to do with my version?It seemed I was destined to go through life without a plan. No goals seemed to get my attention.

Then my sister told me I should work with animals. This was after I muddled through my vocational no man’s land. But I thought, why not. I wasn’t getting anywhere with people. No one grabbed my attention either.

I still had the goal of getting married. At 32, a man finally caught my attention. He had curly light hair like me, a coincidence he seemed unaware of. He was born on the same month and day and I was and had a twin brother. He smiled and said he’d never forget my birthday that way. He didn’t want children, but by then I had cut my losses. So we married. His grown kids and grandkids were mine by proxy, as he put it. My mother noticed. He was poor but had it together enough for my mother to be impressed. He would die 11 years later of throat cancer.

Fast forward to marriage two. I didn’t think I would ever get married again. Even then, I thought I had done enough. But then, husband number two happened. He wanted no part of the friend zone. But I wanted him in my life badly enough to marry him. So we married. However, I could do no right by him. At the time, I believed in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. By his own admission, he had more than one mental illness. But he wanted to bring us together. So he decided to get a dog. Not just any dog, a St. Bernard. I was happy holding her in a blanket like a baby. Then he suggested we go back for her sister! I guessed he would help me get to them walked as they got bigger. I am a small person. He couldn’t walk far. No way was I going to walk two full grown St. Bernard’s by myself without incident. Surely, he had some way to afford a dog walker. Time passed and the dogs got bigger. Still, there was no sign of a dog walker. The last time I tried to walk them both I got reprimanded. After that, it was one at a time.

My generous mother was still alive at the time and bought me a ticket to see family in Argentina. Of course, my husband, with all the denial of some with multiple illnesses volunteered to care for the dogs. Here was a chance for him to look good. Poor dogs!They weren’t walked at all and the husband just sat ther and hallucinates all over them.

The guy was finally put in a home where he died of Alzheimer’s and renal failure. His last request was to see thedogs. I couldn’t even round them long enough. To this day, I still get put down for this relationship. My mother died insisting I didn’t know better. Even if I was the one who set him up in the home with his own small bank account. Even took care of two husband’s funerals. Still my mother refused to see me as capeable.

So here I am with three St. Bernards. Walking them was a drama. One got lose, ran into a neighbors house and attacked their owner. There were only minor injuries, but how could I get out of this mess?’

Then came the walk where the same dog trampled a neighbor. I could see it coming. The dog was straining at the leash, trying to chase a stray dog. I braced myself, grabbing onto a tree. I waved at the neighbor, begging her to get out of the way. She just stood there smiling. Sure enough, the dog broke free and bowled the neighbor over.

Soon a kindly realtor set me free from terrorizing the neighborhood. Following my three imprisoned dogs in a van, I arrived in a small city 55 minutes south of where I lived. The dogs would unwittingly entertain the neighbors while they lived their lives in misery. A lawsuit from the previous place followed me. It was dismissed, but if anyone needed proof that problems can’t be moved away from, this was it.

“You need to rehome them,” I was warned repeatedly by onlookers. No kidding.It took me sometime to get over the fact that I had failed at something at again. It didn’t matter how difficult the task was. Over the years, the dogs died off. Two of old age, one of heat stroke.

It was while waiting for my last dog to die, that the changeover began. It was winter then. It was a typical snowy southern Texas morning, which meant sleet. I opened the back door to find a young tuxedo cat huddled in the cold. Truth!

One dog was left and she longed for her sisters. The dog lay there looking haggard. I was able to play with the cat for some time before she knew the cat was there.

She perked up, as if sensing a long lost favorite dog toy. Too late. I had grown attached to the cat. The dog resigned herself to her aching bones. I had to push and drag her up the steps to the house. Then I wet her down and dried the floor around her. It was a few agonizing moments before could get up and lay back down on the bedroom floor

I sunk down on the couch. The cat walked onto my lap, laid down and went to sleep, purring confidently. After an hour of this, I had to go check on my drama of a dog. She had made onto the bed. It was time to let the cat out and get ready for moans of pain and grief from the dog.

The days crept by. The dog was still only ten years old. I didn’t know how much more I could stand. My only consolation was that big dogs aged faster. The pulling and dragging continued. Then one day, I just left the dog on her own. She just stood there looking in my direction. Could I possibly find peace as a dog owner? That evening, the perky young cat was back. Then she left and there was more pain and sadness from the dog. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I made two phone calls, one to put her down and one to friend to help me get her there. That last day, I fed her all the rib bone she could handle. She looked surprised and happy. Evidently, she was suspicious because put up a minor struggle the next day. Even my friends who were helping me didn’t know she wouldn’t be coming back. Just as well as I was at a loss for words.

It was over. Just as I prepared to cry in private, I heard it, an audible snort. There was no one in the house and certainly didn’t come from me. The friend who helped me said that dogs’ souls stay on earth six hours after dying. Whatever the case, it was super cool.

The cat seemed to know the coast was clear as she slept with me that night. The next day, I opened the back door, expecting her to slip out. Instead there was another cat pulling the same stunt she did. I could feed two cats, but no way was I keeping them locked up. Let the neighbors get their own entertainment!

You get the idea. The next day there were three cats and so on. There was a pandemic going and a voluntary quarantine was in place. The restaurants were closed, so tasty morsel’s were no longer left for cats to find. They migrated to residential areas. They found a soft touch in this inexperience resident.

I was lucky. As one the lucky few not relegated to the toilet, I could go out and make money to buy litter boxes anytime. I had too many unpaid things to do, though. And my job was an impractical side job. Then there was vet bills and the drama of taking cats to the vet. As if to sense I had enough, the first and second cat disappeared one day. That was it for me. No more making pets of strays.

What’s the point to all this? You can only do so much. Then you have to take what life gives you.