Hap-pee-ly Ever After

She was peeing on the edges, and it wasn’t her fault, but her pee was getting on the carpet. The carpet that had been there for fifteen years already. She was thirteen, so she’d been peeing on the carpet for thirteen years.

She always seemed to think as long as her feet were inside the edges, she was doing her job right. So her feet were fine. It was just her pee was...not.

It wasn’t just her pee, either.

It.

Was.

Also.

Her.

Poop.

She thought the same thing with her poop as she did with her pee. As long as her feet were inside the edges, she was fine. Even if her poop hadn’t landed before she got up and moved.

And so it was that she had been peeing and pooping on the fifteen-year-old carpet for thirteen years.

And so it was that I had been cleaning that pee and poop on the carpet for thirteen years.

And so it was on that muggy May evening I had to leave her home alone to pick up an uncle from the airport. An uncle that was particularly critical of her relationship with said carpet. A carpet that she would surely have relations with again by the time I returned with my uncle as I would be gone during the hours of her prime pooping period.

Now she was already thirteen, and I had made peace with her poop particles intermingling with the skin cells on the undersides of my feet. As thoroughly as I cleaned, I understood that it was more than likely there would be some remainder of her poops clinging to the depths of the fibers of the fifteen-year-old carpet. But as they say...you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

It wasn’t dirty to me, though. Just as a mom wouldn’t bat an eye at the baby poop smeared on her face or at the baby vomit adorning her neck. I didn’t mind cleaning up after her, even if her poop brushed against my fingers. Even if her pee flooded under my fingernails as I squeezed it from the carpet. Even if I had to do it everyday. It was a labor of love, and I loved it.

But that particular night I loved it less. My uncle finding her party on the carpet would throw open the doors to his ear-numbing criticism and nauseating comparisons to his own precious that would never deign to associate with carpets.

What could I do when it had already been thirteen years?

She was a small, itty-bitty thing, and so her bladder was even more of an itty-bitty thing. No one was home to take her out ten times a day, and so we invited the puppy pad into our home.

But the itty-bitty thing had somehow sensed her sovereign status and decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to pee or poop on the same pad twice. So if it were time for both a pee and a poop, one would end up sneaking out to fraternize with the carpet. And that was only if she went well within the pad instead of on the edges, at which point neither the pee nor the poops were where they were supposed to be.

The solution turned out to be cutting up the puppy pads. I could simply cut off only the soiled area. Then the rest of the unused pad was at Her Majesty’s disposal, and She graciously accepted. But even that didn’t stop her preference for the edges of the pads.

This had been going on for the duration of her life, but now there would be no one to cut the pad for her while we were away at the airport.

It suddenly struck me that I could try covering the excess areas where her activities would spill over with extra puppy pads so that one-quarter of that room in our house became a carpet of puppy pads. All I had to do was cut the giant pads in halves or quarters to ensure they accurately covered each space of revealed carpet so that even if she wanted to pee locally and poop out over in Timbuktu, it would all be caught by the many pieces of halved and quartered puppy pads.

So we came back late on that dark night to a house filled with

Poop.

And pee.

On puppy pads.

All of it.

ALL OF IT.

And so it was that I had finally discovered the solution to the issue that had been plaguing our aged carpets for thirteen years.

The morning rush would no longer be marred by the white-hot shock of stepping on a poop on the carpet where there was only supposed to be carpet. Now there would only be safe side-stepping, outlined clearly by the bright blue edges of the pads, immediately followed by the locking of eyes with one beaming canine face, swollen with the pride of her feces fiesta safely chaperoned by puppy pads.

And so it was that we lived happily ever after, as with this small action of cutting up the pads several times a day, I could create our own happiness evermore.