Poop Story #2: Poop Shovel

Ok...time for the next poop story. I think you've all been waiting long enough. So here you go...

Around the same time that Oliver had his pooper poked, our pooper got clogged too. Toilets everywhere were regurgitating unwanted solids, things weren't draining, the basement was getting unnaturally wet, etc...

We had the problem about a month prior and we thought we were in the clear. Apparently not. The vent pipe in the yard had a new habit of vomiting used toilet paper and solid watse. mmmm.

So we called the Roto-Rooter guy. He came post haste.

In he pulls with his poop-mobile and he unloads all of his poop tools. I went in the house and start to do some work. After about 15 minutes, I look out in the yard and he was standing there staring at the vent pipe...I decided that if I'm gonna get this guy out of here within the first hour I should probably go help. Out I go. I started by making small talk blah blah blah. Then he told me that he seems to have hit something strange. I think, "Hey it's a drainpipe...There's probably all sorts of crap down there". Ha ha...heh...uh...ok that wasn't funny.

I asked if I could take a look and lo and behold there was something weird down there. Looking at it, I thought it might have been a dead rat. For a split second I imagined sitting down on the toilet and having a rat jump up at my jubblies. Not a good thought.

He got a really long stick and poked at it. 'clink clink' It wasn't a rat. My next thought was of us digging up the back yard because the pipe was broken. Thankfully, that thought was diffused quickly because it appeared to have moved when he poked it. So...the poop-man goes off to his poop-truck and comes back with another poop-tool. It's a really long metal stick with a little grabby-hand at the end. My thought immediately jumped to a sadistic proctologist's tool.

He asked it I could help him with it. We were going to grab whatever it was and pull it out. After about 10 minutes of "Ok...close the hand. Damn. Missed." We finally got a hold of what I thought to be the rat's tail. We lifetd it out and...it was a trowel. A very poop covered, worn looking, gardening trowel.

It was strange, but as soon as I saw it I knew exactly when and how tat thing got down there. Maribeth, Declan and I were all doing yardwork one day about 4 to 6 months prior. We got rid of a so-called 'decorative' landscaping feature: a round blob of rocks with bushes on it. Maribeth had the gardening tools out because she was gardening by the lilac bushes and I was scooping up the last of the rock-blob. Declan was behind me and I heard this 'clack clack clack'. I thurned around and there was lil man. He had popped the vent pipe cover off and was 'stirring' the weeder in the pipe and had the cultivator in his other hand. I grabbed the weeder, put the lid back on and got the cultivator from him...it never dawned on me that he had already dropped the trowel down the pipe.

Needless to say, I am glad we were able to retrieve the obstruction and this will definitely be brought up in his teenage years as leverage...I kept the trowel as evidence.

up next..."Santa Nuts"

Poop Story #1: Cat Bowels

Well. It has been a little while since our last posting. This time we were legitimately busy. Before I go into the lovely subject of cat bowels, I want to backtrack and talk about the housework we wanted done by Dec 1st. The list was as follows (followed by the progress made):

1. a finished dining room (DONE!!...just needs some crown moulding and paint touch up)
2. a bartop installed (almost done. Needs trim and grout)
3. a countertop that doesn't move when it's leaned on (DONE!!)
4. hood over the stove (nope)
5. tin ceiling installed (we ordered and painted samples...we need to order the rest)

All in all, we're not doing too bad.

Ok back to the poop. Oliver seemed to be getting fat over the course of a few days, so when I came home and he was meowing and lethargic, we got concerned. He was running all over the house squatting so we came to the conclusion that his pooper was clogged. We called about 6 different vets but to no avail. They all referred us to the PETS emergency place in Lancaster. All other optins exhausted, we decided to call a friend of ours who works in a vet (assisting with surgeries and such). Angie came over with a little plastic bag full of stuff..."hmmm...what could that stuff be?" I wondered.

I didn't have to wait long. She opened the bag and pulled out a rubber glove and some KY Jelly. Here we go. On the tile floor with a towel in hand and a cat in the other she asked me to hold him down. Ugh...the glove goes on, next is the KY Jelly aaaand 'bloop'! In it goes. Ollie didn't like that very much.

After violating the cat we waited to see if things would get flowing again. Nope. Then the phone rings. It was one of the vets we had called. He said that as long as the cat is peeing, we should be good to wait until the morning but we should take him in to get an enema. Figuring that we traumatized Ollie enough we decided we would wait until the morning to take him to the vet.

The sun came up and Ollie was off to the vet. Maribeth took him in and all was well. It turns out that he wasn't stopped up at all...it was his peeper not his pooper. He had a urinary tract infection and his bladder was full. So medications were prescribed and passed along to Oliver's insides and he is doing much better.

Coming up next: Poop Story #2: Poop Shovel