“Something has happened to Loken.”
These were the words my future mother-in-law spoke to me.
“Something,” she said, “has happened to Loken.”
Loken is our cat.
Please, I thought, let him be run over by a fucking tractor.
Something had indeed happened to Loken, though let’s examine that sentence carefully. Something “happened to” him. That implies some kind of passive scenario: an event that occurred to him, despite his own innocence.
This was not the case. In the scenario that took place, Loken’s involvement transcended the passive tense. He was, to some degree, the instigator. The inceptor. The master of fucking ceremonies.
Look at this picture. Do you know what it is?
This is farm slurry.
For those of you who aren’t aware of what farm slurry is, I’ll enlighten you. It’s liquidised animal shit, saved up for months and months.
“Something has happened to Loken,” she said.
Oh, yeah. Something happened to Loken all right.
Seeing a cat absolutely covered in liquidised animal crap is one thing, but smelling a cat absolutely covered in liquidised animal crap is truly a life-changing experience. Â I can’t comment on whether he actually enjoyed falling into slurry, but I can reliably say he didn’t enjoy the bath I gave him afterwards. And I didn’t enjoy it, either. About halfway through, he shook himself free in the disgusting brown shit-water, and a bunch of the stuff hit me in the face.
Indeed, in the eyes.
Now, I care about the well-being of irritating, hateful animals to the extent living with a female requires, but never before has a small creature come so close to dying by my hand.
Loken is “playing outside” tonight, and if I happen to run him over tomorrow while driving Katie to work, I will not be mourning at the funeral.
Ugh, and the aftertaste.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden 
just throw him out the window into the pond. That’s how i solve my problems. 🙂
Dave
Man, that is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time.
The only thing I’ve been doing lately is pulling mangled field mice from the jaws of my dogs.
…no farm slurry
“It’s material, Aaron.” That’s what you need to keep telling yourself. “I’m a writer, and this is all material.”
I can’t describe the face I have at the moment. It’s a mix between hilarity-ensuing laughter and grossed out head shaking. A smile and frown combined in one…
Totally worse than stepping on animal diarrhea.
Hahaha XD
Ah, cats. These wonderful creatures, all cuddly furballs one moment and then depraved masochistic serial killers the next. Three years ago we spent the summer in a our cottage while our new house was built, and we let our two cats roam free every night.
One of them, a bordering-on-fat and slow tubby spent most of the time sleeping in the foot end of the bed. The other however, a sleek and almost shark-like specimen spent her nights stalking the neighborhood like a silent terror. I can easily imagine scenes that would rather belong in a Night Lords novel taking place during those nights.
Each, and I mean each and every night she would bring home a live animal, which would then have to be painstakingly slowly, but surely, DESTROYED right next to my bed. Be it blackbirds, mice or other, I would wake to terrified quips or hopeless fluttering of wings following by the crunches and cracks of feline incisors breaking small skulls and bones in half.
At least she was clean about it. When it was a rodent only the green wobbly bit remained, she would even lick the blood off the floor. When it was a bird, all I had to do the following morning was to sweep up some tattered feathers and a beak with a dustbroom.
The funniest thing is, she’s such an adorable cat in the day time, constantly purring and seeking affection, all harmless and shit… But I guess, in a way so is Dexter.
See…..this is why dogs win.
Yeah so they enjoy rolling themselves in faecal matter when out and about but all you need is a stick, a pond or river and they clean themselves. Or failing that a hose in the back garden and they LOVE it.
But what’s best about dogs is that they’re pretty single minded and easily distracted away from that be pile of excrement.
Welcome to the joys of pet ownership!
Haven’t stopped laughing since I read it this morning which made it pretty hard to teach this morning. I could hardly tell them the story…
Thanks for that, I needed the laugh 🙂
I guess that’s given you the materiel to do a deathguard shortstory
Not a cat person then…
Truly a WTF! situation with how Loken managed to get there in the first place… Reminds me of the joke about the guy who takes a cat to the vet and says “my cat has no nose,” the vet replies “How does he smell then” and the man replies “Fucking aweful, he just managed to fall in a slurry pit!”
So I guess the question now is whether Loken survived the 24 hours? ;p
Wow. That makes my morning parfait seem so much more…I’m kinda shuddering right now, actually.
Was it tangy? Or a bit Salty?
I know this sounds bad but if I was in the situation I would probably go Cat in cage, garden hose to get the big chunks and liquid off. Then a regular bath to remove the smell.
I think we have to face the facts that Loken is a Bad Cat.
Some cats are ace: Merlin was (still is?), my cat’s ace and so was my Granddad’s cat. Eddie was just stupid, not mean. These are cats I can vouch for.
But Loken. Loken might be evil.
He might be one of those cats you see in cartoons that are always trying to kill something with stuff from a mail order catalogue. He might be trying to take over the world, or at least spread disease.
Get a vet, get an exorcist, get both if you can spare the cash!
PS
No, I still haven’t forgiven him for what he did to my face.
Awww, he shook the crud off because he loooooooves you!
😉
I had to hold my cat after she had an emergency enema to get rid of blockage, so I can relate. I’ve also had to bathe a dog after a skunk spritzed him down. Yuck!
This story was the highlight of my birthday morning, I almost spat coffee all over my monitor.
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Sir Winston Churchill
Shit man! I’m in a meeting here and had to *really* struggle not to laugh out loud here.
Here’s hoping you don’t get an eye-infection. Farm slurry is an extremely bacteria-rich environment, after all.
Oh… And “HIDANABNETT!” 😉