“Personally, I don’t wear fur” –Karl Lagerfeld
“Personally, I don’t wear fur, except on my sleeve.” –Jeff Brown
I recently saw a bumper sticker that said, “I love my cat.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was a person who not only proclaimed to have a cat, but also admitted affection for it. Maybe I should get a bumper sticker too, but one that says, “Yes, two cats and a dog live in my house. Of course, I love them very much, but THANK GOODNESS FOR DUST BUSTERS.”
It seems no matter how much my wife brushes and bathes our tiny herd of mammals; clumps of fur seem to sprout up all over our carpet like dandelions in the spring. Then they blow around the house like little feline and canine fur comprised tumbleweeds.
I know what you must be thinking. Why don’t you help Vickie brush and bathe the pets? Well, it’s not my job. Before you go jumping to any conclusions, I do plenty of housework. It’s just that Vickie and I have a two-pronged approach when it comes to house-keeping. She wields the brush. I wield the Dust Buster.
Interesting fact: I’m pretty good with a Swiffer mop too.
I sometimes wonder if we should replace our conventional cats with the hairless variety. I think the ancient Egyptians were the first to breed these strange looking creatures. Apparently they loved their cats, but hated all the fur tumbleweeds blowing around inside their pyramids.
Maybe I could teach our cats how to shave. Imagine this…
I’m taking a shower. After a few minutes I notice I’m standing in a puddle. I look down and see the drain is clogged with cat fur.
Yeah, that’s probably not such a good idea.
Lately, it seems, most of the tumbleweeds are white. Since one cat is gray and the other is tiger striped, this can mean only one thing: dog fur. Arlo is an American Eskimo/Papillion mix. This means he’s 25% Eskie, 25% Papillon, and 50% fur. Well, probably closer to 40% fur. (The other 10% is in my vacuum cleaner.)
Arlo
Arlo is a very affectionate creature and he insists on sleeping in between my wife and me at night. He usually perches behind me with his head resting on my right shoulder. When I got up this morning my sleeve was plastered with white fur.
Yeah, that shirt’s in the hamper.
I can tolerate most of the fur I find, but the kitchen tumbleweeds are the ones that irritate me the most. The Five-Second Rule states that food dropped on the floor will not be significantly contaminated if it’s picked up within five seconds. I regard this rule the same way I do Bigfoot. (If he does exist, his shower drain must be a horror show.)
I assert there is no Five Second Rule, at least not at my house. I swear if you drop some food in my kitchen, the fur will leap up off the floor and cling to the food atoms before they hit the ground. Particle physicists call this mysterious molecular attraction “entanglement.” And most scientists agree that once Pop Tart atoms become entangled in a feline and canine fur comprised tumbleweed, there’s no way to separate them.
Just give it to the dog.
Arlo, Shadow, and Lacy