[squirell nutkin]

Maybe this doesn't belong here, but it seems apropos.

Mrs. Nutkin (Not Goodye Tiptoe) has been on this "We need a leather couch" jag for a few months. Since we got rid of our old couch ostensibly due to young Nutkin's allergies to Dogs, Cats, Dust and other vessels of human psychological projection.

After a few weeks of near regular searches of Craig's list I found a leather couch for sale about an hour and a half away. I called the woamn and got the 411 on the couch and though she had cats and dogs, I figured it was leather and therefore easy enough to clean.

She also told me that she'd only had the couch for a week when she decided that it was too nice to let the cats trash it.

Then she tells me she's the animal control warden and has 7 or 8 dogs, 50 cats, (some living in the barn) 15 horses, Arabian goats, etc etc.

I get there, the couch is in decent enough shape and had been kept under a blanket. The house stinks to high heaven. It reeks. The smell of shit and animals is truly overwhelming. I cannot describe how bad it smelled. Perhaps like Hercules' ball sack after he'd just finished cleaning the Aegean stables.

So the woman's husband and kid move the sofa and chair and ottoman out to the truck for me. Very nice. On the drive back home my buddy and I reek from just standing in the house for 10 minutes. We move the stuff into my kitchen where it now sits awaiting a total disinfecting and sage / pine incense treatment. Then I'll febreeze it, put the ozone machine in there, then take it out into the yard and burn it.

At least I don't have to hear about the fucking couch any longer.

But this woman adopted and rescued all of those animals in her capacity as warden. I imagine most of them would be as happy to be put to sleep. I mean since we're projecting our feelings onto animals and all.