Off the Mark by Mark Parisi for November 30, 2020

Nope, a hungry cat always works, even with no power

My snake wouldn’t be throwing up on me.

I can be sound asleep at 3 am, but if I hear that sound I am instantly awake.

When you regret having an elephant as a pet..

A newborn crying is more effective.

First thought was that was a fish bowl. Throwing up? Coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.

Hair balls in the night….

…IN your shoes…

you probably can find it as an mp3 or so and use it in your phone instead of spending who knows how much in a device that only plays one sound

This morning at 4:30.

Mine blares out Ex-Term-In-Ate

I’ve been saying that for YEARS (I have had many dogs – my own and fosters). For your edification:

THE FOUR TYPES OF DOG VOMIT

YELLOW URKA-GURKAS — Dog runs around the house and hides under furniture while making a prolonged ‘uuuurka-guuurka, uuurka-guuurka’ noise. (this noise is the only thing guaranteed to wake up a true dog lover who is hung over from a post-dog-show celebration at 3:30 a.m.). After mad scrambling to capture the dog and drag her outside, the episode ends with an indelible ten-yard line of slimy yellow froth from the living-room rug to the back door.

BLAP DISEASE — Dog exercises hard and a) eats large mouthfuls of snow (Winter Blap Disease), or b) drinks a bucket of water (Summer Blap Disease). Within two minutes of returning inside, the dog spews out large amounts of clear slimy liquid while making a distinctive ‘blap’ sound and sharp percussive noises as it hits the linoleum.

GARKS — Dog suddenly clears her throat with loud and dramatic ‘gggaark, gggaark,’ noises, generally followed by prolonged ‘iiikssss’ and then loud, satisfied, smacking noises. There is nothing on the rug. DON’T investigate; you DON’T want to know.

RALFS — Apropos of nothing, the dog strolls into the dining room and waits ‘til the innocent dinner guests are all watching her. Then with a single, deep, gut-wrenching ’raaaalfff’, she disgorges the entire week’s contents of her stomach on the dining room rug.

VARIATION: then she eats it.

In all the above events, the dog is entirely healthy and indeed deeply pleased with herself.

A few years ago, we started having a lot of floor cleanups and we assumed it was due to our oldest cat and her chronic health problems. But, we were surprised to discover that cats can have food allergies. One of our youngsters is allergic to chicken, of all things (usually the allergy is to milk products or tuna). A major difficulty is that chicken and chicken fat (sometimes disguised as ‘poultry’) is in about 95% of all wet and dry cat foods. But we manage. If your cat is upchucking more than ‘fur balls’, suggest you check with a vet to see if a change in diet will solve the problem.

There will come a day when you get so used to it you can ignore it and that fateful day will be the day it wasn’t the alarm you heard.

Ignore it……………..until you step in it in the morning.