Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Again, the Bunnies Never Go Away

The Big One kept trying to charge her phone, and it wouldn't work. It's a fairly new phone, so we checked the battery to see if it was OK, and it seemed to be.

Turns out, the bunny that was under her bed, the one she and her BFF caught, had chewed the bling off her phone which was charging under her bed. Apparently, the bunny also chewed up the cord on the charger.

So thanks to the wildlife in my house, I'm out $15 for a charger and my closet STILL smells like something died in it.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

There'll Be Peace When You Are Done

Well the dead bunny in the closet is still with us.

I took the box that The Ex put on the curb with the remains in it, put it in a garbage bag, tied it off, and put it in the trunk of my car as I backed it out of the garage to go to work. I took it to work to throw in the dumpster. The box was in my car for less than fifteen minutes, and my car still smelled like, you guessed it, something died in it.

After I got all the remains and creepy crawly things out, the smell remained, even after I doused the closet with air freshener and I sprayed everything down with vodka. (it's a theater trick - the vodka evaporates and eliminates the odor)

This morning I took all the clothes and coats from the closet outside, hung them on the table and chairs, sprayed them down with still more vodka, and am hoping the air and sunshine will take care of the remaining odors.

If this doesn't work, I may have to burn them.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Carrion My Wayward Son

Two evenings ago, The Big One, The Boyfriend and I came home from a show to a really weird smell in the front hall. I had cooked dinner earlier, and given my history in the kitchen, I just assumed it was a leftover cooking smell.

The following day, we smelled it again, just in one spot in the front hall. It was starting to smell like a really dirty garbage can. I thought maybe something had gotten caught inside the vacuum cleaner and rotted, so I cleaned it out and found nothing.

This morning, the smell was REALLY strong. I pushed back the coats and things, and moved the baskets and boxes around and still nothing.

So when I got home from work this evening, I was greeted with, "Mommy, Daddy found what was stinking up the closet."

Apparently, The Almost Feral Cat brought home yet another dead bunny, and instead of leaving it in The Big One's room, hid it under the baseboard in the back of the closet. It must have been in there longer than 3 days, because it was full of other sorts of flora and fauna that I'd just not rather go into right now. Let's just say it looked like something from one of Gil Grissom's crime scenes, and he was really happy about all the visitors who had taken up residence there.

So I scraped out the remains, and sprayed everything down with 1:100 bleach . I washed all the gloves, hats and scarves that were in the basket in hot water and did two cycles in the dryer, just in case.

The upside is that The Ex probably threw up.

So tomorrow I'm making a trip to the pet store for a break-away collar for the cat. With a bell.

Don't you cry no more.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Once Again, Wild Kingdom

Night before last, The Big One comes into my room at 12:30 AM: “Mommy, The Almost Feral Cat brought a bunny in my room. And it’s not dead.”

Honestly, it’s easier to deal with the dead bunnies than the live ones. The last live one we had got named, and practically moved in with us. I can just scoop up the dead ones and plop them in the trash.

So after about 20 minutes of trying to catch this poor bunny, I gave up. I told The Big One to get in my bed, closed my bedroom door, and figured the cat would take care of the bunny. After all, she’s the one who brought it home, so it’s her responsibility.

I didn’t find anything the next morning, so I figured we had a bunny corpse under the bed somewhere, so I told The Big One to have her dad look for it when he came over.
Apparently, they couldn’t find it, because when I came home from work, The Big One, The Little One and The Big One’s BFF, Genius Girl, were in her room, wearing oven mitts and trying to coax the bunny out from under the bed with brooms and whatever else they could find. There was a lot of screaming and squealing going on, so I left them to it.

After about 45 minutes, they managed to corner it and get it in a shoebox. We took it outside and let it go. I’ll bet that was one relieved bunny.