A Room With a Spew (warning: those with weak stomachs read no further)

I have always loved living with cats. The unconditional love and sweet snuggly moments far outnumber the more, ummm, demanding ones. For example, have you ever known the unique experience of listening to a cat heave a hairball? Thankfully, my felines expel these slimy fur nuggets on rare occasions. In fact, it had been a while since I'd heard the telltale sound of choking and spewing. I couldn't recall the last time I'd unexpectedly found my bare foot mushed into a spongy mass of kitty's midnight purgefest. Then last week, amid my peaceful slumber, my forty winks were fractured by that unmistakeable, unearthly gutteral sound happening in the other room. This is usually the time I lie beaneath my cozy covers and consider the following questions: Is it close enough to my normal wake-up time that I should just get up, clean up the hairball and stay awake? Is facing the cold, wet mass in the morning worth my ignoring the situation and drifting back to sleep? Does my husband also hear this and is pretending to still be asleep? And one final thought: thank goodness the cat is not on my bed.

Sometimes I wonder if it's worse to accidentally step into a fresh, warm hairball or a cold clod that has already set into the carpet. And that brings me to another point. If given the choice of expelling on the porous carpet or the easy-to-clean hard floor, my cats will undoubtedly choose the carpet. If I see the vomitorium's opening ceremonies happening on a carpeted surface, I will attempt to move the kitty to the linoleum. Imagine this: The cat's head is thrashing forward, eyes bulged, sounding like Regan from The Exorcist. I am holding him away from my body, sprinting across the living room and attempting to land him on the kitchen floor before his special delivery becomes my latest accessory. But to answer my original question: Stepping into a warm hairball is definitely worse at the time of impact, but the cleaning portion includes less scrubbing and scraping.

As I mentioned previously, my cats rarely hack and heave and for that I am thankful. And when they do, it's usually around the holidays and I can clearly see decorative curly ribbon woven throughout the festive Christmas-clump. How thoughtful and creative are they?? I suppose in the world of co-habitating with a cat, one must expect little inconveniences like the occasional hairball. It could be worse -- I once heard about a cat who spewed on his human's head while he was sleeping. Yeah, I think I might get out of bed for that one.