Dear friends,

I wish I were writing to tell you that I won the Powerball, or that I discovered a way to get my clients off of drugs, or that I have found the perfect pair of underwear that never shows lines, or that a big-name agent sold the movie rights to my book.

But I’m not.

I’m writing to tell you that my life has become a never-ending stream of cat vomit. Ketos has been spewing vomit like a garden hose, and that is now my life.

Doug and I generally play by the You Saw it First Rule. “You saw it first!!” I will call from the bedroom when I hear Ketos hacking up some vom in the living room, where Doug is writing songs/being a cowboy/whatever it is he’s doing with his life these days.

We awoke the other morning to a big pile of vomit on the kitchen counter. I saw it first but waited until Doug noticed and then pointed out delightedly that he saw it first.

Later that day I was tucked peacefully away in the study diligently writing about the loss of innocence and other really profound shit when Ketos came over and hacked out some vom onto the carpet right beneath me.

“Ha!” Doug called from the living room. “Have fun with that carpet barf! You acted so smug earlier when you didn’t have to clean up the counter barf, but there will never be an easier barf than that!”

I used to clean up each barf spot with a rag and then throw the rag away, but I ran out of rags long ago. Now I just dab the spot with a paper towel and accept that it will be forever browned. (Incidentally, Forever Browned is the name of a song I’m writing as a sequel to Rod Stewart’s 1998 smash hit Forever Young. I anticipate it being pretty popular among cat owners).

Our carpet really stopped mattering to us a while back, which was truly made evident the day Doug dropped an Orajel box into the toilet as he was peeing. He proceeded to fish it out and walk it down the hallway and through the living room to the kitchen trash can as his pee dripped down into the carpet.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “YOU’RE GETTING YOUR PEE IN OUR CARPET!”

“Oh big deal!” he called back. “Our cats have run out of the litter box with turds hanging off their anuses, dragging them into the carpet, and we barely clean it up at all anymore.”

It’s true, I guess.

Sincerely,

J-Bo