We recently had a bit of an apartment disaster. No, the roof wasn't leaking, and we had power. This was a feline created meltdown. All because I didn't make mashed potatoes. I bought a sack of potatoes a while ago with grand intentions of cooking all kinds of delicious things. I took them home, put them on the bottom shelf in the pantry, and promptly forgot that they existed. Fast forward a couple weeks. The potatoes had gone bad, but since they hadn't moved at all, they didn't smell and we didn't notice...
But apparently Apollo did. And being the helpful little kitty that he is, he decided to point it out for us. Somehow with his little kitty body, he managed to drag the sack of potatoes out from the bottom shelf and into the little entryway/kitchen storage area. As soon as the potatoes had been moved, they released their disgusting stench. Now, most cats would give up at this point. They would decide they've done enough work for the day, and that it's about time for a nice, hearty nap. Apollo's a determined little thing, though. So he went above and beyond with the potatoes.
He not only moved them from the pantry, he moved them throughout a better part of the apartment. Apollo started with dragging them into the little hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedroom. When he lost interest in that region, he went ahead and headed back to the kitchen and of course brought his new best friend Sacky (yeah, I just named some rotten vegetables, what now?) along for the ride. Apollo marched his way across the kitchen, and ended his journey right in front of his food dish.
I was not the one to witness the horror of this first. The boyfriend had that distinct honor. He came back from an 8am lab class to find potato juices in paths winding throughout the apartment, an overwhelming smell that could be detected from the outside hallway several apartments down, and a cat sitting proudly by his kitty dish and Sacky, screaming about what a brilliant job he has done rescuing us from bad food. So instead of a snack and a quick shower, Matt was greeted by the harrowing task of starting clean-up duty.
Even after arriving home a few hours after the potatocalypse, it was still a grisly scene. The distinct smell was definitely still there. There were some lovely carpet stains (that luckily came out relatively painlessly thanks to the magical pet stain remover liquid I found at Target!) that needed scrubbing. Even though the laminate floor had been supposedly mopped twice, it was still quite sticky.
I spent a good two hours sprinkling baking soda everywhere, vacuuming, mopping, febreeze-ing, sniff-checking, re-mopping, disassembling the vacuum that somehow got potato bits lodged into it, and hollering obscenities at the kitty who was following me around the entire time, yelling about how it was definitely 2pm, and getting close to dinnertime. Everything was sparkling clean, and it finally looked acceptable. The smell was still lingering, and did so for a good day and a half until the cup of baking soda in the pantry finally worked its wonders.
I'm still questioning how the hell Apollo was powerful enough for this feat of strength. He is a big kitty, but a sack of potatoes is pretty darn heavy! And certainly a bit awkward for a cat to drag, carry, wrestle with, or whatever else that Thing did with it. I would also like to know what the hell possessed Apollo to do such a thing. Why couldn't he just leave it be and tell us when we got home? It's days like this that I think about how innocent he looked at the shelter, and how much of a terror he's turned out to be. But through all of his evil escapades he still manages to look adorable, so of course we keep him around and try not to think about his next stunt.
Potatopocalypse! (sp?) Great story!
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