Spoiler Alert: Dead Cat

So we came home from Thanksgiving with the Barnes family and decided to get going on the Christmas tree. That's the fun news. The bad news came in the form of a very unwanted visitor.

We keep our Christmas decorations, tree and all other junk out in a backyard shed. Jeff went out there and brought all the stuff into the house. We got the tree set up just fine and then I looked out on the back porch and saw a huge black cat sleeping right up against our back door. We don't have pets at all so neighborhood pets are often lounging in our yard since they never have other animals to bother them. We kept spreading out the branches of our fake tree and I noticed the cat was still there. Jeff tapped on our glass door it was laying against. Nothing. Awesome, dead cat. The boys noticed the cat at this point and we of course said she was sleeping. They soon lost interest in trying to wake the cat by banging on the door.

In a moment when they were completely distracted by decorating the tree, Jeff opened the door and poked at the cat with our swiffer mop thing. Still dead, and now we have to throw away our mop. Pretty sure I don't want dead cat spread all over my tile.

While Jeff decorated with the boys, I got online and tried to find out if there was anyone who would come to our house and take away dead cat. The city apparently only picks up dead animals that are on the road, which I obv understand. Still disappointing.

After the boys were in bed we went outside to assess the situation and come up with a game plan for dead cat removal. Actually Jeff did that. I tried to come up with names for the whole thing. Operation Dead Cat. Operation Kit Kat. Operation Party Crasher. You get the idea.

Also, it smelled rancid. And there were maggots. Not sure how that translates to timeframe but we're thinking a few days. I find it hilarious that Jeff walked past dead cat several times bringing in the Christmas stuff without even seeing it. Dead cat was huge!

I'll spare you most of the details but fortunately/unfortunately the cat was laying on a long doormat so we were able to roll it up and put the rug and dead cat in a triple bagged garbage bag. Considering the smell and infestation going on, neither of us wanted to put it in our car to drive to a garbage can. (No way we would put it in ours since it would be a good 5 days before pickup.) Our house backs up to a grocery store and there's a little green retention area a few doors down that you can cut through. Jeff decided he'd just haul the bag through the retention area and toss it in the grocery store garbage.

He came back home 10 minutes later looking pissed. Aparently, the cat's out of the bag. Literally. Dead cat fell into the retention ditch. I'm guessing the rug tore through the bags. So gross. I said, "well, we tried. let's go to bed". Jeffrey, being the better person, disagreed. He grabbed a couple empty boxes and a shovel and walked back down the street looking like a cheesey horror movie character. I'm positive our neighbors love us. I'm not sure how the collection process went down, but he came back several minutes later and took a loooong shower.

I poured an entire bottle of bleach over the patio just in case.

The next morning, Connor went looking for the cat. He understoodwhen we told him that the cat must have just been visiting and was already home with her people by that time.  Clearly, this is how we explain death. Looking back, this could have been a learning opportunity, but we wasted it.

As you can imagine, the whole thing really crapped on our festive moods. Here's hoping your Christmas decorating traditions were far less eventful.