Sticky Situation

...just enough of that sticky stuff/ to hold the seams of your fine blue jeans/ I said yeah, yeah....

"No, Mom, we have to go RIGHT NOW. Wednesday says she's glued to the cat."

It was kind of a non-sequitur for me, too. Just so you know.

She's glued...?

"To the cat, yeah."

Pugsley and I had been discussing taking my mother out for ice cream after having traumatized her with a newer computer tower, importing her bookmarks and a few other changes, none of which greeted with happy acceptance.

Glued to the cat?

"He got into something sticky, and she tried to clean him and now she's stuck to him."

We're out the door and into the car now, with the lighter fluid my mother pressed into my hands as a solvent. I thanked her without mentioning any of the ideas that sprang like pop-up ads into my brain associated with putting lighter fluid on a cat.

Sticky enough that SHE is glued to the cat?

"I guess; she said something about a box. I told her to try using water to get unstuck."

The cat got stuck on a sticky box and now Wednesday is glued to the cat.

"Mom. Just drive."

Wednesday was no longer stuck to the cat when we arrived.  She and the cat were both agitated, but not nuclear. They were closeted in the downstairs bathroom, him in the window and her in front of the sink, trying to remove sticky from herself. She's almost a grown-ass woman, so I investigate the cat.

You got yourself unglued.

"Yes, but he's still got globs of it all in his fur. It's not as bad as I first thought- mostly his arm and a little on his belly. And my hands are all sticky."

Pugsley has found, as requested, with almost NO searching, the bottle of Skin So Soft I keep handy for many reasons. One of them is sticky stuff. The cat, with a minimum of squirming and complaining, allows me to settle him on my lap and apply SSS with tissue to his fur, then wipe off the glue. Wednesday is still scrubbing at her gluey hands with water. I suggest she use the SSS also, and continue to squash the cat against me while I de-glue him.

Wednesday tells me "It's in the trash can," when I ask about the box. Pugsley finds it- turns out. the sticky box was one of those insect traps, which had been on the counter to rid us of ants. The cat had evidently laid upon it. There were no ants in the trap, just cat fur.

We've finished the ungluing. Everyone is safe. I phone my mother to say we'll have ice cream after dinner.

So, he's just greasy now. If we have any clean laundry, don't let him lie on it.

"Can we not have those ant traps now? They're not doing what we hoped."

Yes, Pugsley. We can get rid of them. 

A day or so later, Gomez comes home. We do the dinner thing, the television thing, the late-night snacking thing and turn in for the night. He's almost asleep when I remember the misadventure.

Remind me in the morning to tell you about Wednesday getting glued to the cat.

"Mkay. Which one?"

Because that, naturally, is the logical question one asks when hearing that one's daughter has been glued to a cat. Which one, indeed.



 ZZ Top, Velcro Fly