Failed Experiment

I would say it all started when I decided to clean like a Maltese mother.

I live in a 101-year-old house, so I have to dust very often. I was doing ledges and window sills when I decided that the walls could use a good washing.

I started up in the corner when I noticed these things that looked like rice but had stripes of red through them. They kind of clung to the wall and ceiling. Just like weeds are plantlife growing in places I don't want them to grow, these rice thingies got sucked up by my vacuum cleaner.

An hour later, I noticed that the area where I previously removed these things had a few more.

They're alive, I thought. Shit. I don't know why I didn't think of that before.

I took one down from the wall and inspected it closer. Fuck me, they were some kind of moth larvae. Certainly, I was noticing more moths than usual in the house, but ewww.

So later, I asked Husband to help me move the chesterfield so I could vacuum under it. We had this red area rug in the living room. I say "had" because after we found a foot wide hole in it and noticed a hundred or so of these rice things near it, on it and in it, the rug made its way to the dumpster at Husband's office building. The red stripes? Carpet fibres.

The "old houses need a cat" discussion came up mere hours after. We've been fortunate not to find any signs of mice but we've certainly had our fair share of ants and, now, moths.

I developed a cat allergy in my late teens. It used to be quite awful but I notice that now I can go into a house with a cat and be just fine for hours. How bad are my allergies, I thought. Maybe I've grown out of them?

Discussing this with Daughter's violin teacher, who always seems to be foster caring for a stray, she offered a sweet black kitten that was rescued from a drug house. "Just see if you can handle it," she said. "My husband used to have a cat allergy and it wasn't until we got the first stray that he realized he grew out of it." And so begun the experiment.

Daughter was just thrilled with Houdini and the cat was very friendly. Middle Child was a little freaked out, but he's nervous around all animals. Baby Boy was indifferent but eventually really warmed up and spent the whole day playing with her. She even let him rub his face on her.

We had the kitten for a little over 24 hours. However, I knew we wouldn't be able to keep her after about 3 hours. My nose started dripping within 30 minutes. When I walked Daughter over to her Brownie pack, I cleared up within a few minutes. By bedtime, my eyes were red, swollen and so damned itchy. Husband walked past me as we were tucking in the boys and said, "Look at you! We can't have you like that." So, in hushed tones, we agreed to go downstairs together and break the news to Daughter, who has been begging for a pet for about two years now.

Needless to say, she was devastated. Her cry was soul-wrenching. I felt so incredibly awful to do this to her but, as if she read my mind, she stoically held back her tears to hold my hand and said, "It's not your fault, Mum. I don't want to make you sick but I'm just so disappointed."

We let her stay up as long as she wanted with the cat. I myself had one of the worst sleeps of my life. When I get upset or stressed, I end up either puking or sitting on the toilet. So I would sleep briefly (maybe an hour), and then wake up and greet the porcelain.

Anyway, Daughter was very cool about everything. I'm so amazed at how grown-up and clear-thinking she can be sometimes. It proved to be a hard lesson she learned about love. Sometimes love can hurt because you end up putting the other person's needs before your own.

Like any parent, you want to shield your kid's heart from ever breaking. Little did I know that I would cause the first offence.