Moustache

Thursady night, typically I'm sitting at the desk, answering letters to my slews of friends. Tonight wasn't straying too far from that ideal, at the moment I was sipping a cup of Foglifter, slowly dragging a Camel Light, and listening to some "classic rock" station (which was being drowned out by my dog, Odie's, constant barrage of panting), all the whilst answering an letter from my friend Justin regarding the current state of politics in California when I first noticed the smell.

The smell had a rustic, vinegar twinge to it and I couldn't help but notice the familiarity of it. It smelled, to be blunt, like shit. Honest-to-God shit. When my inner monologue stated, "Something smells like shit," it wasn't trying to be cute with a metaphor, it was speaking technically, I really was smelling shit. Now started the game that every pet owner secretly despises (no matter how much they love their fluffy little schnookums and all the cute faces they make, the fact that a foul smelling substance drops out of their cute, fluffy little orifices is a different story completely), which is looking for the ever-elusive treasure pile of feces.

I stood up, beginning my reluctant quest, and looked at the culprits. There were three, all present and accounted for, yet none had the look of guilt that usually follows a carpet bound bowel movement. GiGi, the disgustingly adorable, yet Hitleresque Dachshund was fast asleep, wheezing in deranged content. Bear, the oafish, well mannered Black Lab was incredibly busy licking it's own privates, oblivious to the fact I was staring it down with a look of deranged disgust in my eyes. Odie, the easy going, impossibly ignorant Cocker Spaniel had a look of prime satisfaction planted on his face, like he'd just eaten a six pound, choice cut of beef (Odie always had this look about him, as we suspected he was borderline retarded). Seeing as it was either them or me causing the stench, and being fairly certain it wasn't me, I drew the conclusion the crime had taken place in another room. In a lazy haste, I went to searching for my unglamorous fate, a simple pile of dog shit that I, as finder, would get the privilege of cleaning up with the patented tools of the trade, some paper towels, my left hand, and a few choice swear words. Who's the lucky boy? Eric is! Eric is!

My quest into the sitting room turned up nothing aside from more confusion and the fear that there might be a sneaker sized loaf soaking into my bedroom carpet. Assuming the worst, I ventured in to find nothing but Tigger, our housecat starring at me like I was an asylum escapee. It was at this point I made the "Eureka!" expression, and apparently made one hell of a noise, as the cat panicked and ran out of the room with me hot on it's tail. The cat! The cat had done the deed, this was good, as the cat used it's litter box with enthusiastic diligence, always being considerate and not just squatting on the floor. I ran to the litter box, confident the cause of the smell would make itself known, almost stepping on the cat in the process. I arrived at the box, smiling, knowing I'd solved my mystery, only to find it empty.

Damn.

Where in the hell was the smell coming from? It was now I seriously started thinking it might be me, but then I noticed it. It looked like a sand storm had taken place in the ironing room, an evil and unforgiving sandstorm, a sandstorm that seemed to be moving due west, the direction of the initial discovery. I followed the trail of cat sand into the office to solemnly see the trail end abruptly, at the feet of my wonderfully brain-dead Cocker Spaniel. It was then that all the facts made themselves perfectly clear. The contented look, the smell, the heavy breathing, the fact that the dog is a plain moron, yet outside of all of these tidbits of information, one thing out spoke them all, his face. All's I could think about were those popular milk ads in magazines, the ones were some random celebrity has a milk moustache and there's some lame message about milk being good for your bones, only in this case, the celebrity was a dimwitted Cocker Spaniel named Odie, the milk was replaced by kitty litter, and the message was that my dog had recently eaten cat shit. Not knowing how to react to this, I simply sat back down and continued writing my letter, only now my coffee wasn't exactly appetizing and the donut I'd planned to eat was thrown to the dogs (one of which was full). There wasn't much to do or say to this, only "Got Litter?"