Of Men, Beasts, and Sheets

I'm watching my husband trip over the doggie gate between our kitchen and the dining room for the umpteenth time.  Of course, this morning he also faces the added challenge of  wrestling the twin bed sheet hanging across the entryway.  The entire contraption exists only because we are suckers who take in random animals when they longingly gaze our way with expressive icy blue eyes set in that distinctive Husky mask or rub up against our legs with full-on orange kitty affection and motorway purrs.  Grrrr, says this human animal.

In the last year, we discovered the hard way that the senior dog sometimes loses control of her bladder or bowels when a fierce storm passes through.  And, the urge to bolt upstairs to the berber-covered floor of the study overtakes her frightened brain!  Thus the two strategically positioned gates which encourage her to remain in the tiled and spacious confines of our kitchen area.  If we have kids who refuse to rise from their slumber or guests in need of a startle, there's nothing to fill those auditory niches like the sudden cacophony which erupts every time one of those gates accidentally breaks loose of their moorings and SLAMS against the unyielding floor!  Talk about your decibel levels.   Grrrr-rufffff, mutters this human animal.

Three old flat sheets, two doubles and a single, span the spaces on either side of the south wall, blocking the open airspace which could encourage a possible leap out of the easily cleaned floor space of said kitchen for the carpeted expanses which exist throughout the rest of our home.  This prophylactic is for our friendly feline.  Yesterday, his lack of appetite -- an almost impossibility -- and the rather sudden and large abscess on his furry right cheek led to an impromptu vet visit.  During the wrestling portion of the program, whereby the young fresh faced assistant attempts to remove our cat from his carrier cage, the contents of his facial wound burst.  On the floor.  All over him.  The visible pit, ringed in blood and pus as it was, incited a strange jumping and fluttering within my gut, effectively dampening MY appetite for the next hour or two -- another almost impossibility.  A shave and squeeze later, along with oral antibiotics to be administered twice daily after the necessary irrigation treatments, with my $127 receipt in tow, me and my Fabio (yes, that's his name) were on our way to what is now his forced imprisonment for the next seven days.  His face continues to ooze, thus the sheets now make sense to you, the reader, yes?  Me-e-e-O-O-O-W, says this human animal!

One would think the source of minor stress would be obvious here.  But fighting a clawed cat wrapped in an old blue towel to force cold pink liquid down his gullet rather allows me to channel of my childhood heroes, the famous English country veterinarian and author, James Herriott, for a few minutes.  And catching sight of my dog actually licking the post-trauma site on her brother-pet's cheek strikes me as grossly touching (wonder why I have yet to want breakfast?) because I am, after all, a lover of animals.

 No, what's got me scratching my head and feeling a bit perplexed are the sounds of stumbling and frightened exclamations coming from the human sector of our mixed family as they make their way from one room to the other.  Over and over.  And over.  Why? oh, why? is it that my kids and my man can't figure out how to LIFT their feet all the way over the gate and AWAY from the side where the sheet is firmly attached to the frame?  It's not as if they must deal with a gaping nasty pit on the side of their faces or face friendly exile in the kitchen because of their weak urinary tracts!