The blended trucking family

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Updated Nov 22, 2017

Isn’t it funny how after you get a big truck, everything else in life pretty much becomes secondary? It’s like having a giant, diesel-drinking baby. Your existence ceases to revolve around anything other than feeding and caring for your huge metal infant.

Example: “Honey, we’re going to put new floors in the truck, and if there’s enough material left over, I’ll cover that hole in the bathroom.” Or, “After I fill up, we’ll have $1.50 left over and we can split a hot dog from the roller rack!”

Joy and rapture.

I joke, and may exaggerate just a tiny bit. I’m thankful for our truck, it helped George and I provide ourselves with a nice place to live, and for the first time in our married lives, new couches to put inside the place we live. Of course, about 30 seconds after I made the last payment on the new couches, the cat got fifth wheel grease on all four of his paws and attempted to destroy my personal happiness by running into the house, straight for my new couches.

“One day, the couches will be mine.”“One day, the couches will be mine.”

This is where things within our blended little family of fur-babies and truck-babies devolved exponentially. Imagine the scene:

We’re outside, the front door of the house is open because, you guessed it, we’re trying to polish and clean the truck. The kitty, who is not known for his calm nature, gets spooked by something, jumps up on the fifth wheel, realizes it’s basically a giant fly-paper for cats, gets really freaked out, and streaks off toward the house. Of course, I help the situation by screaming “MY COUCHES!!!” and go tearing off after him.

It’s easy to find him, because there are four black, sticky paw prints for every foot of ground he covered on the once-clean hardwood floors. He’s also somehow managed to hit every single throw rug along the way to the bedroom, where he wedged his dirty little self under the bed and started hissing at everything in general, but most specifically my hand, as it grabbed him and pulled him towards me. For future reference, should any of you ever be in this situation, it is a very bad idea to drag a hissing, spitting, biting cat with fifth-wheel grease all over him toward your face, as eyeballs are the main target for predators when they’re being dragged somewhere. I know this from experience.

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I can’t really describe the next hour or so, because I lost so much blood I fainted twice, but suffice it to say the cat came out of the bathroom without fifth wheel grease on his paws and a special hatred in his heart for me, the truck, and life in general.

The bathroom and I did not fare as well. I’m not sure how to describe it without going into gory detail, but I looked like someone had painted a murder victim with fifth-wheel grease and rolled them in cat hair. The bathroom looked like someone had painted a murder victim with fifth-wheel grease, rolled them in cat hair, and bounced them off of every surface they could find.

I saved the couches, but lost 80 percent of my blood and most of my dignity doing so. I also think the relationship between the cat an I may have suffered a final, fatal blow. I suspect he plots my death and intends to kill me by making me watch him walk all over my couches with fifth wheel grease on his paws.

But hey – the truck looks good, so there’s that. And one final note: Regular blue Dawn dish washing liquid and hot water will get fifth wheel grease off of pretty much anything – even an angry cat.