A much-needed distraction

Tomorrow morning, I have to wake Megan up 90 minutes earlier than normal, tell her that she cannot have any chocolate milk or eggs for breakfast, and then drive her 45 minutes to the dentist. As if that is not enough, once we arrive, she has to be sedated so the dentist can fix several of her teeth...she's got some weird-ass shaped teeth that are just asking for cavities. The dentist has to drill and fill her teeth to reshape them so that they don't rot out of her mouth. Great fun. So....I'm a little bit stressed about how the whole morning is going to go. She does not like the dentist already, and all she has ever had done is a cleaning. Again...great fun. Can't wait. Sarcasm. It's a coping mechanism.

Enter our crazy cat. For some reason he was out in the garage. Don't know how or when he went out there. I kept hearing some strange noises from the direction of the garage, but never did investigate. Eric did. As I was coming down the stairs after putting Megan to bed, I run into Eric at the bottom of the stairs holding Max the cat. Thinking that he is bringing the cat up to Megan (he likes to sleep on her bed and she only sortof strangles him while "hugging" him), I step out of the way. But he just stands there. I look a little closer and realize there is something stuck to his back left paw. It's a sticky mouse trap. And it caught my cat.

Luckily - although it won't sound like it at first - a small bird got stuck on one of them in our garage last week. I felt horrible for the little guy but didn't know what to do. I updated my Facebook status to reflect my dilemma and was informed by several of my friends that pouring some vegetable oil onto the pad would dissolve the adhesive and set the poor little bird free. How do these people know such things? Alas, I did not receive this information in time. Tweety did not make it. But I filed that little helpful hint away, even though I was sure that I wouldn't ever need to free an animal from a sticky mouse trap. After all, they are designed to catch the little squeakers. Why would I want to free them?

So there we are in the front hallway with a cat stuck to a mouse trap. We suspend the cat over the kitchen sink and I open up the bottle of Wesson and start pouring. Note: cats do not appear to like it when you pour slimy cooking oil on their paws and will likely shake their paw vigorously in an attempt to rid its fur of the offending substance. So we put the cat down in the sink to complete the removal process. After dumping approximately one gallon of oil on his foot, I am able to pull it free of the gooey glue which has now turned into some sort of gel-like goo that seems to be multiplying. Now that his foot is free, Max again commences the paw-shaking in response to the oily foot. A quick flick of the faucet and a speedy wipe down with a paper towel follow. Crisis averted.

Max appears to be doing fine, but he won't stop licking the paw in question. Oh - and Piper keeps following Max around sniffing at his paw.

For the time it took to free the cat from the trap, I wasn't stressed about inflicting terror on my baby as I take her to the dentist tomorrow. I was too busy wiping up oil spatters from all over my kitchen.

Wish us luck.