The Christmas Miracle

I was taking down the Christmas tree, one of my favorite things to do because I love how open and bright the room looks afterward, when "it" rolled out from under the tree. "It" turned out to be an unexpected and quite unwelcome Christmas decoration: poop. Dog poop? Human poop? Cat poop? Hard to say really, though due to the um..size..and ...density...I would say that my poor cat is not a suspect. That leaves human or dog. We don't have a dog. We don't have a dog, but we were gone for 8 days visiting family and friends in Ohio while a housesitter was at our house. The housesitter has a dog. The housesitter also has a colon, leading one to wonder if perhaps the housesitter herself left us a little Christmas present.

Why did we even have a housesitter? Looking back I have to shake my head in disbelief that we actually paid someone to come and stay at our home to feed and water the cat, and clean the litter box. First of all, the cat was rarely seen by said housesitter, as our cat is not a people cat. Secondly, when we got home (the housesitter had plenty of notice we would be arriving) the cat needed some water. Thirdly, the litter box definitely needed to be cleaned.

It would appear that I paid someone $130 to poop under my Christmas tree. If you're a little stuck on how the amount $130 came about, let me explain my thinking: $10/day for 8 days seemed a little scant. $20/day for 8 days seemed like too much. I split the difference between $180 and $80 and came up with $130. At the time it completely made sense, but now, with the poop development, it seems like I may have overpaid. I'm not sure that I even needed a housesitter, but certainly not one who is unable to control the colons with which she surrounds herself.

Now the obvious next question is: why? Why would someone poop under a Christmas tree? Well, I'd like to think that basic human goodness and potty training would rule out a human doing this (of course we do have to factor in potential New Year's Eve intoxication...) so again the dog is cast as villain. Steve asked the housesitter about the poop. She denies all knowledge, insists her dog was never at our house, and at no time did she, or anyone else, poop under the tree. Well, honey, I hate to disbelieve you, but the brown, stinky evidence is hard to ignore. It seems like this may become one of those happenings that is never explained. It certainly is a family story that I plan to pass down to future generations "The Christmas Poo" will become a family favorite, I'm sure.

My daughter has explained the poop by saying that one of Santa's reindeer probably had an accident. Frankly, this explanation is the only one that makes me feel happy.

If only you could have seen the look of horror and disbelief on my face when that poop rolled out from under the tree. Priceless, I'm sure.

Needless to say, I'll be washing the tree skirt this year.