This past Easter, the kids and I spent two weeks house sitting and pet sitting in a beautiful 6 bedroom 6 bathroom 3-floor house in a really nice neighborhood. My friends have a great house with all of the fixins (read: plasma tv, every electronic gadget imaginable…) In addition to a super spiffy and nice house they have three pets.

Lucky is a pretty old doggie, but is awful sweet. Nala is a cute little kitty. She is soft with white-ish grayish fur and blue eyes. S’more is a gecko. She/He eats crickets. (Geckos are androgynous at first glance. I wasn’t going to go snooping.)

Easy peasy for pet-sitting, right?

WRONG!!!!!

On Monday morning I woke up to find what looked like a small, neat pile of Easter candy on the living room floor.   But then I found a ripped open Ziploc bag behind a chair and realized one of the animals had gotten into the candy and ate about 90% of it. Crap!!!

Chocolate kills dogs you know, not sure about cats but either way it looks like SOMEONE is going to have a bad stomach ache with all the candy AND wrappers eaten. My stomach started to churn as I imagined telling my good friends that their pet died. But hey, let’s wait and see what happens before we make any sad announcements. I decided I’d be checking cat poo and dog poo for the next 24 hours (S’more was not the culprit since he/she cannot get out of his/her cage).

On Monday night my brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner. While we were eating, a neighbor boy came over crying that he couldn’t find his mom (I know her too.) I told him to go upstairs to play with my kids. While I was calling her cell (she’d gone for a walk), my brother went upstairs to check on the children.

Let me pause while I say a prayer of thanks as I remember how God saved my butt that night. Thank you, thank you oh thank you.

So my brother yells for me to come upstairs right away and this is what I discovered/found/learned:

S’more is out of her/his cage on the floor.

The heat lamp that keeps S’more warm was on the floor. Bulb down.

A little lesson for you:

• Bulbs on heat lamps are hot – that is why they call them heat lamps and not cold lamps.

• Heat lamps burn your fingers. They burn carpet too. Carpet in your friend’s half-million dollar house.

• Expensive carpet burns like plastic: it melts into a nice, pretty, crispy circle of brown solid matter.

• Geckos have holes on the sides of their heads. These are their ears and not holes that you think your child poked into their noggins.

So after that fiasco – we got the boy home, S’more in her/his cage, thanked God that the house didn’t burn down, yelled at my daughter who took S’more out and put the light on the rug, and then finished dinner.

Tuesday: Time to feed S’more crickets. I had to dump a dozen crickets live into her/his cage. S’more is fast on her/his little legs and randomly chomps crickets. There is carnage all over her/his cage. It is disgusting.

Wednesday: Lucky and Nala appear no worse for the wear after eating half a gallon of Easter candy. Still no poo, though.

Thursday morning: Nala pukes all over a Persian rug in the Music Room (complete with piano and harp.) The puke is pink and nasty. I really want to go home.

Thursday afternoon: Nala escapes outside. I want to kill my daughter.

Thursday afternoon: Nala is found under the house eating grass. Nala comes out after two hours of coaxing. (Did you know cats REALLY like tuna and if a cat is stuck under your house that tuna on a plate will get it right out? Yeah, I didn’t know that either until my brother told me.)

Thursday night: Nala has the runs in her litter box. It stinks. (Did you know that if you wretch enough while trying not to pass out from the smell of kitty litter diarrhea then your eyes start to water and you think you might really puke your guts out???)

So I think Nala ate all the candy. She sleeps on my lap most of the night and doesn’t move much. I’m pretty sure I’ve killed her.

Friday: Poop duty (doodie!?) day. Guess what I find in Lucky’s pooh? Tons of foil wrappers and candy wrappers. I guess chocolate doesn’t kill all dogs. Still not sure what made Nala sick.

Friday night: Nala turns into the cat from hell and bounces all over the house attacking me and the kids like she’s ingested two tons of cat nip. I guess that means she is either feeling better or has a rare form of rabies and is going to eat us in the middle of the night.

Saturday: S’more’s cage is littered with miscellaneous cricket parts: a head, an elbow, a wing. It is really gross.

Sunday: going to take Lucky for a walk. It goes like this:

Come on Lucky!! Excited! Woof woof! Let’s go for a walk! Woof woof!

Here we go, out to the sidewalk!!
(Lucky jerks back and screaches) YIPE! YOWL! BRWOOOWW! YIPE YIPE YIPE!
Lucky, what is the matter? (Lucky looks rather put out) Pant pant pant whine.
You okay Lucky? Woof!! Okay let’s walk! Woof woof!
Time to go home, come on Lucky! Woof!

Almost there! Here we are! (through the front yard steps) Pant pant whine!
What’s wrong Lucky? Come on in! (tug tug) YIIIIIIIIPPPE! YOOOOOOWWWWWWLLLL!!

Lucky, what is wrong!!!!!!??????

(Calling neighbor) Something is wrong with Lucky! (listening) yeah, uh huh… oooh. Electric collar? Sends a shock? Oh.

Here’s what I learned: If your friend has an electric invisible fence, make sure you TAKE THE COLLAR OFF OF THE DOG BEFORE YOU TAKE HER FOR A WALK.

I don’t pet sit any more. So don’t ask.