One of my cats is a killer.
Innocent until proven guilty, I will not point any fingers. But I have my suspicions concerning exactly which feline is the heartless murderer.
Now, they have killed mice, rats, and shrews in the past, and to be quite truthful, I did not mind that so much. This time, however, the pile of feathers on my deck screams “bird”; and I can only hope it was not one of Maverick’s beloved titmice or chickadees.
I located the feathers only after I went hunting for them:
exhibit a.
You see, the first piece of evidence I discovered this morning (before I had had my morning coffee, mind you) was some cat puke; which, upon further examination, contained a heart, what I believe to be a liver, and some other internal organs, tiny, accusing, and quite whole.
I stood there, thinking. How was I going to clean this up?
While I have many rags for general cleaning, I just could not see myself using one to pick up the organs of a dead thing, throwing it in the wash, and using it again: wiping down my mirrors, tabletops, and counters.
Hygiene issues aside, I would always be thinking: this rag cleaned up dead things.
And then there was the question of the floor. Flecks of gore, splatters of blood.
How to make sure it was really clean- no bird germs left behind?
From a rational standpoint, I know that I was being a bit silly. This is the Culture of Clean at work: a lifetime of being told by clever TV marketers that if I don’t kill every last germ, my preschooler will sit on that very spot, pick up the germs, and collapse of Avian flu.
I also know that studies show that Clorox wipes do not actually kill all the germs; that the vinegar & tea tree combo works just as well. I know all this. I’ve blogged about it. I demonstrated natural cleansers for the health section of the newspaper, for goodness sake.
But I still dug through my purse for the last few antiseptic wipes remaining, a holdover from my hoarding, germophobe days.
I picked up that carcass with three (!) bunched up paper towels to ensure my skin did not come into direct contact with it, to ensure I could not feel the weight of the body within. I used a fourth paper towel to wipe up the vinegar and tea tree oil solution I then sprayed onto the spot.
Then, I used an antiseptic wipe as insurance. To get it really, really clean.
And then I scrubbed the living bejesus out of my hands, running them under hot, hot water, for much more time than strictly necessary.
It’s all a little Lady Macbeth, and I do realize that what I was washing away wasn’t so much germy bird flesh- after all, I plan on roasting a chicken later today, and that surely will not be the cause of such drama.
What I was scrubbing off my hands was the intimacy of death, and the stain of a guilty conscience: I know full well I shouldn’t allow my cats outside, wreaking their predatory nature on my unsuspecting backyard habitat. I know I was being a hypocrite, favoring the cute animals over the rodents.
And yet.
I thought I had conquered my fear of germs, my need for sterility. Clearly, though, it’s still there, way down deep.
How do I fully break away from the Cult of Clean? Am I forever doomed to associate cleanliness with the sting of alcohol, the smell of pine? To believe in my gut that disposable is the only safe choice?
(By the by, it felt really weird to use paper towels. I bought a six pack of recycled Marcals well over six months ago, and we’re only on the second roll. The holder was dusty. And, I used an antiseptic wipe when we were eating in Philly, since we’d spent the day in the Franklin Institute; that felt extravagantly wasteful as well.)
I’m wondering how I’m going to deal when we move back into stomach-bug season again.
What’s your take on cleaning up the super-nasties?
Maybe there is an “all-natural” cleanser that you trust and recommend?
Do you keep some wipes, some antiseptic hand gel, in the house “just for emergencies”?
Or have you managed to fully break away from the Cult of Clean?