SHUT THE DOOR!

After years and years of having an open door policy, I have given up and SHUT THE DOOR - to the bedroom.

We've had a parade of cats for around 20 years, and they've had access to most of the house all that time.  But now, as you may have read earlier, since June, we have four, yes, count them, FOUR, cats and ONE large (sweet) dog, and it has become a HAIRY issue, literally.

There's hair on the bed (the other bedrooms were already off limits), hair on the stairs, hair on the rugs, hair on the chairs, hair on the sofa, hair along the baseboards, hair in the bathroom sinks.  You get the picture - everything is covered with HAIR.  And no, it is NOT true that everything tastes better with cat/dog hair in it.  Bleah.

I could dust mop and vacuum every day, and still find hair/fur tumbleweeds rolling down the hallway.  There's so much hair, I often wonder why the cats aren't completely bald.  The dog contributes, too, of course, but there's only one of him, even though he's so big.

I do like the way the cats cuddle with me on the sofa and on the bed, though - until Feline Thermonuclear War is declared.  Then I'm trampled by what feels like a herd of elephants, accompanied by growling, yowling, hissing, and barking (the cats, not the dog - yes, our cats bark).  It sounds like mountain lions have overrun the house.  The dog cowers in his crate (it's his safe space).

To truly understand the phrase, "the fur flies," you need to see my house after a bout of FTW - there are big tufts of fur all through the house.  The cats don't discriminate among the rooms open to them.  It's an equal opportunity war zone.

Anyway, I went to Disney World with The Girl and The First Grand for a week early this month.  Imagine it - a week with NO ANIMAL HAIR.  What a concept.

It didn't even occur to me until after I got home and was immediately covered in animal hair just how much I try to cat-proof the house.  While I was gone, I didn't worry about where to put things down to avoid cats lying on them, whether the strings for the blinds were dangling enticingly or the blinds themselves were reachable so the ends of the slats could be used as chewy toys, or where I put my fingernail file (also a favorite chewy toy), or whether the shower curtain and liner were in a position to be shredded, or where I put papers to keep them from being barfed on.

Thus, after being home a couple of weeks, and one particularly bad night when I tossed all the cats out into the hall, I decided to SHUT THE DOOR to the last bedroom.  They'll just have to make do with the hallways, the living room, the dining area, the kitchen, one bathroom, the utility room, and the stairs.

And I get to use the bedroom again without any cat-consciousness.  Oh, happy day!  I can put away the fleece throws and old towels meant to keep the cats and their fur off my unseen, but attractive, comforter.  I can use the blinds normally.  I can fold clothes on the bed.  I can open the windows all the way.  I can get up in the middle of the night and not step on a fresh, wet hairball (oh, THAT'S a treat!).  I can get dressed without a lint roller.

With that ONE decision, I made some parts of my life easier.  Just by shutting the door!

There's a lesson there, somewhere.