Why am I Wet?

Be it Bernadoodle, Schnauzer or the everyday calico cat, pet owners will, from time to time, inevitably blurt out bizarre declarations or question the unthinkable. After the peculiar order of words fall from their lips, they may momentarily stop in real time to question either: Did I actually just say that? Or Do I really want to know the answer?

The unusual becomes commonplace with pets, eventually just another endearing quirk. You might hear these pet owners saying this to their pets and perhaps some children. We’ll save that for another time. I digress…

Spit out that paper towel! Don’t eat that rock! Get your head out of the toilet! Stop eating my underwear! Quit dragging your butt on the carpet - again!

Then there are questions which demand answers. Answers guaranteed to disgust even the most seasoned animal person. In hushed tones and with bated breath, we pose questions to which we don’t wish to know the answers.

What is that smell? Why do I stink? What are you eating? Why am I wet?

And here’s the thing—there is a serious problem when you don’t know why you are moist.

My father-in-law, Dave, asked himself two of these questions one hot Chicago summer day while three stories high on a ladder. The stomach-churning answer arrived at the worst possible moment, when escaping the horrific reality simply wasn’t an option.

The year was 1987 and Dave, a full-time Chicago police officer, needed to supplement his income with odd side-jobs on his off days. One such odd job was working as a house painter. The chosen vocation gave new meaning to the word ‘odd’ because Dave suffers from an intense fear of heights. Taking on a house painting job seemed odd to everyone, including himself. On a good day, his acrophobia causes beads of sweat to percolate on the back of his neck and forehead just going up half a flight of stairs. But his dedication to bringing home some extra bacon for his newly blended family meant he had to take that fear head on and climb up the ladder. Much like the bacon he enjoyed on Sunday morning, Dave sizzled in the Chicago summer heat as he painted the exterior of a large family home.

When Dave married his second wife, Kathy, they blended their two families. Unexpectedly, six teens found themselves sharing a house, a challenge in itself. They referred to themselves as the Brady Bunch without the smiles. Kathy also brought along two cats, Maggie and Mitzi, and a floppy eared, brown and white pup they called, Feather. Since Dave’s new bride and her children considered their pets to be an essential part of their family, Dave reluctantly became a step-dad to Maggie, Mitzi and Feather, as well.

Dave wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “pet person.” Allergies, he claimed, were his excuse, though his extreme fear of teeth and claws suggested otherwise. He crossed streets to avoid dogs. Cats? He avoided direct eye contact at all costs, lest they choose him as their scratching post. This officer knew the common house pet’s predilection for fast moving prey; especially for those in uniform. Whenever a call for police presence came in, his first line of questioning was: “Are there any animals at the house and do they have teeth?”

Not long after blending their brood, Dave developed a sort of fondness for Mitzi in particular. Apparently, Mitzi felt the same, often snuggling in his discarded clothes—mostly trousers and shirts. Since Dave forbade Mitzi to nap in his lap, the brilliant kitty found another way to bond with her new owner.

After a long day, Dave enjoyed sipping iced-tea while sitting on his front porch with the cat at a safe distance tethered to him via the dog’s leash. When Kathy rang the dinner bell, Dave picked Mitzi up and held her, not like a cherished pet, but like a bomb about to detonate.

One summer day, Dave returned home after a lengthy and painful day of painting the side of a large home underneath the brutal and unrelenting sun. The entrance to their modest Chicago home conveniently lead into their basement, which was also their laundry room. He reasoned it was best to strip his paint clothes in the basement before heading upstairs, so as not to get any paint on his family or on the furniture. He casually left his dirty paint clothes in a heap on the basement floor and refused to wash the coveralls.

Who washes paint clothes? He reasoned and headed straight upstairs to the waiting embrace of his shower.

“How was your day, hun?” Kathy called out as she put the plates down at the dinner table.

He called out, “Be right back!” as he scurried up the stairs.

After cleaning up, he sat at the table and talked about his day. He mentioned having pains in his neck and arms. As a police officer, his body grew accustomed to the motion of directing traffic or wrestling the occasional obstinate criminal, but his body was not used to being in the awkward positions this job required to cover every single square inch. The unfamiliar aches and pains associated with the job were far from enjoyable. Extreme heat under the unforgiving sun intensified the pain of what he now calls “ladder yoga.” Dave could not imagine this job getting any worse. But he was about to find out there was another level of horror about to be revealed.

The next day, he got ready to head back to work. He picked up his paint clothes from the floor and, once again, headed out the door. As the sun rose to its peak height above him, Dave noticed an unpleasant and yet oh so familiar scent, which he just could not place. He knew the smell, and well, but the answer would not come to him.

Dave could only hope the putrid smell would go away after he showered. Once again, he returned home, undressed and left his dirty paint clothes on the basement floor.

Kathy called out from the kitchen, “How was your day, hun?”

Dave, a fast moving blur, clad only in his tighty whities, called out, “Terrible!” His voice edged with trauma.

He ran into the bathroom, eager to rid himself of the baked-on-funk.

After he cleaned up, he joined his family at the dinner table and told them about his day and the questionable, unrelenting stench.

“I don’t know what it was,” he muttered, still visibly shaken, “but it stank. Bad. I spent the entire day baking in it. If it happens again tomorrow, I’m finding a new job.”

For two grueling days, a stench haunted Dave. That peculiar odor clung to him, thick and nauseating. He chalked it up to the paint, tried to ignore it, and carried on—until day three.

That morning, as he ascended his ladder, the smell returned with a vengeance. Worse yet, he noticed something else. Wetness. His shirt was damp. He asked himself two questions: Why am I wet and what is that smell?

It was in that very moment, high on the ladder, under the sweltering sun, paint can and brush in hand, the dreaded answer came to him. It was when, out of the corner of his eye, thirty feet in the air he saw Mitzi’s doppelgänger chasing a small bird down below did he solve the mystery. Mitzi, who always loved to nap in a pile of his discarded clothes, had been…no it can’t be, could it? The thought nearly caused him to fall clear off his ladder as his body shuddered with a new knowledge of what else was on his body.

The officer had finally cracked the case wide open and understood not only why he was wet, but what that dreaded, familiar sweet odor that swirled in and around his nostrils was.

Mitzi had been relieving herself on his pile of paint clothes. For three days, Dave had unknowingly marinated in cat urine.

Unable to flee, stuck in his own personal nightmare, he spent the rest of the day cooking in the sweltering heat, soaked in Mitzi’s affection...or something like it.

And to this day, Dave still relives his tale to his long-suffering wife, recounting every detail of his trauma with the same dramatic flair. Kathy, ever patient, simply nods and reminds him: “You should’ve washed the clothes.”