The Sound

Everyone who lives with cats knows the sound: a cat upchucking.  It's what made me launch from the coziness of my bed this morning.  I saw my little gray cat, Henry, crouching at the foot of the bed, down on the carpet, throwing up, and a dark stain appeared on the carpet.  I got out of the bed quickly telling Henry, "Don't eat it!"  Yes, people who live with cats know about this lovely habit, too, though in this case, it was a hairball or hairlog, and Henry didn't seem to be interested in eating it.  But that didn't stop the other three cats or the dog from investigating the mess on the carpet.

There is a certain way to clean up vomit.  DO NOT RUB IT INTO THE FIBERS!  Get a knife, and delicately scrape the mess into a paper towel.  You can almost avoid stains if you do it this way.  You can learn from my experience.  I have LOTS of stains throughout the house.  That's because I'd sop up the mess with a paper towel, which just pushed the detritus further into the carpet fibers, thereby, forever marking that spot with cat vomit.  No matter what cleaner you use, for all their promises, this method guarantees that the carpet will retain the mark.  Oh, well.

So this morning, although I wasn't fully alert, I ran for the paper towels and butter knife and tried out the gentle technique of scraping rather than smashing.  I was pretty happy with the result.  It also helps that the color of the carpet is gray...