The song is "Ivy"

About 13 years ago we moved from Ohio to North Carolina. My husband, George came ahead first. My daughter, Adrienne who was 8 years old at the time, and I stayed to wrap up loose ends. Adrienne, my mother and I left Salem, Ohio around 5:00 am to head for North Carolina on an eight hour drive. We loaded up our hatchback car with odds and ends that we didn't have the mover take, as well as our three cats -- two very unhappy Siamese and totally laid back Spotty.

Spotty

About an hour into our trip going down the freeway with mountains around, no pull off and still dusk and with non-stop vocals from the Siamese, Spotty started going crazy. He was ripping the wicker carrier to shreds and yowling. This is totally unlike him and we didn't know what was wrong. Well, soon we did! This HORRIBLE odor wafted through the car. My daughter started to gag, she had such a weak stomach she couldn't even go into a public rest room with out gagging, and this was 100 time worse. So we wound down the windows. My mother and I had tears in our eyes as the smell was the worst ever even for two ex-nurses. I didn't know what he ate but WHEW!!

There was no place to pull off. The Siamese were even louder now because something stunk and the windows were open. Adrienne was gagging so much that she became sick and threw up. I was driving like crazy to the next pull-off - I was glad a patrolman didn’t see me but I don’t know what he would have done had he got a wiff of the inside of my car *VBG*. And, to make matters even worse if that is possible, I ran over a dead skunk and that just added to the wonderful aroma. By now we we’re all gagging, tears streaming down our cheeks, heads hanging out the window, going 75 mph down the mountain, speed limit was 55 then. OH, by the way, Spotty was happy now and had settled back to chilling, the Siamese were screaming louder than can be imagined.

We found a MacDonald’s at the next exit and pulled off. All of us jumped out of the car I think before I even had it in park. We got Spotty out of the carrier. He has mushed "IT" into his toes. My Mom got a cup of water from MacDonald’s and we tried to wash "it" off his feet as I held him out in front of me so as to try to not get any on me. Mom washed his little toes. Spotty is fine just looking around at everyone staring at us. Then we looked into the carrier and, as I have mentioned before, it was wicker - he had it mushed into the wicker. We had nothing to get into the wicker to clean it. So my mother got her toothbrush out and we tried to scrub it with that.

Here we were in MacDonald's parking lot at 6:00 am holding a cat, scrubbing his toes with a puking 8-year-old child, who is standing far away and cat turds on the ground around us and two Siamese yowling. By this time they were so loud that people were staring at our car. If you know Siamese, they can sound like they are getting murdered when they really get worked up and boy were these two worked up! I didn't know what people thought we were doing to the cats, but it sounded awful. And boy the looks!!

We got things cleaned up as best as we could, got back in the car and headed down the road. But we kept getting wiffs of that same smell. So, at the next exit we got out and did the drill again, only this time since we threw away my mother's toothbrush, we got mine out and scrubbed some more at the carrier and we used toothpaste this time. Again, same noise coming from the Siamese and same reaction from people. We continued on with the drive after that. But the same smell still lingered in the air. Adrienne was still gagging and crying because she didn't want to get sick again, so at the next exit, we did the drill again, except this time we used Adrienne's toothbrush and mushed deodorant into the wicker in the carrier and bought air freshener for the car. Same old noise from the Siamese and my child was still gagging.

Back on the road
AGAIN.
SAME Smell Again.

We investigated further and found that a turd had rolled under the seat when we got Spotty out of the carrier. Finally, we could continue with our journey. Spotty was happy the rest of the trip as we did not get a sound from him. The Siamese, on the other hand, I didn't know it was possible for a cat to yowl for 8 solid hours. They did settle down just before we reached North Carolina but when we went through a tunnel, they started full force again. Everytime we tell this story, we laugh so hard we get tears. We call it the Moving Cat Poop story.

I was in the kitchen one day and I heard this crashing noise in the other room. I went to see what it was when I saw Smudge making his way towards me with a giant kleenex box over his head. It was so funny, I almost fell over laughing. He use to dig in the trash for things that I'd rather not mention, and I had thrown the box away that morning. He must have stuck his head in it and couldn't get it out. He was trying to get to me to take it off for him, when he ran into a beach chair that was in the other room. No wonder, he couldn't see a thing with the box on his head. He wasn't panicked at all, just calmly walking looking for his Mom to save the day, as usual. Oh, I miss that boy so much.