You Can't Bumhole-Proof Your Home
This went out yesterday as issue 11 of The Angelo Report, a weekly newsletter published every Sunday afternoon.
As some of you all know, we have a cat, Merlin. He's equal parts cute little guy and pain in the ass, and we happily welcomed him into our home just over three years ago. Not our first cat, but our first cat in a while.
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People like to tell you that cats are clean because they poop in a box which you then have the privilege of scooping on a daily basis. This is a lie.
Cats are, in fact, disgusting little creatures.
They barf all over the place, and with a long-hair cat like Merlin, you have to watch out for dingleberries. A dingleberry is essentially something that should have ended up in the litterbox, but instead got tangled-up in the butt fur.
Mostly, this isn't an issue. Mostly. But every so often, you've got to clean him up. And you don't always catch that until much later, so I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what my cat's bumhole has been in contact with.
Toddlers are also pretty gross, and not very smart. They spend a good part of the day trying to hurt themselves, but there's a whole industry out there helping parents foil the attempts to stick fingers into sockets and get into the cleaning products.
You can toddler-proof your home. But with a cat? You can't bumhole-proof against a cat.
It becomes a habit to not leave your phone on the couch, because it may get sat on. And then you're one phone call away from cat bumhole on your face.
It becomes a habit to disinfect the countertop before preparing food, even if it looks impeccable. Because you can't know that a cat bumhole hasn't been perched on your precious granite counter.
The lesson here? When prevention isn't possible, we turn to habits to keep ourselves safe.
Around The Web
- This fireside chat between Simon Sinek and Trevor Noah speaks to friendship. One interesting nugget that came up was that as third places have disappeared and our social lives have all but disappeared, we have the deleterious side-effect of work colleagues and romantic partners taking the place of friends. Asking one type of relationship to also do the work of a very different type of relationship is a recipe for breakups and workplace drama.
- Another fascinating video on how food rationing worked in America during the Second World War dives into what the rationing system was, how it gave rise to clever recipes that omitted hard-to-find ingredients, and “emergency steak.”
Thought Of The Week
There’s a quote in Company Of One by Paul Jarvis (see my book review here) that really spoke to me:
Opportunities are just obligations wearing an appealing mask.
As a recovering people-pleaser and someone who tends to distract myself with new projects when I hit The Slog, this is a really helpful thing to keep in mind.
It hits a little harder because it highlights the ongoing maintenance cost of an opportunity, a thing that we’re not great at factoring in when we say yes to a new project.
Think in terms of obligations, not opportunities.