Recently I wrote about Puck’s Self-Imposed Exile when my stepson came for a week at Christmas. He was so fearful that he stayed in our bedroom whenever Nick was in the house.

Puck had no problem coming out to visit Rose’s Dad and his wife when they came at Thanksgiving or my best Friend, Rick, when he came here on New Year’s Eve, but for some strange reason, he decided he was afraid of Rick when he came to visit on Friday. Rick spent the night on our sofa and Puck spent the night in our room, afraid to leave.

I woke up early Saturday morning while Rick was still sleeping. I worried that Puck needed to use the litter box by then so I carried him to the patio and put him in the box. I tried that when Nick was here and got scratched up from Puck trying to escape my grasp out of fear. This time I made it all the way to the box and Puck just seemed slightly nervous. He stayed in the box for a couple of seconds and then jumped out and ran back into the bedroom. I assumed he didn’t have to go so I didn’t worry about it after that.

A little while later Rose was awake and complained that Puck either farted or he pooped somewhere in the bedroom. Normally, Rose’s nose is about twenty times more sensitive than mine and I usually smell nothing while she is acting like the world is about to end, but this time I smelled it too.

I looked around the room and as I was doing that, Rose told me she didn’t want me to use the bed sheets again because they keep popping off. “Okay'” I said, concentrating more on finding where Puck might have pooped. I checked the entire floor, including all the nooks and crannies. “I don’t see anything,” I said.

“Oh my God! It’s on the bed!” Rose suddenly yelled.

I looked and there was a big pile of mashed up poop. “oh, yuck!” I said. “That is gross!”

“It’s on me!” Rose yelled. “I rolled on top of it. Get a wet towel, Quick!”

I hurried into the kitchen and pulled a few paper towels off the roll and wet them.

“Hurry up! What are you doing in there?”

“Here,” I said, handing her the towels.

“No, it’s on the back of my leg. You need to wipe it off!”

As I was wiping it off I had visions of thirty years in the future. “There, it’s off,” I said as I threw the paper towels into the trash bag I brought with me. That is when she noticed another big spot of poop on her leg and the process started again.

The next priority was to pick up the poop off the bed. I had brought a roll of paper towels into the bedroom along with a small bag for garbage but the task was just too gross. Luckily, I remembered Rose didn’t want to use those sheets anymore so I just rolled them up and stuffed them into a garbage bag and took them out to the garbage can.

Puck got over his fear of Rick shortly after that, thankfully, and we now have something to look back on and laugh at but Saturday morning there was no laughing going on in this house.

After the commotion, I put a sheet on the bed to protect it while I washed the mattress cover. That is when Chris and Frankie came in to see what all the trouble was about.