Warning: Gross

This morning, I was taking my time getting ready for work. When J left just shy of 7, I still had about 20 minutes left in getting ready.
I like to wander around when I brush my teeth (it’s the last thing I do before I get dressed and walk out the door), and when I walked into the unlit kitchen, I saw that The Turd (cat #3) had puked on the rug in front of the stove. I have become so desensitized to cleaning up all manner of cat bodily fluids (excellent practice for children), so I just shooed her outside in case round 2 was coming, went back to the bathroom to rinse and spit, and came back to the kitchen to clean up the mess before I left.
I turn on the light, check out the mess on the rug, and think “Huh, that is some weird-looking cat puke. Maybe it’s a hairball, poor baby” (I know; let’s add “cat vomit connoisseur” to my resume). I move in for closer inspection, and suddenly find myself making eye contact with the disembodied face/partial head of a dead rabbit. And I start freaking. The. Fuck. Out.

I call J, screaming and crying, and he thinks someone has died, and I finally manage to calm down enough for him to understand me, and then he starts laughing (probably because he’s already 10 miles down the road and thus too far away for me to smack him).

J: “Just sweep it up. You’ve had to deal with dead stuff they’ve brought you before.” (Because they always seem to do this in the very tiny window of time between J leaving and me leaving. Thanks, cats.)
Me (crying): “I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS. I CANNOT LOOK AT A DEAD RABBIT FACE THIS MORNING.”
J: “Well, I can’t go all the way back home to take care of it.”
Me (calming down): “But…what if I left it for you?”J: “What?”
Me: “What if I just, like, cover it up, and you can take care of it when you get home?”
J: “You are seriously going to just leave it in the house all day?”
Me (suddenly pragmatic): “Well, it’s dead – it’s not going to get up and walk around.”

So yes, children – there is a piece of a dead animal in my kitchen, covered up with a bunch of newspaper that I threw in its general direction, because I am a wiener and a chicken and a baby.
I can do bodily fluids: I have held my fair share of friends’ heads over toilets, sinks, and trash cans. (That’s love, by the way.) I can clean up poop of all smells, colors, and consistencies without batting an eyelash – give me some rubber gloves, and I’m good to go.

But I do not. Do. Dead. Animals. Especially at 7 in the morning, pre-coffee.