The Dingleberry Chronicles

The hair is the villain in this story; not the cat. The hair is the keeper of the dingleberries. I have feisty cat. Never mind she's 14 years old; this crabby tabby thinks she's an absolute lion. She's the best in my book...except for all that long hair. Gobs and gobs of it everywhere. I constantly vacuum. I have lint rollers at the ready in my bag, my car, my desk at work, on the table in the foyer for guests to roll the hair off as they leave. I groom her. I trim her. But alas, the hair just grows back seeminlgy overnight.

Sorry to be graphic, but this story must be told. I trust there are others out there who wrestle with the dreaded dinglberry. It is, of course, a stubborn little ball (sometimes albeit not so little) of crap stuck to the long fur around the exit orifice. The mighty dingleberry wreaks some havoc in this household. My cat has two reactions: either she leaves it there and sits or spins on every imaginable surface in my home, or she does a butt drag maneuver across the carpet attempting to disengage it. As you can imagine, neither option is too effective, let alone sanitary. The sit and spin does provide a little entertainment as I 'follow my nose' to find all the defaced areas. The drag leaves a lone skid mark - much more mundane.

When I came home tonight and greeted my cat I saw by that very distinctive walk that a most unwelcome guest was here, the dingleberry. I have become quite good at swift dingleberry extraction, but any goings on down there agitates my poor cat tremendously. She's just not herself for the rest of the night.

Another thing that's just not itself is my new ergonomic desk chair with a double layer of extra special vented nylon 'comfort mesh' on the seat. Now, a golf ball sized area is smeared with dingleberry firmly packed into all those little holes in the material. I just can't deal with it. I wheeled the chair to the trash bin. It's gone. The dingleberry wins again. Drat.