����I don't know what I would have done without my cat Zoe and her goofy obsession with the toilet.

����If Zoe hears it flush, she likes to saunter into the bathroom and peer inside the bowl. If the toilet has not been used within a period that Zoe deems acceptable, she will slip into the bathroom as if she's verifying that no one has stolen the toilet while she's been napping.

����We all have our quirks, eh.

����The spousal unit has been pretty much out of work since Christmas, so he's been working on our home. I expected the carpentry to last for about a month, but here it is six weeks and counting, very few of the projects are finished, and the construction chaos is pushing all my buttons.

����Friday was the day the new bathroom floor was to go in. The plan was for him to take the toilet out while I was gone gymming, grocery shopping and bill paying, put down the new floor, re-install the toilet and for everything to be hunky dory by the time I came home. Yep, that was the plan.

����Five hours later I came home to no toilet, a floor only half in, and the house even more bombed out looking than it was when I left.

����Fine.

����An hour later, still no toilet, and nature was giving me a call I could not ignore. She was also making sure there was one of those rare winter rain showers so that if I answered the call outside I would not only be exposing My Tender Nether Regions to the snow, I would also get good and soaked.

����Fine.

����So I hauled a bucket out into the chaos that is our porch and answered the call there. Somehow, it all got to me--the mess, all the unfinished projects, squatting over a bucket ... and as I hauled the bucket into the bathroom to pour its contents down the septic pipe, I could feel my eyes stinging and a big lump in my throat. I was millimeters from tears.

����Then I heard the familiar tup tup tup of Zoe running down the stairs, and the click of her claws as she sauntered into the bathroom. She stopped about a foot from me and just stared, and I sweartogawd you could almost see the thought balloon above her little fuzzy head.

����"OMIGAWD, MARN, SOMEONE HAS STOLEN THE TOILET WHILE I WAS NAPPING!"

����The cat's horror was tangible.

����She gingerly edged towards the hole where the septic pipe is, the hole the toilet fits over, and took a big sniff.

����Again, you could almost see the thought balloon above her little fuzzy head.

����"OMIGAWD, MARN, NOT ONLY HAS SOMEONE STOLEN THE TOILET, BUT THEY'VE LEFT A HOLE IN THE FLOOR THAT SMELLS LIKE SH*T!"

����That was all it took. The tears that had once been signs of overwhelming frustration were now tears of laughter.

����As she had been turning right to walk into bathroom, Zoe couldn't see the toilet. When he took it out of the bathroom, the spousal unit had dragged it straight out off into a corner that was on her left behind the kitchen island. But as we exited the bathroom, it was right ahead of us, in plain view.

����Zoe ran right over to it, and stood on it's rim, peering in intently.

����Again, you could almost see the thought balloon above her fuzzy little head.

����"I'VE FOUND THE TOILET BUT SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY WRONG."

����There was no water in the bowl, of course. Clearly perturbed, she slipped off back upstairs to have another nap and mull over the puzzling developments. While I was putting the groceries away, I would giggle every time I thought of her expressions. In another era, the cat would have been a silent film star.

����Within a half an hour the toilet was re-installed, the redwood partition behind the bathroom sink brought back in, and the bathroom door re-hung. When we performed the test flush, Zoe immediately ran downstairs into the bathroom to investigate.

����Her relief that The Toilet Universe Was Unfolding As It Should was palpable, almost as palpable as mine that a goofy little black cat's toilet fixation got me over a rocky moment.

����Sometimes it's a good thing indeed that I'm just way, way too easily amused, eh?