I Am Convinced That This Is How Those Hoarder Houses End Up With Dead Cats Mummified In Layers Of Pizza Boxes

We can build a better mousetrap, send a man to the moon (allegedly), and send each others messages through thin air without even a wire to carry them. HOWEVER...we can't create a man who understands the concept of throwing away trash!

Farmer H got my dander up at lunchtime today. He was traipsing around, eating a little 4-pack of cookies that I bought him because he asked, after eating a burger that I brought him from town because he asked, even though I was slaving over a 73-degree kitchen countertop to make myself tuna salad because the gas station chicken store had the gall to close their chicken kitchen on Labor Day.

"Oh, could you throw out that rice and The Pony's baked potato skins to the chickens?"

"I guess I can."

"Well, they've been sitting there since yesterday. I can't believe one of you can't just toss them out. You've been in and out of the house twenty times since then."

"HM, I only am in this kitchen twice a day. I don't know what you're doing."

"Haven't I asked you before to throw out the leftovers to the chickens? Or the dogs?"

"I don't know what you've got there."

"Two halves of a potato, skin only, on a plastic plate. Did you think I was saving them overnight? It's not like they were hidden in foil in the back of the bottom shelf of FrigII."

"I don't know what you're doing."

Yeah. He knows exactly what I'm doing. He's just waiting for me to take on that job myself. It's not enough that I plan the meals, buy the groceries, put away the groceries, cook the meals, wash the dishes (BY HAND, you know), and put away the clean dishes. Now I must also throw away the various leftovers that he (granted, there are not many leftovers from Farmer H's plate) and The Pony leave in my kitchen.

I'm sure that's how the hoarder cats get mummified. The husband sees that one has expired, but steps over it every time he goes past, waiting for the wife to clean it up. Oh, he'd bury it if she asked, but he's not about to volunteer. He doesn't know what she's doing with that cat. Maybe she's saving it for later. The wife refuses to pick it up. She found that cat, and took it to get neutered, and fed it and dumped its litter box and swiped up its hairs from every surface. Burial is the man's job. If she leaves it there long enough, he'll surely get the hint. Just like that pizza box he set aside instead of putting in the trash.

Yeah. That's how it starts. I'm positive.