Mommy Tip of the Day: Triumph over grossness

My cat, like everyone's cat, likes to sleep in the center of my kitchen table. The other day she decided she couldn't be bothered to get off the table in order to throw up, so she puked on one of the billion fliers Aron brought home from school. Unfortunately it was the color of the setting sun -- blaze orange with a dash of red. The school puts important news on such items because they think we will surely see it if it is so brightly colored. Apparently the educators here are unfamiliar with the "Code Red" phenomenon -- when it's always code red, then it never is.

Anyway, so, she puked on it. To quote my friend Summer, "NARSTY." Last night, after it was bone dry, I discovered it, huffed in frustration as I shot her a "why the crap do I have a cat again?" look and attempted to peel it off the table. HORROR. The color from the paper transferred in its entirety to the surface of the table. The result: a huge, red-orange spot on the center of the maple-colored table. It was as if it had been ironed on. I almost passed out.

I turned to my trusty laptop (read: ancient, but still working, thank goodness), also on the table but luckily not covered with puke, and searched Google for how to remove ink stain from a finished wood. In some random Yahoo answers discussion forum, several recommendations were made. Some were chemicals that I am fairly certain can only be purchased from your local meth dealer. The only thing on the list I had handy was non-gel toothpaste.

I squirted the whole tube on (it was a travel size). I rubbed and rubbed, then wiped and wiped. It was a miracle. With a little elbow grease, it came right up. In fact, that portion of the table is shiner and nicer than the rest of the table! So, stuff this equation in your lexicon, ladies: cat puke + school flier = stained table, but stained table + toothpaste = clean table.

And cats are really gross. Cute, furry and funny, but gross.