Neil Gaiman

From May 2004. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/05/things-that-make-you-blog-part-one.asp

Fred the Unlucky Black Cat has been doing fairly well recently. About ten minutes ago, he inspired a small poem, for a start.

Ahem.

A Cat in the Ointment

For some, life’s one long fine surprise
the ointment’s pure: there are no flies.

For some, life’s one long disappointment
there’s only flies: there is no ointment.

The rest of us live in the middle.
You own the cat — clean up the widdle.

Although actually it’s not widdle, but cat vomit in astonishing quantities. (None of the rhymes for vomit or puke seemed to fit though. No, don’t take it as a challenge, please.) No cat can have eaten that much cat food, I thought, as I got out of bed and looked at the bedroom carpet. Then Fred staggered back over to it and began retching and hiccupping and gurgling again, and deposited yet more undigested catfood onto a fairly white bedroom carpet.

Excuse me. I really only came downstairs for more paper towels. I have some late night carpet cleaning I should be getting back to.