Counting the Days

I’ve noticed that through this experience, there are certain mile stones that track time in our lives.  The first time I noticed this was when I had to re-fill the cat’s automatic feeder.  The cat has an automatic feeder for his hard food that has five day’s worth of food in it divided up into individual servings.  After five days, I have to re-fill it.  I know when it’s been five days because the cat becomes a meowing, pacing, annoying, velcro-kitty.  I first filled the feeder on the first day in the camper.  When I had to re-fill it, I realized it had been 5 days. It felt like a landmark.  Since moving to the camper, I have had to re-fill the cat’s feeder 9 times.

The next landmark was laundry day.  I have gotten into the habit of doing laundry every Tuesday, so laundry day is every seven days.  Today is the seventh visit to the laundromat.  As a side note, I have tried 4 different laundromats in that time and have found one that is clean, has washers that smell clean, and has wireless internet.  This is where I am writing this from today.

Another 7 day landmark is the litter box.  I completely clean out the litter box every 7 days, so I have completely cleaned the litter box 7 times.  I scoop it every day (sometimes twice), but I don’t count that as a landmark.  Counting that would be like counting days in prison.

The next landmark I noticed was how often I had to buy the animal’s food.  I buy three different types of food (puppy food, adult dog food, and cat food) and try to buy it once a month.  We were low when we moved into the camper so I have bought pet food twice.

The next monthly landmark I noticed was one of the feminine type.  I won’t go into details, but I’ve had to buy the pink boxes in the feminine aisle twice since moving to the camper.

We’ve also lived there long enough that I’ve had to buy shampoo and soap for the shower, gone through two huge toilet paper packages, gone through one huge paper towel package, had to buy paper plates three times, and plastic utensils three times.  I figure we’ve gone through roughly 210 cans of Diet Mountain Dew and roughly 126 bottles of beer.  Not enough beer, I know.  I plan to get to work on increasing that number this weekend.  Especially after realizing I’ve filled that goddamned automatic feeder 9 times since moving to the camper.