Wouldn't you know it — maggots are resilient! Even though my eyes were watering and I wanted to gag, I couldn't help but be amazed at how long they wiggled around in the bleach puddle.

One of the things that was keeping me going through this was thinking about this post — anything to sidetrack my attention. I thought it darkly humorous that Owen had inspired a trilogy.

Finally, Owen made it onto the tarp and outisde, where I dug his grave. He is now helping out the garden project, specifically the azaleas.

If it couldn't get any more macabre, Julie asked me another question. She's been concerned about the smell because we're scheduled to have a home study visit in the morning with the adoption center lady. I've written about this before as well, and it's pretty important to us.

"Should we tell her about the dead cat?" Julie said.

"Considering she's about to authorize handing over a live human to us for safekeeping, no," I said. "What are we going to say when we smell something bad the next time — 'where's the baby?'"

After it was all over, Julie asked me if Owen's eyes were closed. God bless her.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said.

She pressed, as she is inclined to do.

I demurred again, and she pressed again.

Finally, I said, "Honey he had maggots crawling out of his a--."

"Well now we know you can change diapers," she said.

Penultimately, if there were true-to-life Father's Day cards, I would want mine to say something like, "Father's are great because they shovel the dead cat out of the basement."

Finally, some of you may know that I enjoy the horror tale. [You can download my story, Unlikely Hero, by clicking here.]

Yes, I expect to use this somehow.