I’ve got something I once read stuck in my head, and it’s sort of like when you get a song stuck in your head: both comforting in its repetition and awful, especially if you don’t like the song. The something is this: from an interview with Sally Quinn, Washington writer/hostess/wife of Ben Bradlee and owner of the 28-room storied Grey Gardens on Long Island.

“When it rains,” she said, or something along these lines, “you can still smell the cat urine.”

This is definitely a song I don’t like. Whether or not you know anything about Grey Gardens, I’ll cut to the chase: countless cats peeing all over your house, even if you’re a Bouvier and your house is a vast estate in Easthampton, has horrible, irrevocable consequences.

As for our little drama: We arrived home from vacation late on Sunday night, a night already made pouty and tense because it’s back to work on Monday (mistake #1). It is raining, of course. Baby, who is five months old, spits up as soon as we get off the plane, a giant, surprise SPLAT on the rug at the gate. The JetBlue gate is very crowded and I’m mortified. I try to wipe it up with a baby wipe which -- no surprise -- is not particularly absorbent.

We head out to find our car on the JFK AirTran only to realize that Husband (who parked it) remembers the long-term parking spot number but not the lot number. As we (while lost) change trains twice, Eldest and Middle Child explore their backpacks and rediscover some little rubber balls from some gumball machine somewhere or other and start playing a game where they are bouncing them (and boy are they bouncy) up and down the escalator, sometimes as the train we want to take is pulling into the station. My blood pressure is rising, needless to say, but I’m trying to keep a lid on it. Let’s just say my thought bubbles are nasty and unforgiving. Meanwhile Baby has not been changed in about four hours and I attempt (successfully, as it turns out) to change his diaper in the reclined umbrella stroller: a first in my career as a parent. Husband does not understand why I have gone silent and cranky.

The good news: the house has not burned to the ground, which for some reason is one of my fears every time we turn on to our street after a week away. However, other, less awful things have happened: the pool has a leak and half the lights in the house won’t turn on because the electricians rewiring our kitchen have been hard at work all week, or maybe they’re just messing with us. And, most horribly, that unmistakable smell hits us like a slap in the face as soon as we open the front door. H-O-R-R-O-R-S: the cat has peed and pooed all over our sofa cushions. Repeatedly, it seems, for the whole week.

Important note about cat: he is 16 years old, was sort of our first child, and has handled most life changes thrown at him by his clueless human owners with good humor and aplomb.

And in Geriatric Cat’s defense, we did leave him in the house (with friends coming in daily to feed him) with strange men, lots of banging, and a litter box way upstairs. But I am just beyond despondent. I have had cats long enough to know what cat pee on a soft surface means: certain death. This is the sofa we all love best, the most comfortable one where we spend hours on Family Movie Nights watching things my husband and I have to convince the kids they’ll love (Akila and the Bee), things the kids have to convince us we’ll love (Madagascar), and anything starring Will Ferrell. Do we have to buy a new sofa? New cushions? Move?

Since it is now about 10:30 p.m., we glare at the cat, throw all the cushions on the front porch and start getting everybody ready for bed. I decide I will tackle this tomorrow. Before I get in bed I write my self a note to get the DVD of Grey Gardens. Maybe Geriatric Cat and I will watch it together. On the floor.