When Bastian (our first cat) was still an only “child” we lived in a 2-bedroom apartment (this time WITH a dishwasher!).  One day when cleaning the litter box I noticed a strange object the size of a large marble.  It was a gelatinous and appeared to be attached to a piece of poop.  Euuewww.  I called out (okay, it may have been more of a shriek) to Sean, who brought me a paper towel.  I gently touched the towel to the glob and it came away bright red.  Eek!  With hearts pounding we quickly looked up the vet’s phone number.

A typical paranoid “mom”, I explained what we’d just found, and worried that our beloved cat was bleeding internally.  The vet ran us through the usual questions – is he eating, is he acting normal, is there anything he could have gotten into, etc.  Considering I was watching Bastian devour the food in his bowl I said that yes, he was acting very normal.

The vet explained that sometimes cats can eat something they shouldn’t, or have a small problem in their digestive tract, that can cause a one-time issue.  But if he was acting normal and eating as usual then we should just keep an eye on him (and the litter box) for anything else odd.

We watched him closely for a week and all seemed to be fine.  Nothing else appeared in the litter box, and he seemed happy.  The next weekend my best friend came over, as she usually did, to hang out, watch a movie, eat snacks, or whatever.  We mentioned to her what had happened, but that luckily all seemed to be well.

After a long pause she quietly said “Well…he did like my red licorice last week…”