My ex-boyfriend, who we'll call "Rob" for the sake of protecting the reputation of someone who probably doesn't deserve protecting...

Years ago, "Rob" and I bought our first house together. We were excited to finally have a place of our own and spent weeks buying furniture, painting rooms, and trying to make it feel like home.

The house had three floors. The third floor had a finished bedroom. The main floor had another bedroom, the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Downstairs, the basement had an office and an attached garage. There was also an inground pool out back.

Of course, we also had two cats. Because... well... what gay man doesn't?

Mine was Allie.

His was Mocha.

Mocha was a special kind of stupid too, but I digress.

One thing we had to figure out was where to put the litter boxes.

Neither of us wanted them on the main floor, so we decided the basement was the perfect place. All we had to do was install one of those little cat doors so Allie and Mocha could come and go whenever they wanted.

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan.

My mother and her then-husband, Joey, had come in that weekend to help us get settled into the new house. We got them a hotel room nearby because, at that point, the house was still more cardboard than furniture.

Now, if a project required measuring, cutting, or anything with a blade, I was already in trouble.

Joey volunteered to cut the hole in the basement door and install the cat door.

I'm using his real name because he doesn't deserve the courtesy of a fake one.

We'd already bought the cat door, and Joey had brought his tools with him so he could "help" around the house.

The garage had a built-in workbench, so Joey took the basement door off its hinges and got to work.

My mother and I went back to cleaning the house while "Rob" wandered off to do whatever he thought was helping.

A couple of hours went by. My mother and I got a lot done. We unpacked the kitchen, hung curtains, cleaned the house, and took care of all the usual little things that come with moving into a new place.

Eventually, my mother looked at me.

"What the hell is taking him so long?"

She headed down to the garage.

A few seconds later she called upstairs.

"Uh... Michael? Can you come here for a minute?"

I went down.

Joey was just walking out of the garage looking... defeated.

My mother pointed at the door.

"Okay... take a look at this. Tell me what you see."

I looked.

At first, I didn't see anything wrong.

The hole was cut cleanly. The little frame was installed around it. It looked like a perfectly normal cat door.

My mother looked at me.

"Okay... stand it up."

So I stood it up.

That's when I saw it.

Joey hadn't done a bad job.

In fact, he'd done a really nice job.

The hole was perfectly cut. The cat door was installed exactly the way it was supposed to be.

It was just at the top of the door.

Unless Allie and Mocha had secretly been training for the monkey Olympics, there was no chance either of them was getting through that door.

That's when Joey came back into the garage.

He immediately started apologizing.

"I'm sorry. I'll go buy a new door and fix it."

Damn right he would.

We needed a door at the top of the basement stairs.

What else was going to keep the basement monsters out?

Joey left to buy another door.

Lowe's. Home Depot. Doors-R-Us. Wherever you buy doors.

He came back with a new door, cut another hole, installed another cat door, and this time put it where cats could actually use it.

In the end, it took him about six hours to install a cat door.

That was his chore for the day.

As they were leaving, I looked at my mother.

"Do me a favor."

"What?"

"Next time... leave him home."