Over there is Lilly. She’s 17, or just about 84 in human years.

And she’s doing well as such things go for cats of her age, but there are a number of age-related issues – one of them being that she loses track of her surroundings.

Which means that from time to time she loses track of where the litter boxes are (we have 3 cats, thus the plural) and does her business on anything that feels somewhat litter-like underfoot.

And she has a thyroid condition, common in older cats, that means that from time to time what she eats makes a return appearance.

The adults in the house are okay with this.

(EWW GROSS CALL THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT CALL CPS WORST PARENTS EVER EWW GROSS NASTY EWW)

Here’s why: for years we’ve been trying every tactic under the sun to get Noodle and Beast to hang up their jackets and stash their shoes away when they’re done with them, to no avail.

It turns out that waking up in the morning to discover their jacket on the floor has been decorated with reverse-peristalsis product, or the deposit from the southern end of a northbound Lilly-cat, is a far more effective organizational reminder than any parenting experts’ strategy or nagging.

And on the now-rare occasions when an item of clothing is left on the floor, the children are told, in our best cat impersonations, “Oh, thank you ever so much, children – that is a wonderful jacket for me to puke on. Let me hork something up for you right now.”

A blur of tidying-up activity follows. Works every time