When the feral cats started using Portia's litter box every time they barged in, I moved the box from the den into another room. As I keep the door from the den into the rest of the house closed whenever I open the back door or the garage door, the box is kept safe from feral depredations. The problem is that now I can smell from the couch whatever Portia does in the box, and about five o'clock this morning she decided to deposit the smelliest dump in feline history.
The smell of fire can wake me from sleep. Certain strong perfumes and colognes can wake me from sleep. The smell of certain Italian sauces cooking can wake me, too, and I suppose there are a number of other foods that could wake me up, but I don't know what they are because nobody has ever cooked them within nose-reach of me while I was sleeping.
But neither fire, nor spicy marinara, nor the arrival of a nephew sporting an injudiciously generous application of Old Spice (which is to say any at all) has ever made me sit bolt upright from a deep sleep as did Portia's poo. In fact its odor was so intense that I should probably capitalize it: Portia's Poo. It would probably be safe to predict that it will turn out to have been the Poo of the Century. I know that's a risky prediction when the century has so long yet to run, but all I can say is that if the prediction turns out to be wrong I only hope that I'm not around to smell the proof.
An all I got out of the experience was a view of the sunrise and the knowledge that there is in this world an odor more alarming than that of Old Spice. The horror, the horror!