Pets: Part 2

We did have cats, which were more or less my sister’s animals. They were all outdoor cats, as my mother patently refused to let them anywhere near her furniture. We left food and water out for them and petted them whenever they came round.

In return, they occasionally disemboweled some small, hapless furry thing and left bits in front of the door. I am told that shows that they love you. That may be, but late one night I walked into the garage and stepped on what might have been the remains of a mouse. I was barefoot. It went squish.

Let’s just say I had to wash the affection off in the sink.

My current cat is my first indoor cat. She’s a runt that was found by a friend on my old college campus and eventually made her way into my care. She is, quite frankly, nuts.

She doesn’t like anyone but me, poops on the bed when she’s mad (under the covers, actually), and is startled by any sudden movement, with ‘sudden’ being defined as ‘any.’ Some of the worst injuries I’ve ever sustained were incurred when I sneezed when she was on my lap. I once sneezed when she was on my desk. She decided that jumping onto my shoulder and leaping off was the best possible course of action. Let’s just say blood was drawn.

She was also my introduction to litter boxes. I assumed that you cleaned a litter box like you emptied your trash. When it got full, you emptied it. Some of my cat-people friends pointed out that this was incorrect and now I clean the box every evening. Frankly, the only things that get cleaned more often are my teeth.

Still, as much as I complain about my cat, there are those moments when she sits on my chest at night and purrs for no particular reason. That makes all the cleaning, trips to the vet, and hairballs worth it. Of course, inevitably, while she’s sitting on my chest and purring, a car door gets slammed, she gets startled and I end up lacerated.

Tomorrow: Part 3. Random critters I grew up with (horses and sheep).

Insomnia Has No Rhymes

I have occasional bouts of insomnia. Last night was around an 8 out of a possible 10, so I had plenty of time to stare at the ceiling and wonder what it would be like to actually sleep.

Out of curiousity (or boredom, hard to tell) I kept a more-or-less accurate list of the things that went through my head. Here they are:

1:14 AM
My cat is either the dumbest creature in the world or the smartest. She will sit just out of reach and then want attention, forcing me to reach for her. She then darts away and does it again 10 minutes later. She’s either so dumb that she hasn’t yet figured out that I need to touch her to pet her or she’s running some sort of Pavlovian experiment to see just how much she can get away with. Either way, it’s been going on for 14 years now.

1:55 AM
To my knowledge, no movie has ever dealt with Godzilla pooping. Obviously, he must eat something, therefore he must also poop. It’s a mystery.

2:21 AM
I think I dozed off for a second. My cat chose that moment to jump on my chest.

2:51 AM
My neighbor has a diesel tow truck. He often arises in the middle of the night and drives away. Mayhap he is a super-hero with tow truck related powers. “My tow truck sense is tingling! There’s a car, a 1988 Honda Civic, and it’s stalled! To the tow truck!!!!”

3:07 AM
Insomnia sucks. Nothing rhymes with it. I think Steven King wrote a novel called Insomnia. Granted, he probably just picks up a dictionary, finds a word at random, and then writes something scary around that word. If I did that, I’d end up with a novel called ‘Isthmian’ about a haunted isthmus.

3:30 AM
I have an uninteresting ceiling.

3:36 AM
My ceiling is still uninteresting.

3:38 AM
I grow tired of looking at my ceiling.

3:40 AM
My ceiling is mocking me with its flat whiteness.

4:08 AM
I don’t actually know what an ‘isthmus’ is. I should look that up.

4:28 AM
I count the bars on the individual numbers on my digital clock. 1 has two bars. 2 has five. Interestingly enough, 4, 5, and 6 have the same number bars as the number they represent. This is an amazing revelation at 4:30 in the morning.

4:43 AM
I wonder if King Kong flings his poo? If he does, Skull Island would be really nasty. Why the hell is it called Skull Island? Oh yeah, there’s a giant mountain shaped like a skull. That makes sense and it sounds better than Clavicle Island. I wonder if it has an isthmus?

4:51 AM
I moved and now my cat wants attention. My Rogue just hit 60 and I need to go to Outlands and start working on my Skinning and Leatherworking. This is vitally important for reasons I cannot articulate.

5:00 AM – 7:00-ish
I think I was actually asleep. I’m honestly not sure. I was either awake and wondering if I was asleep or asleep and dreaming I was awake and wondering if I was asleep. I think I was mostly awake, as nothing was obviously melting and my cat wasn’t speaking French.

7:18 AM
‘Rutabaga’ would be a great name for a Steven King novel.

7:30 AM
I’m trying to remember what the colors in the Olympic rings are. I’m pretty sure there’s a black and a yellow, but I can’t remember the others. This seems really important for some reason.

7:30 AM to 9:15 AM-ish
I think I was honestly asleep here, as I don’t remember looking at the clock.

9:30 AM
Time to get up and get busy. If I’m lucky, I won’t nod off at the computer. Mothra is a funny name. I wonder if the tiny twins that accompany it sing when it poops.

Cheers,
-Jason

Cheese Anyone?

I read an article the other week about a new, genetically superior breed of mice that has been developed. I cannot now find said article, but essentially, the mouse had amazing cardiovascular ability, was stronger, lived longer, and could eat junk food all day and still remain slim.

Anyone who has ever read a science fiction or horror novel can see what is coming next: one of the little buggers will escape.

A scientist, flushed with success, will forget one tiny detail. The cage holding the mouse was not rated for super-vermin. A mouse will escape and create a mouse kingdom, which will be populated by his genetically gifted offspring. Some of the new mice will espouse the ways of Mickey, but others will follow Ignatz, the Thrower of Bricks. There will be a civil war and the Ignatzians will triumph and begin their grand scheme to throw a brick at the world.

They will start small, possibly by eliminating the cats, but once the felines are out of the picture, we all know who will be next. Us. We cannot even keep regular mice out of our houses, what chance do we have against super mice with machine guns? They will have television. They will know what has been done to their species and they will be ticked off.

Our only hope is to create a species of genetically enhanced cats with opposable thumbs, which they will need to be able to operate their little chainsaws. This, of course, brings up a whole new set of problems. Namely, not changing the litter in a timely fashion could have some serious consequences.

The worst case scenario is that the cats team up with the mice to take out the dogs, leaving humanity totally defenseless.

So, just in case, let me say that I welcome our new furry overlords. Cheese anyone?

Cheers,
-Jason