A little background first.. I hate cats, have always hated cats, cats are morons; cats don't kick in fer the rent; cats don't do guard duty and won't bring in the paper. They shed, they play knock-hockey at 4:00am and they don't get chicks, they don't do a damn thing but eat; toejam and sleep.
At least, when my kid got a rotty and my wife gave me the boot we had something in common... overmatched; we were faced with suffering the indignity of being a poor second choice for each other together.
It's been a coupla years now.. we pass each other in the morning offering mutual gunts, when I come home I feed it; it subsequently leaves me alone. I'm happy.. it's happy. When it's sick; it tells me (bastard hurled on my keyboad once) and since it's older than I am (in cat years) I tend to avoid giving it flying lessons like my kid did in her youth.
For the most part; we live our seperate lives in the same place and experience life in our own ways... I fly a online computer sim.. it sits on the table and stares at me like I'm a moronwith with it's oh-so superior smug half-purr . When I get tired of this, I take off a shoe and threaten to toss it at it.. it bolts; I go back to flying.
Till tonight. I'm in the middle of havin a blast tearin up knitland, we've got a beachhead; things are goin pretty good.. phone rings. Ex-wife. Seems the kid; on her second day of school (new boarding school) has wigged out.. wants to come home, hates it there, nobody likes her (wait till they get to know her), she has no friends (see answer #1), etc etc. Being a doting and caring parent; I call the kid at her new school and offer some encouragement (no; we ain't comming to get you), explain that it's normal to feel lost scared and depressed in new surroundings (wait till you get a divorce, kid), and to buck up and give it a few weeks...
Mollified (for maybe 10-12 minutes; I bet) she gets off the phone and goes back to face the music, and I get in front of the computer and start booting up.
*thump* MEOWRRRRRR!!! *wham* *thump*
Unconcerned, I continue to stare at the bios and cmos statements as they scoll by, sure that Hairball is just having a little argument with the cat toys (hairball tends to be vindictive and dictatorial; a trait I understand is normal in a cat) and give it minimal notice. Ahhh a normal desktop; Winders 98 has surprised me again, I can try to get on the internet and get in virtual line for the world-wide-wait.
*thump* MEOWRRRRRR!!! *wham* HISSSSSSSSSS *thump* MEOWRRRRRRRR!!
Sounds like a hell of a battle... wonder who's winning... I continue with the ritual of cliks and nudges with the mouse; affix my headset; jostle the controls; getting closer to bishland and happy isolation from the cares of ex-wife, kid (hey; if I have an ex-wife; how come I don't have an ex-kid??); Dog; cat...
*thump* MEOWRRRRRR!!! *wham* HISSSSSSSSSS *thump* MEOWRRRRRRRR!! *CRASH*..
Ruh roh.. now somethings busted.. I get up to head towards the sounds of the ongoing ruckus and my foot snags the mic cord.. the tower whips off the table *WHUMP*, right to the floor so fast my stunned mind had yet to grasp the implications, then the monitor follows.. deperate; I lunge towards it.. damn thing must weigh 40 pounds.. UNNNGH, I save the monitor from certain doom, restore it to safety atop the desktop..
*thump* MEOWRRRRRR!!! *wham* *thump*
"GAWDAMMIT!" I roar, whipping around and again heading towards the sounds of a ruckus in progress in the bathroom and in the process yank the poor tower through my chair (cord still around my foot) whick smacks the endtable; sending the phone and the light crashing to the floor (which gets my now freaked out downstairs neighbor to start hollering and pounding) followed by the monitor I'd saved from certain destruction about 10 seconds before.
At about this point I loose my normal sense of cool equilbrium and shout at the guy downstairs "AWWW SHUT THE HELL UP: amazinhunk" and then holler towards the cat secreted in the bathroom engaged in some unknown battle royale "WHEN I GET IN THERE I'M GONNA KILL YOU TOO!"
Shattered.. like my new computer so carefully and precisley built by myself not 2 months ago, I retire to the kitchen to get an icepak for my mangled arm.. (bruised from elbow to wrist from cushioning the first fall of the monitor) and return to the living room and sit on the couch surveying the damage when I notice my ankle is bleeding profusely from that damn garrotte of a mic cord. I slowly pan my eyes around the wreckage of my life... when there comes a pounding at the front door.
"POLICE! Open up!" Oh; no... groaning; I stagger to my feet; step to the door and open it.. two real big kids in blue suits; steely eyes, they take in the scene.. the place in ruins, me bleeding; ice pack.. "Anybody else here?" As they swarm thru the doorway moving me back by force of presence I answer.. "unnnh.. no... just a cat, for the moment. Maybe not much longer tho.." Now standing in the middle of the scene of what is obviously some sort of domestic dispute, they eye me dubiously "We got a complaint from the guy downstairs, he thinks a murder was taking place here, mind if we look around?"
I sink back down onto the couch; replace the icepack; groan and listen while one, still eyeing me carefully gets on his nifty little radio and begins talking while his big blue twin goes prowling thru the bedroom and kitchen. When he reaches the bathroom (door closed) and opens it Hairball explodes out between his legs and comes close to meeting the just rewards I had planned for it in the moments immediately preceeding the arrival of the Law.. the cop goes fer his gun.
"HOLY COW!" exclaims the cop (were do these guys come from? Modesto??) 'No,' sez I.. 'cat.'
Mollified, but a bit edgy; the cop pushes the door open on the bath to reveal the scene of the crime... and he starts to laugh.
"What happened here?" sez the first cop, and I tell him about the noise from the bath; getting up, catching the cord, wrecking the computer, all in gristly angry detail. The interview concludes with the name, rank; ID and serial number stuff (I'm peeved they didn't rake the cat over the coals) decline to arrest the cat despite my injuries and politely suggest I change the kitty litter instead.
After they are gone I have a look in the bathroom... 4 full rolls or charmin are shredded (about knee deep in hugahunk in there) the shower curtain and rail are down; all the deruitius of human personal hygiene are missing from the sink (no doubt sunk in the sea of charmin) and the litter box has been upturned. eeeeewwww.
Outraged, I limp back to the living room. Hairball is perched upon the spot that at one time was reserved for my glorious 21" monitor, industriously grooming, pickin the charmin outta her claws and purring a very loud self satisfied purr. I notice there's and odd refraction to the sound of a cat purring while simultaneously licking it's chops. I believe I can correctly classify this cat noise as...
"I won my fight amazinhunk. How'd you do in here??"
Did I ever tell you guys I hate cats??
Bish, sorry; I ain't gonna be on-line fer a few days.. I'm down to a laptop till I get this mess cleaned up. Knits; you can send Hairballs medal for saving knitland and covering my toothbrush with cat turds to the rooks, who know what to do with such things.
Hairball, meanwile; basking in the self-satisfied glory of whipping up on Mr Whipple, continues to languish on my vacated desktop.
I think I will hide my laptop tonight when I go to bed.... most assuredly still bemoaning the existence of ex-wives; kids and their gawdammned cats.
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Hang
1st/AG "Bishlanders" << Recruiting!!
"Turn to kill, not to engage."
Commander 'Willie' Driscoll, USNR
