Little Cat Feat

While I was waiting for celebrity gossip to load over my dial-up internet connection, I whiled away the time licking the crumbs off the breakfast plates and perusing the headlines in our local paper.

It seems that our City Council, having exhausted their legislative efforts in a road maintenance fundraising extravaganza known locally as the Pothole Tax, recently decided to proceed with an innovative stroke of legislation involving leash laws for cats.

This idea is known locally as Stupid.

Leashing a cat is nearly as effective as lassoing escaped methane from a pasture full of Longhorns.

I know from experience how unproductive this sort of excursion can be. (The catwalking, not the methane lassoing. I have teenaged sons, but I find that a quick shot of Chanel Number Lysol takes care of them.) I attempted the leash walking feat before, and I have a new respect for anti-bacterial cream, sterile bandages, and super glue.

I was younger at the time, and when a light bulb came on in my head, I didn’t have the wisdom to shoot out the light before it could cause major damage. What a good idea it would be to use the Dachshund’s puppy collar and leash to take our ten-year-old tabby for a stroll. Lucy’s puppy collar was designed for comfort and was quite sporty. What objections could Justin have?

Turns out that “What a good idea!” and “What objections could Justin have” are the words that drive a cat over the Cliffs of Insanity. Who knew a 10-year-old ball of mottled fur that sleeps in the sun all day had a Ninja-mode over-ride?

Justin put out my little light bulb with a power surge.

I staggered into the house with the leash wrapped around my legs like I’d been shortsheeted with mummy wrappings.

“Son, run in and get me a Band-Aid.”

“Just one?”

“Well, make it a big one.”

“Anything else?”

“Got any spare Type O?”

After all I’ve done for that kid, he still won’t part with a pint of the good stuff for his mother.

Today I have so many scars, I have striped skin. With my faux-tiger motif, I'm all the rage at jungle-themed costume parties.

So next time the lawmakers get together, I’d rather they do something harmless like levy a per child tax on buffet restaurants.

And leave the Kitty Bill of Rights alone.

Crime Scene Christmas

I thought it be would tough Christmas shopping for the boys once they got past the Toys R Us stage. I used to be able to mark the days until Christmas by how many pages were left in the big toy catalog. Most of the pictures had long been shipped to the North Pole for use as instructional material by elves specializing in sophisticated foam weaponry.

The boys are now in their second decade of intense and dedicated toy shopping. These days they want electronic games that feature goal-oriented ninjas, indiscriminate assassins, and more than a few species of vengeful undead.

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a man in black greeting passersby with a six inch throwing knife and a hearty handgun.

When I was a kid, we’d strap on holsters with six shooters and clap cowboy hats made of felt on our heads. You’d have to chase the bad guy clear down to his front porch before he’d admit that he was dead. These days you’re a virtual assassin who can wipe out a planet with a rapid fire Remington and a hamster wheel of death.

As the guys rent newer and more sophisticated video games to see which ones they want for Christmas, the sounds of the season fill my house: swords ring out in duels, gunshots ricochet through quiet villages, gleeful laughter meets the brother who triumphs in the zombie apocalypse.

It reminds me of lunch with the relatives.

It’s never safe to venture into Uncle Joe’s airspace after he’s had his fill of giblet gravy. Even the Labradors avoid crossing into enemy territory at half past pumpkin pie.

So this Christmas we’ll deck the halls with a turkey leg fired high tight toward a platoon of retreating relatives. And if anybody tries to get away with the pumpkin pie, they’d better watch out. I’m a killer with an assault drumstick.

And I’m sitting next to Uncle Joe.

Past Tension

“You’re upset.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You’re doing Frito shots again.”

When I’m having what the Captain lovingly calls “the days Homeland Security doesn’t have a color for,” I like to soothe my ruffled hormones with a mixture of Fritos and M&M’s. I take a handful of each and slam dunk them into my mouth like Michael Jordan down the lane at the buzzer. Crunch time. With a candy coating.

I don’t want to say I’m stressed, but I bought a case of each at the local warehouse store and I have them stored in those never-ending watering dishes you get for your dog so that he’s never thirsty. If I play my cards right, I can munch my way through July without ever getting up. I won’t even have to change clothes. I’m wearing stretchy pants and they’ll just grow along with me.

I don't know if I’m more stressed than usual, but I’m so high strung these days that if I flex my pinky my shoes come untied, my glasses fly off, and I lose control over important bodily functions, such as the ability to locate my keys inside my Aigner bag. I sneezed at the office the yesterday and someone had to throw a blanket over me and run for the Bounty. The cell phone in my pocket called emergency services. In Australia.

I’ve noticed that women react to stress differently from men. When searching for something that he needs urgently and cannot locate in a nano-instant, my husband finds it soothing to toss random objects out of his path and assign creative swear words to best fit the scope and purpose of each object. His trusty Lab waits nearby for moral support, ready to pitch in and chew a shoe or take a nap if the situation merits immediate action.

Curiously, it appears that we also turn up the tension knob over different things.

I get upset because supper is late, somebody’s teacher is threatening emergency action again because of a wildlife sighting in her chair and while she’s at it, a mention of Huckleberry Finn on the back of a cereal box is not the same as reading the novel, and there's a spider sending semaphore signals from a web in the bathroom that would support the weight of Tarzan on a junglewide jaunt. Also, there is a $70 tennis shoe in the litter box.

The thing that worries me most is the shoe.

Why is there just one? And which of those careless cats wore the thing in there and left it? I’ll jut have to watch and take note if I see Fluffy hobbling down the hall in a single Reebok. I see disciplinary action in the future. He's irresponsible with tennis balls as well.

The Captain, on the other hand, is distressed that his DVD of Dr. Who episodes is turned the wrong direction on the shelf--obviously the work of housebreaking ninjas with a time travel complex. It’s not like he can watch any DVDs anyway, because the player doesn’t work without the remote, and I think that’s what I saw peeping through the Fresh Step in the litterbox after breakfast this morning. Fluffy the cat is quite diverse in his hobbies.

All in all I think I’ll take the easy way out when it comes to stress. I’ll cook dinner for the in-laws, redecorate the house, and teach the teenagers to drive all at once. After that, everything else will look easy.

Kitchen Crisis

“Mom! Ryan stuck the vacuum cleaner hose up under the stove and now there’s smoke coming out of his pants!”

I opened one eye and waited while the whirling scenes behind my eyeballs settled into recognizable figures. A young boy stood by the bed, the very bed upon which I collapsed in the early hours of the morning after arriving home from an intimate anniversary trip to the coast with my husband and his MasterCard. This must be a dream. I closed the errant eye gratefully.

“Mom. The turtle is missing out of his pocket!”

I’ve heard you can change the course of your dream if you concentrate. I concentrated on Continental breakfasts on the hotel terrace. I concentrated on platters of pastries and piles of fragrant fresh fruits of the season. I tried to concentrate on going back to sleep, but this act is difficult when confronted with a young boy leaning in close enough to breathe your exhaust and visions of Hoover-bound turtles are dancing in your head. Unless that turtle was Michelangelo or one of his Teenage Mutant Ninja buddies, he was probably exiting my son’s shorts in a puff of I Dream of Jeannie Smoke.

Fine. If reality was going to intrude into my unconsciousness and stomp barefoot across my fantasies, I’d get up. I swept down the hall in a swirl of pink nylon and polyester lace to take command of the sandstorm.

“What are you doing?” I shrieked, fanning away the clouds of dust that threatened to cover my body like a “just add water” mud pack.

“Good morning, Mom,” Ryan greeted me calmly without looking up from the task at hand, which seemed to be a daring attempt to suck the oven’s inner workings piece by piece into the vacuum. “Jeffrey’s dinosaur head rolled under here, so I thought I’d get it out so he wouldn’t bother you.” A fresh pillar of dust-filled smoke arose as he hit a warren of dust bunnies that didn’t need to worry about finding a place on the endangered species list.

Son Two, The Informer, was right. As Ryan knelt on hands and knees on what must be the kitchen floor, jabbing at the stove with a vacuum cleaner bayonet, the clouds appeared to be passing through the billowing folds of his star-spangled shorts. I couldn’t imagine a prettier picture to greet me after a week of soaring seabirds and glimmering shells at sunset. A threadbare moon in my kitchen.

I wrenched open the kitchen door and turned on the ceiling fan, industrious actions that succeeded in creating a tornado-like whirlwind that rerouted the dusty smoke back up Ryan’s boxers. Seen through sunlight filtered by vacuum exhaust with dust clouds rolling up one leg and down the other, my oldest son looked like a “person of interest” in a Stephen King novel.

“Here, let me,” I screamed over the roar of the vacuum sucking up dust clots, Jeffrey jumping up and down like a caffeinated flea, and Lucy the semi-dachshund barking disapproval of the chaos. I grabbed the vacuum hose from Ryan and knelt down to survey the situation. As I squatted, not wanting to commit to a full bend and kneel unless absolutely necessary, the vacuum hose brushed the flimsy pink folds of my gown and sucked a foot or so of the delicate fabric inside. I immediately voiced my surprise and disapproval in a calm and controlled manner.

“Stop screaming and stand still!” Ryan grabbed one edge of the flimsy material and began to heave mightily in the manner of someone wrestling an unruly reptile.

“Help!” I squealed back as the struggles resulted in a blow to my left eye and a near-miss indiscretion involving my modesty.

“Excuse me. Is this a bad time?” asked a friendly voice. I squinted through my remaining good eye and discovered the local pastor peering in the open kitchen door from the steps outside. Dropping by to inquire about my trip, the good man took in this lovely picture of family unity: Me, dabbing at my swollen eye with a dishcloth, my nightdress sucked down the vacuum hose while the three of us--the vacuum hose, the nightdress, and me—snaked around my teenage son whose heavenly-body boxers flapped as he endeavored mightily to wrest me loose, and my youngest offspring jumping about excitedly in backwards pants with a lizard’s tail flapping from the back pocket which was now in front.

“Can I be of assistance?

“Pull the plug!”

Responding to emergency situations is an important part of a pastor’s life’s work and he responded admirably. He lunged through the door and remedied the situation with a yank to the snarling monster’s cord.

Slowly, my night dress drizzled back down my thighs and the swirling clouds of dust began to silt at our feet. I stammered and sputtered, looking for an explanation that didn't involve animal abuse, child neglect, or chiffon in the kitchen after breakfast time.

The good pastor collapsed in a chair at the kitchen table as dust bunnies swirled around his head in a halo pattern before coming to rest on his shoulders. He took in the situation with a soulful look and began to laugh.

“I’d use you in my sermon this week,” he paused to wipe his eyes. “But I don’t know if you would fit in better with The Good Samaritan or,” he winced as he pulled a small, surprised turtle out from under him, “the Ten Plagues of Egypt.”

Check Me Out

I’m of the school that believes that as long as there are self-check registers in the grocery store, our quota for terrorists has been met. I’ve had paddle-wielding principals in elementary school that didn’t inspire the fear in my heart that one lone machine with a blank stare and twenty question does when it starts prowling through my personal effects.

However, since I’ve made great strides operating the toaster oven, I thought it might be time to give the self-check ninja one more try. Last time it took the produce boy, a store manager, and a passing grandmother with a customer card and a death wish to get me straightened out. This time it might not be so easy.

I checked ahead and was glad to hear that the manager that helped me the last time was still out on sick leave. Sure, I wish the man well, but anybody who goes all white around the mouth over an innocent mistake shouldn’t be in the people business. And anyway, I paid for those bananas.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though. Weren’t these touch screens a breeding ground for the kind of bacteria that closes up my head like the entrance to a nuclear reactor the day they all notice a funny smell? Or did they install touch screens on these things to make sure they’ve got a good set of fingerprints in case I make a run on the plastic bags and Tic Tacs? And couldn’t that midget behind me in the clever Boy Scout disguise lift my prints so that he could assume my place on the lower half of all the credit reports in the free world? Well, they’re not getting the goods on me without a fight.

“What’s that?” my husband asked as I snapped on my rubber gloves with the care and precision of a proctologist.

“Rubber gloves.” I picked up my broccoli and waved it at the screen like I was conducting Beethoven’s fifth for a vegan orchestra.

“What are they for?”

“Identity theft. And the common cold.”

“I didn’t know they were related. Have you alerted the government and the American Medical Association about your amazing breakthrough?”

“They already know.”

“Can we expect a Nobel Prize?”

“You’re being sarcastic. They say that people can lift your fingerprints off these machines and use them to steal your identity.”

“I don’t think Grandma Moses there has a fingerprint kit in her apron pocket.”

I surreptitiously checked out the Q-Tip of a lady behind us, flipping through Cosmo, white hair glowing softly under the fluorescent lights. She looked harmless enough if you didn’t count the keg of industrial strength prune juice she carried under one arm. If she was hosting a party, I hoped that she had more than a single bathroom in her apartment at the retirement home.

I sighed and peeled off my gloves. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Show me how to work this monster.”

Bill punched a button. The machine greeted us in a voice that passengers on an outer-Mongolion-bound stagecoach could hear without straining. He plopped a large cantaloupe on the scanner with a thud.

“Weight?” the electronic voice bellowed.

I snatched that melon off the scanner so fast it tried to quick dial the Farmer’s Market for assistance. The light above the register started flashing, and the display read, “Wait for cashier assistance” in an insulting font.

About that time my old manager friend walked in. He took in the blinking light, the angry checkout display, and me, holding a ripened cantaloupe like it was a smart bomb and the store was full of the folks in charge of gas prices. Without a word, he threw his name tag and price checker on the floor and ran out of the store so fast the automatic door flapped open and closed like a flasher on New York street corner.

“What’s the matter?” Bill’s brows were drawn together like they’d been shrink wrapped.

“I don’t discuss my weight with anybody who can’t give me a prescription for hormones.”

“Honey, the machine was asking for the weight of the cantaloupe. Not of you.”

“Oh. Perhaps I should explain to the manager when he gets back.” We listened to his car as it squealed past the outdoor furniture display and, dragging a two lawn chairs and a mini-cooler, screeched out of the parking lot.

Bill looked at me and rubbed his head. “How do you scare them off without even speaking?”

“I don’t know,” I answered trying to pull out a piece of plastic that was jammed in the payment slot. “But if he’s after my identity, he’s never going to get it.” With a tug, I pulled half of a mangled card out of the machine so fast I fell against the buggy behind me and squished some lady’s buns.

“Because I just paid for the groceries with your library card.”