I think that when you reach a certain age and you haven’t had children to distract you, you begin to adopt pseudo-children.
My cats will be the death of me yet.
A summary: I own two cats. Chelsea is an eighteen-year-old, orange-striped barn cat without front teeth. Tilly began her life in a comic book store where she was regularly prodded, poked and mistreated by pimple-faced youths with intense body odor. We adopted her when she was not quite a year old and it has taken roughly six years for her to move from feline serial killer to mere psychopath. I have hopes that she will progress to a mild case of bipolar disorder before she croaks. The name she was given at the comic store was actually ‘Attila’, but we called her Tilly, in hopes that possibly the scary name was giving her an inferiority complex or possibly a name to live up to. Then I further feminized her name by giving her a middle name of ‘Marie’. Her name on her vet’s records is actually ‘Attila Marie’.
She and Chelsea despise each other with the fire of a thousand suns.
What is more, Tilly has become a very rotund feline. To the outside observer, it would almost appear as though every pound that Chelsea loses, Tilly appropriates. What is more, Tilly has decided that I am her mother. She kneads and suckles my dirty clothing. Her favorite time of the day is when I take off my pajamas and place them on the bed, where she will then happily lay upon them for several hours. It makes me feel a little dirty, actually. Kind of like those women who sell their panties over the Internet.
Tilly loves to play with cat toys, such as used q-tips dragged out of the garbage, the blinds in the kitchen (or, I should say, that WERE in the kitchen’ I found them in a tangled heap at the top of the basement stairs’ I think they were following her down the stairs as she tried to hide). Her favorite activity is knocking over the wicker garbage basket in our living room and beating the shit out of my stuffed sheep Lanolin. Let’s just say Tilly has an anger management problem.
Tilly’s favorite treat is beef jerky and Lemon Italian Ice from Fazoli’s. She will seek and destroy any cup of Lemon Italian Ice in the house.
Chelsea, on the other hand, is Tilly’s complete opposite. Where Tilly doesn’t want to be touched, Chelsea is a lap whore. She begs for attention at every opportunity. Where Tilly is schizophrenic, Chelsea is relaxed or asleep. The downside is that Chelsea is a talker, a yowler, and a caterwauler. At one time, I fantasized that Chelsea had a finite number of meows before her vocal chords actually ceased working. This has yet to happen. Lately, she’s discovered that a frantic YEOWARLLLLLLLLL will get her immediate attention, thus at 3:00 am, we are treated to the sounds of feigned Cat Agony from the dining room or from under the bed. Because she wants attention, yet she wants to be far away when she does it. I think that she realizes that were she within reach, we would have strangled her long ago.
While Tilly is the playful one, after seventeen years, we discovered a toy for Chelsea. She thinks that a laser pointer is the shiznit. She actually perks up at the sound from the chain. When I play with the laser pointer when we’re in bed, I can actually get her to try to bite Esteban’s butt. It’s a happy thing. Plus, it tuckers her out so that she doesn’t yodel in the wee hours of the morning. Once we misplaced a laser pointer and found it months later, with big teeth marks in the metal. We suspect Tilly, as she is very jealous of any playtime that Chelsea takes away from her.
But they are, in some ways, my little furry carpet monsters. When I took Tilly to the groomer to be washed this spring, I actually took a bunch of pictures like any other proud mom. Actually, I just wanted to be able to laugh at them later. I’m a mean mommy, I guess. It’s probably better that I only have cats.
Today, we took a forced voluntary employee satisfaction test at work. It is technically voluntary. They like to tout that they had 100% participation in their voluntary employee satisfaction survey. They also like to make goals to reach a certain percentage of Happy Employees every year’. Or the beatings will commence, I suspect.
One year, about a year after I started here, I was signed up for the very last proctored session of the survey. I was sick that day. When I came in the next day, I received an email from the now-retired Human Resources chick, which detailed in terse tones how I had been absent from my assigned session and she gave me a time to come into her office, where she would personally oversee me while I filled out that voluntary survey. On copy of the email were my supervisor, her supervisor, and the vice president in charge of our division.
When I went to fill out my survey, she icily said ‘May I ask why you were not at your assigned session?’ ‘I was sick.’ I said. ‘Oh. Here.’ And she shoved a number two pencil in my hand, along with a sheet of little bubbles to blacken voluntarily. I felt like volunteering to shove that number two up her nostril.
I like our new HR guy though. He dresses up like Gene Simmons and plays in a Kiss revival band. You gotta love a guy who’s not afraid to use his tongue. On the upside, I really love my new job and my boss, so I will not be responsible for any low scores this year.
I think the Pontiac Aztez looks like the bastard child of a Jeep Wrangler and an AMC Hornet.
That depresses me though. Anyone under the age of 21 will not know what a Hornet looked like. Maybe not even under the age of 25. All of the ugly 70’s that they missed. Wacky Packs, clothing with the seams inside out, Google peanut butter. If I could bring back one food, it would be Google banana flavored peanut butter. Does anyone else remember that?
What other foods do you miss? Tell the Message Board.
