I Dream of Gene (Leaving)

Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine was in typical form last week. He came in Friday for a long haul session of research and was disappointed to hear it would be a 20 minute wait for a computer. So he plopped down in the front room and set about making us miserable, i.e. by talkin' at us. His topic at least varied from geneal0gy, centering instead on our lack of computers and our restrictive time limits, but these were subjects broached only in the most pleasant and genial manner he could muster. Then Gene asked how many computers the Town-C branch had, compared to our three. 

"A lot," I said in a hopeful tone. "At least five." 

"And are they as busy as these?" he asked. 

"Last time I was down there, they weren't," Mrs. C offered. 

Gene mused on this for a bit and then said that he didn't like having to drive to Town-C to do his work. Mrs. C then suggested that he try the local community college "liberry" because they didn't have any time limits whatsoever. It was only a short walk from our front door. 

Again, Gene decided he wasn't interested in actually going anywhere. Mrs. C then pointed out to him, in her own very pleasant and genial manner, that technically we still have a rule on the books that each patron is to receive a maximum of 3 computer sessions per day, but that we just haven't had to enforce that rule in several years. (This was a new one on me, otherwise I might have campaigned to get it reinstated beforehand. ) The rule itself, as Mrs. C later explained, stems from a time when we only had one public access computer which was constantly being fought over by the likes of Mr. B-Natural and The Untalented Mr. Ripley. It was actually Ripley who got the rule established, for he was even more hungry for computer time than Mr. B-Natural or even Crusty and would stay all day long as the machine's resident user, only taking temporary and highly reluctant breaks when bumped off for other patrons. 

Gene didn't seem to sense the veiled threat in Mrs. C's words. Eventually, he got a computer and stayed there for over 2 hours before the others filled up and it was time to boot him. He did his little frustrated laugh, gathered up his crap and made for the desk to sign up again. We did have another patron who was also out of time at that point, a kid who'd been on for over an hour. I didn't really feel like booting the kid off, either, because it seemed to me that as long as Gene had been on past his initial half hour, the kid should get some consideration too. Plus, it really annoyed Gene that we didn't immediately bump the kid off for him, who he HAD to know was out of time too. Unfortunately, not bumping the kid meant we had to listen to Gene go on and on about how much it would cost him to get good internet service in his neck of the county and about the massive crooks who ran his phone company. I tried to hold out for as long as possible, but after only five minutes of his patented good-natured complaining, I ran for the computer hall and told the kid he had to give it up. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Mrs. C said after Gene had hauled all his crap back to the computer hall. She'd been sitting in closest proximity to Gene and therefore received the brunt of his attention. 

I really shouldn't complain about Gene. As far as annoying patrons go, he's at a pretty low and inoffensive level. We should really pray for more just like him.

All in the Gene (a.k.a.: "Set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance!")

Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine is still far from being a Rogue Patron, but he’s certainly not helping himself when it comes to staying out of my field of temptation to classify him as such. In fact, he’s rapidly encroaching upon Crusty the Patron’s record for sheer computer usage. 

For the past couple of days he's been really putting the geneal0gy pedal to the geneal0gy metal, burning up the hours just a researchin' and researchin' as fast as his little geneal0gist fingers can go. Apparently, it's been going well for him. Trouble is, other people need to use computers too, so we have to bust him off frequently. Now Gene's never ever been nasty to us when we've had to go back and tell him his time is up. However, his typical reaction when we do is almost as annoying.

As we approach, Gene looks up at us to roll his eyes in a mostly inoffensive way. We then break the news to him someone's waiting for his computer at which point he shakes his head and gives off a little laugh in what I can only intuit is a George-McFly-wagging-a-finger-at-old-Biff "Oh, you wacky liberry staff, interrupting my important important work, yet again. Well, I guess I'll go ahead and get up, but only because I'm such a nice guy. What am I gonna do with you crazy kids?" sort of tone. It's okay if you hear such a laugh once, but after the 5th time in a day, it really starts to gnaw on your ass. 

Gene then makes a giant production of gathering up all his geneal0gy crap, which he'd previously spread across the whole of creation (i.e., his computer desk) and packing it neatly away in his giant geneal0gy-crap-bag, which he then hauls up front to begin the next stage of his campaign of annoyance. 

See the brilliance of Gene is that he has a sure fire method of getting a new computer as quickly as possible. He plants himself in the front room and proceeds to lecture anyone in proximity on the infernally-boring subject of his geneal0gy research. He whips out a chart and starts pointing at relatives, telling you where they came from, why they left where they had originated from, what they did when they got where they were going, what their name got changed to, where they moved, who they married, what libraries they did their geneal0gy research in, what "liberry" staff they irritated, etc. When he starts in on that, we can't kick other patrons off computers fast enough. And if it turns out there's going to be a long wait for the next computer patron to run out of time, (say, anything over a minute) it rapidly becomes an every-staff-member-for-themselves situation. Suddenly, alphabetizing the easy-reader section looks mighty inviting and we will break our asses running to get there first. And God help the poor, dumb, slow soul who gets trapped behind the desk when the exodus occurs, because they're the one who'll have to endure the pain. 

Having been that poor, dumb, slow soul on more than one occasion, I can report that not only does Gene go on and on and ON about geneal0gy, he's now taken to complaining about the slowness of our computers, how much time the work itself takes, the costliness of the geneal0gy sites he uses, how he really needs to get his own computer, and a bunch of other stuff I try my best to tune out. 

I'm now thinking the only logical defense against Gene is to stick fingers in ears and sing the Love Boat theme song at full volume, off key. That, or maybe a swift application of a "liberry" taser. And that is an essential piece of equipment we lack. I frequently propose that we buy one and just as frequently my proposal is rejected by my boss, Mrs. A. Maybe we should trap her at the desk with Gene for about 20 minutes and see how that loosens up the purse strings.

A-Okay

Since most of the "real" staff was out of town all week, today was the first day I was able to speak to anyone regarding the Crusty situation. 

I tried to tell Mrs. C on Thursday, but Crusty wouldn't leave the building and I didn't want to risk my voice carrying from the circ desk to the computer hall. (With Crusty's sense of smell obviously blunted, his hearing might have increased in power to compensate.) So I kept quiet. 

Today, though, Mrs. A had also returned and, naturally, so had Crusty. It was also raining, so I knew there was no way Crusty would actually leave the building if he could help it. 

I asked Mrs. A if I could speak to her in the activities room, the most distant point from computer hall you can reach and still remain on "liberry" property. I think Mrs. A probably thought I was going to complain to her again concerning Crusty's crustiness and smell and she started to try and head me off at the pass by telling me she'd been researching the matter. I told her it was okay, that I wasn't complaining and that I may have taken care of the matter, though perhaps not as permanently as we might like. I told her what went down earlier in the week and how Crusty was considerably less crusty now as a result. 

"I didn't think I smelled him, today," she said. 

In turn, Mrs. A told me that she'd spoken with several colleagues on the matter while at the "liberry" assoc. conference and they had told her it was fine to kick someone out for being filthy provided we had such contingencies written into our "liberry" policy. Such an addition would require a vote by our board of directors and Mrs. A felt confident that they would approve. Our plan now is to borrow the wording of such policies from another "liberry" that already has them, add them to our policy, get the board to approve it. And because she can't imagine how we would go about approaching said stinky patrons regarding their condition, she wants to send the entire staff off for training in such methods. 

Unfortunately, my proposal of instituting a policy in which we simply apply a sock full of quarters across the backs of our stinky patrons skulls, followed by a quick wheelbarrow trip with them out to the dumpster, was not approved. 

As complicated as this situation may yet become, I am heartened that Mrs. A sought advice on the matter from her peers and is willing to enact policy about it. It was getting to the point where I was considering how justified I would be in threatening to quit over the matter.

Of course...

 ...the thing I failed to take into account before speaking to Crusty the patron's friends and housemates, (y'know, in regard to Crusty's general crustiness and sanity-sapping stench), is that his friends might in fact go tell Crusty that I'm the guy who told them. This only occurred to me after I arrived at the "liberry" to open up this morning. 

It was a troubling thought.

In an ideal world, they might take Crusty aside and calmly tell him something like, "Pardon me, Crusty, but are you aware that your body odor is capable of knocking a buzzard off of a shit wagon? Well it can and, oh look, it has. And on a related subject, your beard seems to be doing its best impersonation of the Ally Sheedy snowflake scene from The Breakfast Club on a fairly constant basis. Would you, perhaps, be so kind as to take a damned bath?" 

However, while I would much prefer that Crusty's friends were discrete about where they gleaned their information, I had no control over how they imparted it to him and I could see that for them it would probably be far easier to blame it on me. It could just as likely get phrased, "Pardon me, Crusty, but were you aware that someone seems to have given you a good hearty beating with a large chunk of driftwood they hauled out of the cess pit of a hog farm? And your chin, sir, while still covered in hair, is like a putrid yet flaky croissant originating from the Butt-Riest Valley Baking Company and which I have no doubt was once in close proximity to the wang of a desert-dried corpse. But don't take our word for it; that guy from the library said so, as well." 

What if Crusty was pissed off at me? What if he confronted me about the matter? What if he, dare I say it, raised a stink? 

I mused on that for a while before deciding that if he wanted things to go down like that, it would be fine with me. I would simply say, "Do you really want to have this conversation?" If so, I would then explain to him that being exposed to his leavings was not fair to our patrons, nor to me, nor to our computer keyboards. Furthermore, I now know that he is not homeless and does have access to running water and soap, so he no longer has any excuse for turning up smelling like a turd blossom. 

While I was still formulating my potential side of the argument, the door opened and Mr. Stanky walked in.  Sonofa... He signed up for a computer and I put him on the little one by the stairs, his favorite. 

Mr. Stanky's hair looked wet. I hoped he had just washed it and that it wasn't simply clogged with grease. I supposed he could have had a bath. After all, I hadn't been clubbed by his usual invisible stench cudgel when he came in. In fact, it actually took a couple of walkbys as he sat at the computer to detect any sort of odor from him. He was stinky, but not anywhere NEAR his usual levels. He only stayed his half hour. 

By 12:30 there was still no sign of Crusty. Perhaps he was too embarrassed at being confronted with his own uncleanliness to return? Maybe it would be a good thing if they told him I'd said it. 

Around 1:45, Crusty walked in and signed up for a computer. I'm not entirely sure if he'd bathed his whole body, but his face seemed a good deal cleaner. He'd trimmed his beard short and there was no sign of crust. Furthermore, while he didn't smell springtime fresh, he certainly wasn't overpowering. Perhaps he'd bathed and just put on some old and only semi-stinky clothes. Whatever, it was a vast improvement and a welcome one. 

Crusty also failed to punch me in the face or acknowledge at all that I'd had anything to do with his sudden sprucing up. Competition for the computers was pretty fierce, so he got busted off a couple of times before I had to leave for the day. Still, I'm satisfied that he's moving in a positive direction.

THE FRIEND OF MY ENEMY IS MY... wait, that aint right. THE ENEMY OF MY FRIEND IS... er, no. THE FRIEND OF A FRIEND OF MY ENEMY IS... oops, outta spa

With most of the staff out of town at our state's "liberry" assoc. meeting, it's been me and the Newbies holding down the fort. 

I rolled in today fully expecting to find chaos in reign and Crusty the Patron (a.k.a. Nearsighted Dave) hogging up one of our computers, stinkin' up the joint. Instead, Ms. M managed to stave off the chaos, but I did detect the distinctive scent of Crusty upon the air. 

I checked the computer hall, but oddly he wasn't there. We even had an empty computer available should he turn up, which I had confidence he would. The lingering fumes were explained by a glance at our computer sign in sheet, which told me he'd already been in twice that morning, and a glance at the free keyboard in the back, which was choked with his crust. 

After I cleaned and disinfected everything in sight, Mrs. J and Ms. M told of how the computers had been eat up all morning and it was only now that things were finally calm. Crusty had been asked to relinquish his computer three different times and finally gave up on the last one. So began the waiting game, in which my spine clenched every time I heard the door open and I was only too happy to give anyone through it a computer, so long as they were not Crusty. Oddly, he didn't show, but this didn't help my nerves. 

Mid afternoon, a couple arrived. I recognized the man as a fellow who had accompanied Crusty several days ago. They'd both been in on a particularly rainy afternoon and I remembered that the man had identified himself to me as Crusty's friend after alerting me that he'd relinquished his own computer to Crusty in order to let him stay on. Furthermore, the man, both then and today, did not strike me as being in quite the same "In Need of Meds" situation as Crusty. In fact, he seemed like a pretty normal, pretty likeable guy. 

An idea began to stir in my brain. 

What if I was to approach Crusty's friend about Crusty's situation with us? Sure, it was a risky move, but I got good vibes from this guy. He seemed to actually care about Crusty and perhaps was in a position to be a good influence on him and, hopefully, his bathing habits. Breaching the subject, though, was daunting. To my horror, I also realized it was very much the sort of move my dad would have made given the same circumstances and I wasn't sure I wanted to go down that particular road. Not that it's a bad road to travel, but my car handles much better on more passive aggressive parkways. 

Still, the idea of this nagged at me. 

The husband and wife looked around for a bit, found some books they wanted, asked me to help them with finding some others and eventually they came to check out. The wife said she had probably lost her card in a house fire they'd been through a few months back, so she would likely need a new one. I set her up with one and wasn't going to charge her for a replacement, then saw she wasn't in the computer at all and just made her a new card from scratch. 

While they waited, the husband said, "Let me go see if DAVE is here," and went back to the computer hall. Crusty Dave was not in, so the man returned to report this to his wife, providing me with the best IN to the situation I was ever likely to get. 

I finished checking their books out to them and, seeing as how no other patrons were present in the room, said, "You're friends with DAVE right?" 

"Yeah," the man said, cheerfully enough. 

Now I'd done it. I'd stepped out there, but hadn't really given much thought as to how I was going to phrase any of this. 

"Is he... without a home, at the moment?" 

"No," the man said. "Well, yes and no. He stays with us right now." 

"Ah," I said. "Okay," I also said. There followed a very long pause. "We've been having a bit of a…" pause, "...kind of a..." painfully long pause. "How do I put this?" 

"Bluntly," his wife said. 

"Go ahead and just say it," said the man, still upbeat. "I can see you're coming from a good place." 

"Okay. Well. We've been having some... hygiene issues with him," I said. 

The man seemed at first to start to defend his friend. Then, in a split second, reconsidered, so that his initial defense statement went, "Yeah, but he... I know, I know. I agree." 

I explained then that there wasn't a whole lot we could do about this issue, but it had long since become a problem for us. I explained about the beard dandruff in the keyboard, which received knowing nods and appropriately disgusted looks from both husband and wife. Feeling emboldened by this, I added, "And he smells pretty bad, which kind of makes the place unlivable for those of us who work here." 

They nodded. 

I then, in slightly more polite terms, mentioned how he stays a very long time on the computers, which would be fine by us except for the whole stench and dandruff thing. (Actually, he would be very annoying without the stench, but we'll gladly tolerate it if he's clean.) I explained that we've had no other real problems with him and that he always gets off when someone else needs a computer.  I mean, eventually, he does.  And that he's always welcome to sign up for more sessions if he wants and that we're in no way trying to restrict his use of library services.  We just wish he wasn't so unpleasant. 

The man said he understood completely and that they've actually been dropping hints to Crusty for a while now that he's ripe. The man said they would now gently confront Crusty about it and if suggesting didn't work he'd just tell him bluntly and lay it out there. The wife explained that they had recently lost everything in a house fire themselves and were only just now getting back on their feet. They have a house, but apparently no plumbing as of yet so they have to take showers at her sister's house. Crusty, an old friend of theirs, turned up one day and has been hanging around ever since. He has not, however, taken them up on their offer of the use of the shower. 

I felt bad for their loss and more than a bit guilty for whining about stinky patrons when the stinky patron's friends had lost everything they owned. Then again, he is the one not bathing when it's available. I was very pleased with the encounter, though. The couple took my request well and had exactly the positive reaction I'd hoped for. Maybe it will do Crusty and us some good. (My dad would be so proud.)

CrustOrama!

Crusty the Patron (a.ka. Nearsighted Dave) was, of course, back today. He left us with marginally (MARGINALLY!!!) less crust than last time, but he made up for his slight lack of dermal generosity by staying on the computers for nearly SEVEN HOURS!!!!! 

He had already been there for an hour and half by the time I arrived. Then, half an hour later, we had a sudden rush on the computers and I was able to boot him off for someone else. I again cleaned up his crust and disinfected the area before allowing the next person on. 

Crusty lingered in our front room for several minutes. I wondered if perhaps he'd signed up for another session of computing time and was just waiting for his turn to roll back around, but his name wasn't on the sheet so I didn't offer when another computer freed up a couple minutes later. 

Eventually, he left the building, but did not take his lingering stench with him. I had to carpet bomb the front room with Febreeze air-freshener. (We now have cans of the stuff hidden EVERYWHERE. Frankly, I'd prefer to have it in Fire Extinguisher form.) 

Crusty was only gone for about 10 minutes before it started to rain. He'd departed on foot, so he must not have a car, or at least not one nearby. As soon as the raindrops began to fall, he once again appeared. I wondered if he would notice the Febreeze, but thought it unlikely, what with his olfactory centers likely burned out from his own scent. I didn't really care either way. 

"Uh... I forgot I was supposed to e-mail somebody," Crusty Dave said. At that point, I had two empty computers in the back, so I didn't have any other avenue but to let him use one. I told him he could sign up again and went back to log him on. And from that moment until nearly 6:30 when I, at last, had enough computer demand to boot him off again, Crusty Dave's ass didn't move from his computer chair. 

And what, you might ask, was he doing for nearly 7 straight hours? Lookin' at porn, that's what. Or, at least, as much nakedness as our filters would allow him see—which turns out to be quite a bit, actually. This use of our facilities bothers Mrs. A more than his tender flaky crust.

Nearsighted Dave: The Return

One of my least favorite computer patrons of old has returned to plague us again. No, not Par— (oops—don’t say his name, it gives him power). I’m talking about Nearsighted Dave. 

We’ve not seen Nearsighted Dave since 2004 and a wonderful two year respite it’s been. However, a couple weeks back, he returned and began using our computers in his usual voracious manner. The thing is, it took me close to a week to figure out who he was. Since we last saw him, Nearsighted Dave has either fallen on hard times or just gone off his medication. His hair has grown long, stringy and greasy, his beard has grown shaggy and somewhat matted, and, by the smell of him, his bathing habits seem to have become intermittent at best. The fact that he’s perfectly content to stay on our computers for hours (HOURS!!!) at a stretch should have been a tip-off to his identity, but considering that this could be said about so many of our “intanet” crowd, it wasn’t. Some time last week, I happened to notice how this then-mystery patron consistently sat with his face literally (and, again, I must emphasize how correctly I am using the word “literally,” here) three inches from the screen.  That's when all the evidence staring me in the face became apparent and I had a moment of clarity. 

Nearsighted Dave is still just as annoying as he was back in the day. If left to his own devices, I have no doubt whatsoever that he would stay planted in front of our computers for the entirety of our working day and beyond—taking time out only to deposit the occasional woefully stinky turd in our bano and then refuse (REFUSE, I TELL YOU!!!!) to use the air-freshener so clearly available. The only way he’ll relinquish his computer is when the other two are full and we have to bump him off to let someone else on. And, of course, he gives you the stink eye (“literally”) when you ask him to relinquish his system and takes a phenomenal amount of time departing. 

As annoying as that is, Nearsighted Dave has now become exponentially worse. He’d already been on for several hours yesterday, his face practically pressed against the screen, one of his hands stroking his ratty beard in a contemplative manner, when it came time to boot him off for one of the other three patrons who’d suddenly arrived wanting a computer. I went back, told him we had someone waiting, withered appropriately under Nearsighted Dave’s stink eye and dismissive “OkAAaayyyy” and returned to the desk to await the moment when I'd have to go back and tell him again. And on my second trip back to tell him again I heard Dave get up. He can sense when you’re coming to tell him again. 

Then, as I was logging off his computer, I noticed a gray and ash-like substance spread across the keyboard. What, was he somehow smoking at the computer? No, I could only smell his unwashed presence, lingering ghost-like in the area, and not smoke. Oh, hell, I thought, as I realized what the ash was. I bolted up front, where my boss Mrs. A was trying to eat her lunch. 

“I hate to ruin your lunch like this, but I think you need to come look at this computer. The guy that was back there has left something foul and unholy,” I said. We returned to the computer hall where she examined the substance. 

“What is it?” she whispered. 

“Beard dandruff,” I whispered back. 

“Oh. My. Lord.” 

Moments later, armed with disinfectant spray and a large paper towel, I set about cleaning up the leavings. It was just as disgusting as you think. Afterward, I returned to the circ desk to consult with Mrs. A. 

“What do we need to do about this?” 

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” she said. Her point was that we can’t get rid of Mister Stanky because he stinks so much, so how can we get rid of Nearsighted Dave for being too crusty? I fell back on the legal aspects of the case, recalling her attention to the ALA article we found back in February that covers how libraries are able to do precisely that. Mrs. A, in turn, fell back on her old faithful stance of “I’m not going to be the one to test that case in this state.” I then returned to my original premise that what Nearsighted Dave had left on our keyboard was both foul and unholy. She agreed, but again said there was nothing we could do. 

“Um, maybe I don’t want a computer after all,” a nearby male patron said. He’d been waiting for the next available computer and had overheard what we’d been talking about. Unfortunately, our actual words had been very vague as to the identity of the substance I’d found, so this guy had the impression that it was an even fouler substance than it really had been. I tried to assure him I’d disinfected the keyboard.

“No, I don’t care how much you’ve disinfected it. I don’t want that computer. Once you get that stuff in there…” 

“Oh, no!” I said, realizing his assumption. “We’re talking about dandruff. Not... that.” 

He seemed relieved. 

“And if it had been... that,” I said, an eye in Mrs. A’s direction, “I would have thrown him out of here physically, whether it got me fired or not.” 

Mrs. A pshawed my threats and assured our patron that we’d never had anything like that happen around here before, though she had heard of some of our local coffee shops with “intanet” access having to deal with that, (including one rumored incident involving one of our former “intanet” rogue patrons whose name I nearly invoked earlier). 

After a bit, Mrs. A consulted with Mrs. C on the matter and it was decided that we should point out to Nearsighted Dave that our computers in the back are equipped with an in-computer desktop magnifying glass that he can use to enlarge content at his leisure. Should he choose to use it, his face wouldn't be positioned directly over the keyboard, so when he begins contemplatively rubbing his chin again his dandruff will at least fall in his lap rather than in our keys. 

I remained angry throughout the afternoon. I tried getting some perspective on the matter, but just couldn’t manage it. I felt like I could smell Nearsighted Dave’s stench clinging to my clothing and I kept checking myself for crust contamination. As far as foul substances I’ve had to deal with in my job go, dandruff is actually pretty benign. I mean, I’d much rather clean that up than another in-toilet Jackson Pollock ass-splatter from the Serial Shitter. Still didn’t mean I wanted to deal with it. So often the foul substances we do find are anonymously gifted to us. To me, this means that when we DO know who’s responsible for one of them we are obligated to nail him to the wall for it. 

Alas it appears this will not be the case. I got no sympathy from my wife when retelling the story to her. She is, after all, a doctor, who throughout her long workdays has to deal with mookystinks and foulness that make dandruff seem sweet and sterile. In fact, if it weren’t illegal for her to publicly speak about her patients, and if she actually had time and inclination to do it, a blog written by her would be an amazing and horrifying thing to behold. A story she once told me about discovering a potato chip in the fat fold of a patient would be enough to secure her blog immortality.

DP for DPenedetta

A mom, dad and little kid came in, yesterday, put their books and assorted media returns on the circ desk and headed for the children's room to browse for more. Atop the stack of books was one of the Dad's returns, a DVD of The Rock's cinematic magnum opus, The Sc0rpi0n King. When I picked up the case, though, there was a curious rattling sound from within, unlike most DVD cases in which the user has properly seated the DVD upon its knobby little spindle. I opened the case to check and noticed immediately that while the DVD for The Sc0rpi0n King was actually seated properly, the DVD resting on top of it, entitled "DP My Pussy," was not. Yesirree, that's four hours of good, old-fashioned, European, double-penetration porn for your ass. Or, rather your... well, you know.

"Oh, my," I said, just as my coworker, Mrs. B, stepped behind the desk. I showed her my find. She tittered.

"Where did you...?"

"In here," I said, holding up the DVD case, the Rock's face grimacing from the cover. I nodded in the direction of the Dad, who could be seen, his back turned, just beyond the door to the children's room.

"What do we do?" Mrs. B said, still laughing.

"I have no idea," I said, barely containing my own fit of chuckles. Then the Dad stepped back into the main room and Mrs. B scattered, trying to regain composure. I continued to check in their other books, forcing my mouth into a frown to counteract the powerful forces working to make it grin. I debated what to do next.

First on my agenda was to unobtrusively slip over to the copier and photocopy the DVD's face, just so I could be sure to get my facts right when reporting it here later. This I did. The DVD appeared to be from a mailorder outfit similar to Netflix, only for porn. Next, the phone rang. It was for my boss, Mrs. A. So I left the circ desk, passed the Dad, passed the Mom & the Kid in the children's room, and went upstairs to tell Mrs. A she had a call.

"We just had a patron bring back some porn in the Sc0rpi0n King box," I whispered across the desk to her.

"Do you know who did it?"

"Yeah," I said. "He's still here. With his whole family."

Mrs. A cackled.

"I don't know what to do," I said.

"Give it back to him."

"You're serious?"

"Sure. Just tell him you found a DVD that wasn't ours in the case and you wanted to give it back."

I shook my head. "Yeah. This should be fun."

I returned to the circ desk. Within minutes, the Dad, the Mom & the Kid approached, books and "liberry" card in hand.

Now, here's where I may have made an error...

You know how every once in a while you'll hear a story in the news about some poor moron of a restaurant manager who fires an employee yet expects that freshly terminated employee to go ahead and finish out his shift? And, of course, by the end of the evening they find half a standy turd in the mole sauce and 50 cases of E. coli on their hands? Well, I kind of did the library equivalent. Instead of checking all their books out to them first and THEN passing over the porn, I served it up as my opening move.

"Um, we found... another... DVD in the Sc0rpi0n King box," I said. I slid the DVD face down across the desk. The Dad picked it up, took a one half second glance at its face and quickly pocketed it without even a mumbled "thanks." Only then, discomfort quite thick in the air, no eye-contact being made by ANYBODY, did I begin to check their books out to them.

*beep*
(stamp)

*beep*
(stamp)

*beep*(stamp)

(find where we hid the barcode on this one)
*beep*
(stamp)

*beep*(stamp)

...through the first ten of the books they'd brought up.

"Uh, we've run out of room on this card," I said, eyes still averted, holding out the eleventh book, as yet unscanned.

"That's... that's okay," the Dad said in a low voice. He gathered up the pile of books in one hand, the Kid in the other and they quickly made for the door. I then flew to the window to see where they went, because I wanted a glimpse of how the scene was gonna play out once Mom & Dad hit the car. I could just imagine the verbal beating the Dad would receive for not only putting four hours of double penetration porn in the Sc0rpi0n King case, but returning it to the library to boot! How does one even DO that unintentionally? Of course, maybe it was her fault. Maybe they were in a big hurry to get out of the house and she was trying to gather all of Junior's things together, saw the partially open Sc0rpi0n King case on top of the TV, ejected whatever was in the DVD player and slapped it in there without looking. Maybe. Whatever the cause, I couldn't see any animation from them in the car that indicated an argument. Maybe that would have to wait until later, after they put Junior down for his nap.

I'm thinking we may never see them or the books they borrowed again.

Stinking Innanet Crowd!

I'm so disappointed in our computer patrons. Now that Crusty Dave has provided us with a genuine threat to temperament, nose and the holding down of lunch, none of our regular innanet crowders seem willing to help us get rid of him. 

See Crusty has proven himself perfectly willing to stay on our computers all day long, and, provided no one is in need of his computer due to the other two computers being taken up by patrons, he can actually get away with it. In order to bust him off, we need at least three other people who want computers at the same time. The trouble is, Crusty Dave is very very stinky. It's not quite the slap-you-in-the-face-with-a-dead-fish stench of Mr. Stanky, but it's ultimately a more pervasive stench because it has so much time to build up. Once any other computer user gets around him, they find their desire to stay there quickly diminishes and rarely stay for their full half hour. So for most of the day, there was at least one and often two computers open. 

At one point, Crusty had some competition from Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, a relatively recent addition to our benign irritants gallery whose major claim to infame is his tendency to tell anyone who gets too close to him the mind-numbingly boring details of his geneal0gy research. (We make it a point never to engage him in conversation of any kind because he forcefully steers it back around to his favorite topic every single time.) 

Gene got his computer a couple hours after Dave's first sign-in and I was glad to have him, because Gene can hog up the computer time better than most and has the added bonus of not stinking. Soon, another patron took the last computer and before long a kid came in and signed up for Crusty's. I let Crusty know he needed to get off, but by the time he actually got around to getting off the kid had left the building and I didn't technically have anyone waiting. I kept that bit of information to myself, though, and Crusty departed. 

I had barely had time to clean up his crust and spritz down his chair with Febreeze when he returned and signed up again. By then, unfortunately, the other computer patron had also departed, leaving only Gene. And by the time I had another computer-competition-trifecta, I then had to bust Gene off. 

Gene, while signing out, said something about possibly coming back later. I tried to get him to go ahead and sign up for another session right then. I was even willing to stand there and engage him in geneal0gy talk until his turn came up, but he decided he would go away for a bit first. 

So for the rest of my workday, Crusty and his intense stench held sway over the computer hall and indeed the landing above it. I spent the day cursing the usual innanet crowders for being so disloyal to us and Crusty for officially ruining Febreeze's Linen & Sky scent. 

Where the hell are our tried and true faithful? Why aren't they flocking to us in great numbers? (For it is only in great numbers that we will be able to stave off the evil!) I'll take nearly any of them, really, provided they're not stinky. Where is the Devil Twin Auxiliary League? Or the Devil Twins themselves?! I'd be willing to cut them some slack on fines if they'd just monopolize a couple of computers for a few hours for me. Where is Mr. B-Natural? Or Crazed Mom? Or Mr. Big Stupid? Or Kanji the Kid? Or The Dufus? Where are they? I'll take Mrs. Bellows or the Internet Neophyte, too, and will even show them how to load "the innanet." 

God help me, I'll even take Parka's dumb ass back. 

There! I said it! I said his name, have given him power and summoned him from the depths of whatever Stygian pit he's been trolling around for the past few blissful, Parka-Free months! Bring it on!!!

Dear David McPhail...

...you big, honking, prolific, Massachusetts-livin', fanny-deposit.

Why ya gotta write so many frickin' kids books, huh?

Sure, they're good and all, but they're a pain in my keister to have to alphabetize along with the rest of the Ms in our Easy Reader section.

Okay, so it's our fault that we kept that section pretty wild and chaotic for nigh unto two decades, allowing it to flourish unhindered by the toils of alphabetic classification except for the scantest trace of the first letter of the author's last name. And in that time it became a near-mystical land where patrons had little hope of locating specific books without a Sherpa, a bagpipe player and perhaps a tube of KY. Why exactly my boss got a wild hair up her hinder to bring order to this land, after all these years, I'm not entirely sure. In my view, the land became so wild and disorganized due entirely to the evil children who frequent it and their grabby, shovy, occasionally poop-encrusted little hands. In fact, while I was busy alphabetizing your particular acre of shelf-space, one such whelp came over, yanked out a book from a recently alphabetized section and immediately proceeded to cram it back in a random part of the shelf for no observable reason other than an inherent need to sew discord. I very nearly slapped her. It is furthermore my prediction that these same stinking crumb-crunchers will soon return the Easy Readers section to its previous anarchic state despite any and all efforts on our part to civilize the joint.

However, you, David McPhail, aren't helping matters! Out of the entire section of authors whose surnames begin with Mc-, yours was easily the most represented of any single author. You even beat out Robert McCloskey by a healthy margin. So while I appreciate the quality, care and attention to detail you bring to your work, you're doing too durn much of it and it's cheesing me off! Do you realize the hours of manpower it's going to take to keep your books in any kind of order? Dear God, man, just reading your shelf alone will be enough to drive a person mad! How can you live with yourself? You inhuman monster!

In your favor, though, at least the covers of your wonderful books don't include a goofy, little, Culkin-esque picture of yourself gawking out at readers from beneath one of the world's worst comb-overs. (Yeah, I'm talkin' about you Robert Munsch!)

Yours sincerely,

--da juicemeister

Kayla + Summa Reading + Mom & Sis / Aggressive Ignorance = Crazed Staff

It's our penultimate week of Summa Reading `06, but already we're clawing our way toward the end with anticipation. Once again, our demonic little friend Kayla is in attendance. (See episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4.) Oddly, though, our troubles this year aren't due to little Kayla.

Mrs. C and Mrs. B began complaining a week ago that while Kayla was surprisingly well-behaved in Summa Reading, her mom and little sister are driving them mad. Mom insists on accompanying Kayla to the Summa Reading sessions, not to mention dragging little sister along with her. Once in attendance, though, mom doesn't really do much other than lay around. Literally. Mrs. C said that during craft time last week, Kayla's mom stepped out into the center of the ring of craft-assembling children and lay down in the middle of the floor for a nap. Meanwhile, little sister was allowed to run amok through the activity room, terrorizing everyone by stomping on the Summa Reading kids' crafts, or even on the Summa Reading kids themselves when they thoughtlessly allowed their hands to stay within Sis's stomping range. Mom didn't even attempt her usual ineffective, "No, no, mommy said `stop that,' " leaving it to Mrs. C and Mrs B to keep Sis from destroying everything.

After last week, it was Mrs. C's stated intention that the next time Kayla and crew arrived (late as usual, no doubt) that she would take the mom aside and tell her that we think Kayla will do fine by herself and that she, the mom, is welcome to take Sis and wait downstairs. And this is precisely what Mrs.C did yesterday. According to Mrs. A, who watched safely from her office, Mrs. C took Kayla from her mother before they could even make it to the top of the stairs, ran off with her and closed the activity room door firmly behind her. Kayla's mom then stood on the stairs looking worriedly up at the closed door, as though she could hardly stand not being in there to aid in the chaos.

So for an hour, I got to watch Mom and Sis mill around the children's room picking out books. Little sis hasn't quite reached the level of destruction capable by her older sister, but I'm sure she's just working up to it.

When Summa Reading was over, Kayla picked out nearly her weight in board books which she marched up to the desk with, announcing she wanted to buy them. Her mom tried to explain that she already had several other books picked out and that they could only take what they had room for on both her library card and Kayla's. Before they could check them out, though, Mom said they needed to fetch all their returns from the car to check-in. I was afraid this would mean Mom was going to leave the little ones in our care while she fled to the car for a much needed break. Kayla had already been trying her best to pop all our inflatable animals in the kids room by violently attempting to ride them. ("No, Kayla, don't ride the animals. No, Kayla, mommy said don't ride the animals. Kayla? Are you listening, Kayla? Kayla?") Fortunately for us, mom took both kids to the car with her for the search.

After ten minutes of blissful silence, during which I pre-date-stamped their books for added speed to their departure and during which no animals were menaced nor any little sister voices raised in spine-rending wail, they returned with their check-ins, which I then checked in. Afterwards, I looked up at them expectantly only to find expectant looks from them already.

"Um, do you have your library cards?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so," Kayla's mom said. Expectant look, expectant look.

"I'm sorry, but you do need your library card in order to check books out."

"Oh, really?" Kayla's mom said without any of the usual conviction of people genuinely surprised at this news. "Well, let me see." She began leafing through her wallet, occasionally gesturing other patrons around her, as the line at the desk was backed up by this point. Meanwhile, little sis had discovered the two brooms we keep beside the front door and was walking around with them. I wasn't worried, at first, as it gave me a chance to make the joke, "Are you going to sweep up for us?" Then she dropped one of the brooms and began swinging the other one with a force that, had she been a baseball player, would have got her brought up on charges of `roiding. One such swing nearly took off her sister's head and another nearly took out the glass of our front door. Mom ignored her and continued to search her wallet, leaving Mrs. A to bravely run over and disarm the child.

"Maybe they're in the car," Mom said. She gathered up kids and went to the car, but came back far sooner than a lengthy search would have taken. Little sister was now wailing again.

"I don't have the cards," mom said.

"Well, I'm sorry, but we do require a library card to check out books."

"All right, then," Mom said, looking downcast and without a friend in the world. "I guess we'll just come back some other time." Pause, then eyes flash up, full of hope.

"Okay," I said.

Mom stood there at the desk for several more seconds, as though waiting for me to relent. Little did she know, I am relentless. Meanwhile Kayla had returned to the children's room to pop more animals so Mom went in seemingly to collect her. She told Kayla to stop jumping on the animals because they had to leave. Next, she added that they wouldn't be getting any library books because they didn't have their library cards. I expected Kayla to freak out and burst into loud tears at this. In fact, I think Mom was counting on that reaction too, hoping a tantrum incident would give us added incentive to let them check out anyway. However, Kayla didn't take the bait and went right on happily squashing our plastic elephant into the floor.

Instead of collecting Kayla and leaving as she'd just said they needed to do, Mom stepped back into the main room, stood in the middle of the main room's floor and held screaming little sis in her arms there for a full five minutes. There was no indication as to why, she just stood there and let the toddler scream herself silly. Wail, wail, wail, spine-clench, spine-clench, spine-clench. Occasionally, Mom would glance pittifully in the direction of the circ-desk, leading me to again reach the conclusion that Kayla's mom was intentionally inflicting her children on us so we'd relent just to get them all out of the building. It was extortion, and brilliantly played. However, I became all the more determined that my administration would not give in to terror. I stayed planted at the desk. There was no danger of us letting her check out sans card, but there was the possibility that someone on staff would take pity on Mom and let her use one of their cards to check out. Wouldn't be me, but I could sort of see Mrs. A possibly offering just to make the screaming stop.

After five minutes of screaming, Mom approached the desk again. I'd stepped away from the computer and was speaking to Mrs. A back at the window. Mrs. J was now nearest to the computer, so mom tried to deal exclusively with her in a very low voice. Unfortunately for Mom, Mrs. J is hard of hearing. After a couple of low-volume failed attempts, Kayla's mom finally explained at full-volume to Mrs. J that she wanted to check out the pile of books that was still on the desk, but that she'd forgotten their library cards. Hopeful look, hopeful look.

"Ma'am, we cannot check books out to you without a library card," I said, stepping over.

"But I have a library card," Mom said, pointing at the computer.

"No. We have to have the physical card."

"If you like, we can hold these for you until you come back," Mrs. A offered.

Mrs. B then came over to join the crowd behind the desk and asked if the little sister had a card yet. Mom looked hopeful at this, but then Mrs. B pointed out that they would only be able to 10 books on that card and not the full 20 she wanted, so Mom decided not to get any extra cards at all.

"We'll just come back on Saturday," Mom said.

"We're not holding those until Saturday," Mrs. A said. "I thought you meant you would come back later today."

Mom adopted a sad tone and said they lived too far away to make a second trip back.

"Okay, well, maybe you can find them next time," Mrs. A said. We then collectively dispersed from the desk, our business concluded with no further need for discussion, leaving Mom to look unhappy. After Kayla and family finally left, a good ten minutes later, Mrs. A said that she was worried that she'd offended Kayla's mom by saying we wouldn't hold the books for two days. (It really wouldn't have been an issue had there only been a couple of books, but our hold bin is packed to the gills right now and there isn't room for 20 extra books in there.)

"So what if she is mad?" I said. "What's she going to do? Not come back next week? Yeah, that'll show us."

Barbie T.: Master of the Internet (PART 1)

The situation: Late last week my boss, Mrs. A, secluded herself in her office to take care of “liberry” business. My co-worker, Mrs. B, had secluded herself in our storage area to work on more book donations. Everyone else had either fled town or at least the building. I was therefore Cap’n Solo when it comes to running the joint. I’d just logged a patron onto a computer and was on my way back to the front room when I crossed into the children’s room and saw an unwelcome sight blocking my way back to the desk.

“Excuuuuse me,” Barbara Turdmurkle said in her usual slow, breathy, singsong voice. Her voice was nearly a whisper and she began beckoning me over with quick waves of her hand. Beyond her, I could see there were three people lined up at the circ desk. I SO did not need this.

“Excuuuse me, but I’m going to need your help with something,” she said. Before I could stop her she continued, still in a whisper, “I’ve been getting these very eerie phone calls at my house recently and I think someone may be trying to interfere with my credit.”

“Okay, I’ll be right with you in just a minute,” I said. "I need to go back to the desk." I then wedged my way past her in the door frame

"No!" she said, then remembered to whisper. "no."

By then I was moving away from her at a sideways angle so I could look back at her and still keep moving toward the desk. “I have to go back to the desk."

“No, no,” Barbara said again, frantically waving her hand for me to come back. She too was now edging away, moving back toward the computer hall, “I need your help.”

“I’m sorry, but I need to go to the desk right now.”

“No, I need your help with…”

“I. Need. To. Go. To. The. Desk. Right. Now,” I said.

Barbara blinked at me for a second. “Are you the only one here?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m the only one running the desk right now and I have to get back to it, right now. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

With that, I turned my back on her and went to the desk to take care of the patrons who chose to wait in line, rather than in ambush. When I was done and had signed the last of them onto a computer, I returned to the task of Barbara Turdmurkle. She had, by then, come into the main room and was waiting near the desk. Barbara Turdmurkle explained that for the past week she had been receiving odd phone calls at her house. Each time, the caller asked if she was Brenda. Rather than simply admitting that she was not Brenda and that this was likely a wrong number, Barbara T. had chosen to insist they the caller first tell her who they were and then she would say whether or not she was Brenda. The caller, in turn, insisted that she confirm her identity as Brenda first before they would say who they were. Eventually, stalemate realized, one of them would hang up on the other. Or, sometimes the caller would leave a message on Barbara's machine asking Brenda to phone him at a specific number. Adding to the oddity of this, Barbara Turdmurkle claimed the last four digits of the caller’s out of state phone number, as seen on her caller ID, matched the last four digits of her social security number. However, it did not match the number the caller had left on her machine. So Barbara Turdmurkle tried to phone the caller back at his given number. When the other line picked up it was answered, “Accounts.” And when Barbara began insisting that they tell her what sort of business they were running, the person on the other end said, “Brenda? Is this Brenda?” All of this evidence had thus convinced Barbara Turdmurkle that someone was trying to steal her identity and ruin her credit.

Now, I had to admit the events she described were odd, but not beyond the realm of explanation. Barbara Turdmurkle, however, was convinced her evil neighbor was behind it. (I’m not sure if this is the same evil neighbor she’s told us that she’s been to the police about on many other occasions, but it seems likely.)

Fortunately, Barbara is a member of some sort of credit protection program which she phoned right away. They told her they’d send her a credit report, but she needed to go online to their website and check her credit reports that way to make sure nothing seemed amiss. That’s what Barbara needed my help with because, as she said, "I don't know anything about computers."

I think we all know from my past experiences with Barbara Turdmurkle and technology, not to mention with computer neophytes in general, how well this is going to turn out.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Borrowers, Get Out!

Our usual Monday Madness came late this week. It came on a Thursday. And while we had the staff to deal with it, none of us wanted to. We all had our own projects we were trying to attend to and wanted nothing to do with the circ desk.

Meanwhile, the phone would NOT stop ringing and the Brent & Brice auxiliary league of neighborhood kids would NOT stop coming in and demanding computers, which they insisted on sitting at in groups of three per computer, despite being told by Mrs. C and then again by Mrs. A and eventually again by me that they could only have one per cause they’re too damn noisy otherwise. Soon we had a 45 minute wait time for computers due to the backlog of patrons, neighborhood and otherwise. That's when I heard a familiar and horrifying voice at the circ-desk. Yep, it was everyone's favorite Vid-Borrower, Mrs. Bellows.

Mrs. Bellows was turning in all her videos from the last time she was in. On the counter, next to her heaping stack of returned videos, was a half-empty 2-liter bottle of Pepsi and a large clear plastic box with a handle on top in which every ratty-assed audio cassette tape in the world had been crammed. I prayed none of the audio tapes were ours and she didn't open it to disgorge any, so probably not.

After piling all her videos on the desk, Mrs. Bellows seemed to have several brain-farts in a row, then said, "Is there a... do you have one of them... You got a computer I could sit on for awhile?"

No!!! Please NO!!!!

Mrs. C informed her it would be a good-sized wait for one, as they were all still clogged with neighborhood kids for the foreseeable future.

"I'll just be over in the videos, then," she said. Well, naturally.

After about half an hour, the neighborhood kids left in mass and the computers were all finally free. This coincided with Mrs. Bellows finishing her selection of more painfully bad videos and bringing them to the desk for checkout. Mrs. C asked her if she still wanted a computer. No response. And it wasn't like Mrs. Bellows was clear across the room, either. She was right there at the circ-desk. So Mrs. C asked her again, but Mrs. Bellows was far more concerned with obtaining a large plastic grocery bag from us in which she hoped to carry her selection of bad videos home. After loading it full, she stuffed in her box of tapes too, causing the whole thing to bulge.

"Do you have a refrigerator I could put my pop in?" she asked, indicating her half-empty 2-liter. "I want it to keep cold."

Mrs. C said, no, we didn't have a refrigerator. Not precisely true, as we do have a little tiny one, but it's not for public use and Mrs. Bellows would be hard pressed to find room in it for something the size of a 2-liter anyway.

Mrs. Bellows walked away and Mrs. C, seeing that I was about to go refill my water bottle, asked if I would go try to tell Mrs. Bellows she could have a computer. I did and it took a couple of tries to get through to her, but she declined needing one. Then, as soon as I’d fetched my water and returned to cataloging, she decided she needed one after all. Mrs. C, noting my ire, told me to stay put, that she’d take care of it. She went back and logged on the last computer back and then told Mrs. Bellows which one she could use. Naturally, Mrs. Bellows sat down at the middle computer and, since it wasn’t logged on and therefore not of use, began bellowing for help before Mrs. C could even get away.

After that, I sat back to wait for further inevitable bellowing on her part, as she has never been known to use a computer without some need of assistance.

And I waited and waited and waited.

Soon everyone had left for the day except me and Mrs. A, who was still trapped in her office doing work. After a while, Mrs. Bellows collected her overstuffed grocery bag and departed. Only then did Mrs. A come downstairs and ask if I’d heard all the bellowing. Apparently, Mrs. Bellows had been bellowing for several minutes and Mrs. A had nearly abandoned her work to stomp downstairs and tell the woman to stop screaming for help and get off her lazy ass and walk to the front room to ask for it. Oddly, I’d not heard a single bellow, and I’d been listening for them.

I was already thinking that Mrs. Bellows should probably get her hearing checked, but now I’m starting to think I should too.

Winston’s Story (Or “The Amazing and Miraculous Thing that Truly Happened to Us”) (PART 5)

In the morning, I found myself very slow to get out of bed. Sure, I wanted to get a good look at our kitty visitor/captive in the daylight, but found I was hesitant to actually do so. What if my daylight glimpse somehow proved this was not the cat? What if all the evidence that had seemed so clear the night before had been misperceived?

I finally got up and went out on the deck, armed with our little Tupperware cup of cat hair samples. Kitty was still quite angry, as any wet trapped cat might be, but he was considerably drier now, thanks to the umbrella. Despite his scowl, he was not an ugly cat, by any means. In fact, he was sort of pretty, though in a hateful, claw-your-eyes-out kind of way. He looked like a small, lighter-colored bobcat, complete with tufted ear tips.

I studied the fur samples in my cup and then studied his damp fur. They still seemed a match in daylight. I could even clearly see the grayish blotches intermingled with the black and sandy colors in his fur, matching the gray hair in the sample. Our sample didn’t contain as much of the two-tone black and sandy hair as he had on his back, but most of Winston’s self-defense back-clawing would have taken fur from the cat’s underbelly, where there was no black hair that I could see. Our miracle-capture looked good, but part of me still wanted more confirmation.

We rolled in to the vet’s office around 8 a.m. Dr. Barrier was just arriving as we pulled up and saw me carrying my new live-trap with its trapped live contents.

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

“You got him?” he said, his eyes widening.

“Looks like it,” I said.

Once our trap cage was on the examining table, Dr. Barrier gave the cat a look and said, “Wow, he’s a big guy.”

We passed Dr. Barrier our cup of hair samples and told him what it was. He took one look the sample, then looked at the cat and said, “That’s this cat’s hair, all right.” Those were beautiful words to hear. It was confirmation—from an expert, no less—that I wasn’t just forcing the evidence into a desired mold.

“He’ll probably have some wounds on his stomach, too,” I said, recalling the blood on one of Winston’s back claws. Of course, he probably had a puncture wound as well, since Winston had quite literally broken her tooth off in him.

Dr. Barrier asked us if we knew if this cat belonged to anyone. We explained how it did not belong to any of the neighbors we’d spoken with and that some of those neighbors already knew of it and believed it feral. Granted, it could still have belonged to someone in the area, but I didn’t feel a bit bad about turning it over. I’d seen this thing tearing into my cat with my own eyes. No, I didn’t like that this cat was going to have to die in order to prove whether or not my cat had rabies—and would then either die or live herself—but if a cat was going to have to die in this situation, I was happy to choose the one who had come onto our property and viciously attacked a member of my family. If this cat was infected with rabies, his death would be far more pleasant than the one he would have had. If not, he would be a dangerous and aggressive cat removed from the kitty gene pool.

Dr. Barrier explained that the cat would soon be euthanized and the pertinent bits of him shipped out to a state lab for testing. He said that just looking at the cat, it didn’t seem to be rabid, so likely it was just a particularly aggressive. Being a Friday, we’d probably not hear from them until early in the following week. Still, it bothered me that this cat had attacked Winston at all. She’s the wussiest cat in the world, so she wasn’t the instigator. We don’t have cat food on the deck, so he wasn’t after that. And, having been spayed in 1993, she should not have been a target for mating. The situation seemed comparable to a young punk attacking an old lady for no reason—though an old lady apparently not afraid to scrap it up a bit if it came down to defending herself.

After having her broken tooth extracted, Winston was released to our care, taken home and showered with canned cat food, extra Pounces, painkillers, antibiotics and love. It took her a couple of days to get used to the feeling of having a missing tooth, and her face looks a little crooked as a result, so she’s picked up yet another nickname, “Snag.”

Tuesday morning, Dr. Barrier phoned with good news. The test results on the other cat came back and were negative. Just as he’d suspected, the cat that attacked her was not rabid, so Winston was in the clear, rabies-wise. I scheduled an appointment to come in and get all her vaccinations and a kitty tune up.

This morning, I brought her in for her appointment. Dr. Barrier looked her over and pronounced that her wounds had all but completely healed and her broken tooth looked free of infection. He said she was ready to go outside again whenever she felt like it. So far she hasn’t, but when she wants to I’ll be there to open the door for her.

Winston Churchill: a kitty still poor and little, but as of yet not dead.

Winston’s Story (Or “The Amazing and Miraculous Thing that Truly Happened to Us”) (PART 4)

(Just to warn you, I’m about to get all religious on your ass. So atheist and agnostic readers can just sit on your hands for a bit or stick your fingers in your ears and sing the theme song to Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi really loud. Or, if you like, feel free to read on.)

I spent a good twenty minutes putting the live trap together and figuring out how to set it. It was a simple design, but proved quite effective when tested. All it needed was to be baited and placed. I chose our last remaining can of tuna for the bait. I’d nearly eaten it for lunch, earlier, but had decided not to at the last second. I opened the can, then placed the trap in the grass near the deck’s support post and shoved the tuna to the back of it. I then said a little prayer over the trap, but didn’t put much effort into it.

Before bed, Ash asked me if I wanted to pray together. I decided it was a good idea, since I feel like Ash has more bars on her connection to the man upstairs than I often do and I figured she could maybe act as an antenna booster for me.

My prayer was a meandering one over the course of several minutes and with many pauses. I began by thanking God for giving us Winston. She’s been my constant companion and friend through times when I had no one else around. As irritating as she can be, she’s been there with me, and later with me and Ashley, through good times and bad. Winston didn’t deserve the death in store for her. It would be one thing if we knew for certain that the cat that attacked her had rabies, for I would have no problem putting her to sleep to spare her such a fate. It seemed wrong, though, for her to have to die when we didn’t know for sure. This line of thought, however, lead me back to the whole I didn’t get her vaccinated like I should have and am a horrible person line, which just sent me off into self-pity land, mid-prayer. So I apologized to God for not getting her vaccinated and admitted that it was fully my fault. While I didn’t actually say it aloud, I was kind of hoping God would see fit not to allow Winston to die for my mistakes.

While I was on the subject of giving thanks, I thanked God for my family—in particular my step-mother, Myra. A month and a half ago, Myra learned that she has ovarian cancer. By the time it was discovered, it had already metastasized and spread to her colon, which is where they first discovered it. So Myra underwent surgery to remove the masses in her colon and then, three weeks ago, had her first session of chemotherapy. It’s not been a very pleasant experience for her thus far, but she and my dad seem to be dealing with it pretty well and they have a huge chain of people praying them some backup. Earlier on the same evening Winston was attacked, Myra and my dad had phoned to let us know that she’d been in for some tests and had learned that her body seems to be responding very well to her chemotherapy. Her doctors are already suggesting that so far she’s exhibiting progress similar to what they see in patients who go on to have lengthy remissions. She’s not out of the woods by any means, as her chemo sessions are to continue through August. But it’s a very good sign. At that moment, I realized I’d not yet thanked God for Myra’s progress. Quite frankly, I felt very guilty that here I was boo hooing over a cat when my own step-mother was fighting off cancer. At the same time, it also seemed to me that we should use a prayer technique for Winston similar to one we used for Myra.

On many occasions in the past, I have recognized that my control over a given unbearable situation is little to non-existent. On some of those occasions, I have chosen to go to God and offer that situation to him to deal with as he would see fit. There’s something very freeing about this, but admitting powerlessness and actually giving a situation into the control of a being who might say, “No,” is one of the most difficult things you can try to do prayer wise. It sounds easy enough on paper. It seems easy to just say, Oh, well, I can't do anything about this so I may as well give it up to God. However, truly giving something to God is far more difficult. It means you’re not allowed to keep worrying about it. It’s completely natural to want to keep worrying about it, but doing so does not show the proper degree of faith. Sure, you can express your preferences, but once you’ve given it into the creator’s control, it’s time to step back and trust him.

So I prayed then that God would take the situation from me. I had no control over making that cat go into our trap. I hadn’t even used particularly good tuna for bait. But I didn’t want to bear the thought that Winston went to an unfair death because of my negligence to get her shots updated and the only way to prevent that was for us to trap this cat. I had done all I knew to do and it was probably not enough. I therefore prayed that God would lay his hands on the situation, to take it from me and, hopefully, see fit to accomplish what I could not.

With that said, I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath. I tried to release all the anxiety I had over the matter and truly let it go. It must have worked, because I was asleep within minutes and slept remarkably well.

Around 4 a.m., it began to rain very very hard. The roar of the rain alone woke me up, but I probably would have known something was going on because Ashley, as usual, had to get up to go roll up her car windows. Hearing the rain pouring down began to worry me anew. To me it sounded the death knell of my efforts to trap the cat, for the tuna can had surely filled up with water, possibly flooding the tuna out of it entirely and certainly masking the smell. And what kind of cat was going to come out in the rain for wet tuna, anyway? I quickly began envisioning the week ahead—for surely the vet would only give me a week to accomplish my capture before punching Winston’s ticket—during which I would continue to set the trap, night after night and then wait in vain for the sound of it snapping shut. Ashley was right: there was no way this cat would return.

I lay there for several more minutes, unable to sleep, my mind whirring. Shortly, though, I realized that I was becoming ensnared in my own trap. I wasn't behaving at all like someone who had given the matter over to God, for that someone would have given the matter little thought and gone right back to sleep. Instead, I was allowing the hour of the wolf to creep in and stir up dread in my mind.

Once again, I took a cleansing breath and tried to clear my mind of all worry. I lay there for perhaps a minute when through the screen of our open bedroom window I heard a *SNAP * and my eyes shot open.

I wasn’t sure it was the trap, but that was definitely what it sounded like. Part of me didn’t want to believe I’d really heard it, because I didn’t want to be disappointed if I was wrong. But I got up anyway, put on my glasses and went to fetch a flashlight. Ashley woke up as I was doing this and I told her what I'd heard. She didn't seem to understand me and said that she'd checked the trap when she went down to roll up her windows and it had been empty.

“No, I just heard it,” I said.

I went to our bathroom window, opened it and shone the light down onto the ground where I’d left the trap. Staring back at me were two glowing eyes.

“There’s a cat in there,” I said.

“Are you sure it’s not a skunk?”

I was momentarily chilled at the ramifications of trapping a skunk. I’d not considered that possibility.

“No, it’s a cat,” I said.

I put on clothes and flip-flops then went outside into the now light rain and descended the deck steps. Ashley watched from the window above as I turned my light on the cage itself, revealing a large, medium furred cat growling at me. And while its fur was wet, I could see that it was primarily of a sandy color.

“I think this is it,” I said.

I carefully picked up the cage by its handle and held it at arm's length as I started moving toward the steps. The cat growled and thrashed itself against the ends of the cage, throwing it off balance and showering me with tuna water. I held on tight and made it up to the deck itself, where I set it down. Ash came outside and we turned on the floods for a better look. The cat was very wet and much of his fur was dark as a result, but there were actual streaks of dark hair along its back too. Several of his darker streaks were actually sandy colored hair with dark tips. On his underside was a thick layer of soft sandy-colored fur.

“That’s a big cat,” Ash said.

“Yeah.”

“The fur looks like a match, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Is it the one?”

I stared at it for a long time. I was firmly aware that I was now in a situation where I was prone to want to say yes to save my cat’s life. However, if I was wrong and Winston had been bitten by a different cat infected by rabies, we could be in huge huge trouble down the line. It was very important that I was certain this guy was the cat; I couldn’t allow my emotions to rule this decision; I had to rely on the evidence. From the size to the coloration to the attitude, though, the evidence pointed to this cat being the one. And that wide noble face certainly looked familiar. Was I just conjuring that, though?

“I think it’s him,” I said.

We left the kitty in the trap on our deck, but put a large umbrella over the cage so that he wouldn’t be rained on anymore. We then went back to bed where we lay crying with relief for a long time and thanking God for answering our prayer. Eventually we fell asleep.

(TO BE CONCLUDED…)

Winston’s Story (Or “The Amazing and Miraculous Thing that Truly Happened to Us”) (PART 3)

I left the vet’s office broken hearted and on the verge of tears. The weight of it hit me all at once and I began cursing myself again for being the cause of it all. Winston was now likely going to die because I hadn’t taken her in for vaccinations when I should have—when I KNEW I should have. I’d also been the one to let her outside in the first place, leading directly to her being attacked and losing a major tooth. I also didn’t think it was at all likely that we would be able to find the cat that had attacked. My gut told me it had been a wild cat, but we’d still have to talk to all our neighbors to find out for sure and I didn’t relish having to do that—especially not the neighbors who live on the road just down the hill from our own, where there are many “Private Drive” and “No Trespassing” signs to be found.

I drove to the cardiologist’s office where Ashley was working and let her know what was going on. I explained the grim situation and then we stood in the parking lot hugging one another and feeling sorry for ourselves and for our cat. To me it seemed like the end of the line for Winston. What the hell were we really going to be able to do about this?

“And you’re sure you didn’t get her vaccinated since 2002?” Ashley asked.

I thought about this for a moment and had a sudden flash of what I hoped was brilliance. I knew that I’d taken Winston to the vet’s office twice since we’d moved to WV and I knew she’d received vaccination shots during the second visit. In my grief-addled mind it made sense to me that she must have had shots during the first visit too. I knew for a fact that the first visit had been in the summer of 2002 because my sister had been visiting us at the time and that’s when we’d raced Winston in ER-style for a seizure that turned out to have been a hairball. Maybe she got some shots then too. And if shots were given every two years, I must have taken her in for the second visit in 2004. Either the vet’s records were wrong or my memory was wrong. I was hoping on the former and thought I knew how to prove it.

The last time Winston had last been vaccinated, the vet had given us her vaccination tags, which I had laid on a shelf in our utility room since Winston didn’t have a collar. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know—I’m going to hell because my cat didn’t have a collar. She’s had a few, but kept losing them so we stopped buying them for her until she could prove herself a bit more responsible with her possessions.) So all I had to do was find those tags and see if they had a date on them. I told Ash of my thought, which she agreed sounded good. If true, it would solve all our problems.

I raced home and searched the utility room shelf. Lots of crap and spray cans to be found there, but no tags. I then spent half an hour turning the rest of the house upside down, looking in all the junk drawers and out of the way storage areas where I might have moved the tags, but they were nowhere to be found. By then it was approaching 5p, so I figured I’d better phone the vet before they closed and ask them what their records actually said in regard to the dates of our visits. The receptionist looked me up and said the first visit had indeed been in July of 2002, but Winston had not been vaccinated since her shots were still current from her vet in Charlotte. (See! I used to be responsible!) Our second visit to this vet, when she had been vaccinated last, had been in November of 2002. My brilliance was dashed and hope was again on the downslide.

After Ashley came home, we climbed into the car and went to go canvass the neighborhood. We started with the little dirt road down the hill from us where we thought it most likely the attacking cat had come from. We’d never met any of the people living there, but as we drove door to door they seemed nice enough, despite the “No Trespassing” signs.

At the first house, a high-school aged girl was home. She said that her family did own a cat, but it was old and gray and not sandy colored like the one we were looking for. Other houses further down the road either had no cats or much fluffier cats than the one on our mental wanted poster. One set of neighbors, though, suggested we go back to the first house, where they said a cat matching our description actually lived. Curious. Had the girl been lying to protect her cat? We’d not seen it, so we guessed it was possible.

Instead of stopping back by there immediately, we went home and gathered up the tufts of the other cat’s hair from the deck and from where they had blown onto the ground below. Just as I recalled, the fur we found was mostly sandy colored and medium-length. Some of the sandy fur had dark tips while other bits of it were sandy and gray, which again matched my memory of other colors within the sandy fur. With furball in hand, we returned to the first house and asked again about their cat.

“Here, let me show you,” the girl said. She fetched her cat for us to see. Its coloration was mostly gray, though there was a bit of sandy hair in there too. However, it was both enormously fluffy and enormously good-tempered. As we were leaving, the girl’s parents arrived. We told them that we were looking for a cat. Before we could even describe the cat in question, they described to us a cat that matched its description saying they had noticed it in the area. Unfortunately, they thought it was a stray.

Disheartened, we left and continued to go door to door on our own street. While there was much sympathy, we had no success and soon returned home.

Seeing that our kitty quarry was likely a stray, I began phoning all the farmers we know from church to ask them if they had any live-animal traps. Nope. Theirs were all Kill-Em-Dead traps. So at nearly 6:30 in the evening, it looked as though our chances of finding such a trap had passed.

“Try Lowes,” Ashley said.

Lowes? Why the heck would Lowes have live traps? They’re home improvement, not animal improvement. Still, at Ash’s further insistence, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to call. Turns out they did have live animal traps, one sized for catching raccoons and/or cats. We rushed right down to pick one up.

On the way to the car with our new purchase, Ashley said, “I really don’t see that cat coming back. There’s just no way that…” Her words dropped off as she realized what a complete bummer she was being. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that. I should say that I really think we’ll catch it right away.”

“Damn straight,” I said. “We’ll catch it immediately. In fact, it’ll be waiting for us in the driveway when we come home. It’ll offer to help put the trap together, but won’t be able to stand waiting around, so it’ll just wedge itself in the box.”

“Yeah.”

Still, I knew she was probably right. Even if we caught a cat and not a raccoon, who was to say if it was the right cat? My memory of what the thing looked like, as viewed without my glasses, seemed murkier by the second. All I really knew was that it was big, sandy colored and blotchy. I’d seen its face, but couldn’t really remember it. My only real prayer of hope in this situation was that the cat would come back for a second round with Winston and would stumble upon the trap. This seemed a slim hope at best.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Winston’s Story (Or “The Amazing and Miraculous Thing that Truly Happened to Us”) (PART 2)

On Wednesday night, just before my wife Ashley and I were about to retire for the evening, Winston dashed to the back door to be let out. Normally, I don’t like to let her out at bedtime because this means I’ll have to get up and let her in again at some point. However, the night was warmish and our bedroom windows were open so I figured she could come back in when she was ready via the hole she tore in our bedroom window screen a couple of years back. (We’ve left it there on the premise that she’ll just tear a new hole in any new screen we put up.)

Minutes later, I had just removed my glasses and was getting into bed when I heard the sound of cats squalling on the back deck. Usually when this happens, I break my ass running down the hall, fling open the back door and find Winston and a neighborhood cat facing off at opposite ends of the deck. This time, though, I flung open the door and turned on the deck’s floodlight to see Winston and a cat easily twice her size locked in a screaming, hissing, clawing, rolling ball of kitty combat. I ran out onto the deck, in my underwear, determined to break it up, but I didn’t really want to reach my hands into the swirling mass of cat claws to do so. Instead, I gave them an Incredible Hulk roar. My Incredible Hulk roar has worked wonders in past cat fights. It even caused one invading cat to leap off the side of the deck in fear, falling ten feet to the ground, though not to his doom. This time, the other cat didn’t seem to care about the Hulk. Before I had time to consider alternatives, Winston managed to break free from the other cat and dash into the house. The other cat still didn’t care that I was standing there, for he attempted to give chase and have another go at Winston. I, in turn, tried to stop this by applying a Hulk-Smash style fist to his cat person. Naturally, I missed a direct impact and instead grazed the cat’s body. It did seem to get his attention, though, and he scurried down the deck steps and disappeared into the night.

We found Winston in my office, hiding beneath my desk. There was a strong smell of cat urine, as she’d peed her self during the fight. Her nose and mouth were bleeding, as was a back foot claw. We took her to the bathroom and began cleaning her up with moist washcloths. Upon examination, we found that the bleeding in her mouth was due to one of her canine teeth having snapped off near the gum line. It dangled free in her mouth, giving us both the willies to look at. And her back claw that we thought was bleeding turned out to be covered in the blood of the other cat, as well as a chunk of his fur. I’d seen more chunks of it out on the deck and was happy to note there was far more of him left behind than her. He had been a very large cat, easily twice her size. I couldn’t really say that I got an in depth look at him, but from what I had seen I knew that his coloration was mostly sandy with some blotches of darker hair thrown in. And while he wasn’t exactly a long-haired cat, the hair had seemed at least longer than Winston’s short orange hair.

“Guess I’ll have to take her to the vet tomorrow,” I said.

I phoned the vet the following day, explained the situation and asked if I could bring Winston in for inspection. I also asked if I could go ahead and update her shots while I was there. I’m mortified to have to say it, but I had let Winston’s vaccinations lapse. I have no excuse for it, but as I said, we’ve never had to worry about her much so it never seemed as important as it should have.

When I took Winston in, the vet on duty, Dr. Barrier, came into the examination room and said he’d been told why I was there and had examined Winston’s records. He then asked me if the cat that had attacked Winston had been a neighbor’s cat or one that was wild. I told him I had no idea. We don’t know many of our neighbors, but the ones immediately around us don’t seem to own cats. We know there are cats in the neighborhood, because they’ve come round to visit before, but I had no idea if this one was one of theirs.

At this, Dr. Barrier looked grim. He explained that according to state law, any animal that attacks another must be assumed to be rabid unless proof can be obtained otherwise. In the case of cats, owners of an attacking animal can provide proof of vaccination. If the cat is wild, it can be captured, euthanised and tested. He said it wouldn’t have been a major issue either way, except that Winston’s own vaccinations were expired. The state requires pets be vaccinated once every two years, but are willing to allow three years between vaccinations in cases such as ours. Unfortunately, Winston had last been vaccinated in November of 2002, over three and a half years ago. According to state law, Winston would either have to be euthanized herself (the state’s preference) or spend 6 months in quarantine, unless we could provide proof that the cat who attacked her was clean. By quarantine, Dr. Barrier explained that this meant she would have to live in a small cage in a state-approved facility and this cage could only be tended to by one person, once per day, under very strict guidelines. After five months, if there was no sign of rabies, the cat could be vaccinated and then a month later released. He showed me the printed regulations that spelled this out.

Hearing that, I could not imagine anything more hellish to inflict upon Winston than six months in a cage. She was freaked out enough after being stuffed into her cat carrier and driven across town. And as half-crazy as she can be during normal conditions, there’s no way her little kitty sanity would survive 6 months in a cage, assuming she was even able to physically survive it. Perhaps if she were a younger cat, things might be different. In her case now, though, that would be cruelty at its purest.

I told Dr. Barrier that I would sooner see her put to sleep than have to go through quarantine. He said he understood, but that we weren’t to that point yet. Legally, he would soon have to phone the state and alert them to this situation, but there was some leeway even in that. Rabies takes a while to take effect, so while he wanted to keep Winston overnight for observation and treatment, he would gladly release her to us whenever we wanted. He suggested we should start asking around the neighborhood about the attacking cat and see if we could find its owners and prove its health. Other than that, he said we could get a live trap and see if we could capture it. I asked if they had any to loan out. They did, but theirs was currently on loan. Dr. Barrier wasn’t sure where in the area we could find one, because the last time his office had to buy one they’d had to drive over an hour away to the next biggest town.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Winston’s Story (Or “The Amazing and Miraculous Thing that Truly Happened to Us”) (PART 1)

Our cat, Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty, (a.k.a. The Kitty, a.k.a. Stupes McGee, a.k.a. Kitty Little, a.k.a. Kitty Pie, a.k.a. Kitlin, a.k.a. Goat Kitty, a.k.a. The Kittage, a.k.a. Poor Little Dead Kitty, a.k.a. Hey Cat!) is mostly finitely bad these days. That’s probably to be expected considering that she just turned 14 this past April.

Like some kind of sprawling family saga, my cat’s family history and my family history have been entwined for the better part of 25 years. Winston’s great grandparents—a crazy orange Tom and a very sociable fluffy calico—belonged to my grandmother. They had a litter of kittens, two of which came home with my sister and me—junior high and senior in high school-aged, respectively. My sister’s cat—Winston’s mother—was a beautiful short haired calico called Sam. My cat—Winston’s uncle—was a gray tabby called Al. (Yes, we were Quantum Leap fanatics. Shut up.)

They were pretty good cats, as far as cats went, but were only with us for a couple of years before they disappeared. Early in my college days, Al vanished without a trace, never to be seen again. Sam also disappeared soon after, but reappeared a few months down the line looking well-fed, healthy and quite clearly pregnant. We surmised that she had been adopted by another family, gotten knocked up and had decided to return to her real home to have her first litter of kittens. She stayed with us through the birth of that litter and hung around afterward until her kittens had been weaned. Then she vanished and we didn’t see her again until she turned up pregnant, several months later.

Among Sam’s first litter of kittens, in April of 1992, was a little kitty that was missing a tail and had something of a deformed pelvis that caused her to walk a little sideways, resembling a tiny bear. Her disability didn't slow her down much, though, and since Sam was unreliable at best, my sister adopted this runt kitty and named it Cleo. Another was a tiny orange kitten that, like most newborns, closely resembled the former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. I was quite taken with her and, being as how my cat had long since disappeared, adopted her as my own.

Years passed, during which I moved out of the house, taking Winston with me to a four bedroom pad that I shared with several roommates, called Da Crib. This is where Winston gained her reputation for being infinitely bad, and began accumulating nicknames. We called her Goat Kitty because when she was irritated with us she would mew in a fashion that sounded like a little goat braying, "Myayayayayat!"

Once, Winston climbed up onto the kitchen counter and began sniffing amongst the dirty dishes in the sink. We were watching TV and wouldn't have known she was there at all until she accidentally knocked spoon into the sink. We heard, *DINK*, "Myayayaayayayayat!" for she knew she had been caught. We still laugh about that.

We also dubbed her the Poor Little Dead Kitty, because we felt that one day she would prove herself so bad that we would have no choice but to kill her. (My roommate, Joe, even composed a story for his sign-language class about the Poor Little Dead Kitty and how we were eventually going to have to kill her.) How bad was she? Well, she was full of the usual harmless kitty mischief, and was forever knocking over things that we didn't want knocked over, such as trashcans, in which she enjoyed digging for corn-cobs, that she would then strew throughout the house. (Once found a cob behind the downstairs toilet, yes we did.) However, she was also fond of excretory indiscretions, such as taking a whiz on my roommates’ freshly cleaned laundry. This prompted them to stop leaving baskets of it lying around and to keep the doors to their rooms firmly closed at all times.

When she had done something wrong, we would usually yell, “Hey, cat!” at which point she would run and try to hide by sticking her head under the edge of the sofa. She did this on the grounds that if she couldn't see us we shouldn't be able to see her, and is therefore suspected of being the reincarnation of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

After that grand experiment in collegiate cohabitation flamed out, two years later, I moved back in with my dad, step-mother Myra, sister and Cleo (not to mention Myra’s cat Lucien, who was the half-brother of Winston & Cleo). After college graduation, I moved to Tupelo to begin my career in radio and Winston came with me. She was there when I met Ashley and there when Ashley moved away. Winston was there through our courtship and came with me when I moved to North Carolina to be closer to Ash. Though she didn’t attend the wedding, she did accompany us to Charlotte to move into our new apartment, following the honeymoon. And two years later, she survived yet another move, this time to West Virginia.

Fourteen is pretty old for a cat. Thinking realistically, we’ve been curious as to just how much longer she’s going to be around. Not that we’re eager for her passing, or anything, but we know that her days—as is the case with all of our days—are numbered. The only cat I've had for nearly as long as Winston was our other family cat, Bay, who we had from my 4th grade year through early college. He wound up testing each and every one of his nine lives, surviving car fan-blades, and innumerable fights with other cats that resulted in broken, punctured tails, torn ears and gashes upon gashes. He also had a tragic encounter with a group of backwoods Mississippi Satanists, who stabbed him in the chest with a bone and threw him into a fire. He came limping back home, weeks later, missing all of his hair and most of one ear and was recognizable only by a gray dot on his nose. That was a heartbreaking experience, but he survived it. Our vet then, Dr. Anthony, patched him up and he eventually re-grew everything but the ear. Though the wound in his chest never fully healed, he lived on for a couple more years.

Winston, by comparison, has had a very easy life. No major hassles in the realm of catfights or trauma and no major health problems other than a penchant for hairballs. We don’t worry much about her because she’s an infernal wuss that runs from the least little thing and starts at every sound, so the chances of her getting into danger are pretty slim. She goes outside almost only at night, where she’ll have cover of darkness in which to lurk. And we know she never strays far from the house because Winston never mastered the art of using the bathroom outside and has, on many occasions, pounded on the door to get in only to run to the litterbox and then return to the door to be let out again. Beyond the hairballs, the closest we’ve come to any problems with her have been occasional screaming skirmishes with other cats.

Herein lies our story.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)