2004-11-02

5ive Days to Midnight last night when Fred said “Look at Stumpy.” and pointed toward the window. I turned and looked, and saw Meester Boogers standing outside the living room window peering at us. As we watched, he meowed at us, and then sat down to watch us. I can only imagine how fascinating it must be to sit and watch The Momma and The Daddy through the window watching TV, because the cats seem to love it, and take turns doing so every single night. If we look over at them, they look all pathetic and sad like “Why would you lock me out of your fun TV watching? Why? Whyyyyy?”, as if they’ve forgotten that a mere 15 feet from where they sit is the cat door through which they travel ten thousand times a day. If they look sufficiently sad and cute enough, one of us (read: Fred, because as far as I’m concerned, they can sit there and look sad ’til hell freezes over before I’ll get up off my comfy couch) will open the door and let them in, and they always look overwhelmingly grateful. Not two minutes later we heard the thump of the cat door opening and closing, and then we heard the sound of an angry small animal. “Squee!” it said angrily. “Squee! Squee! SQUEE!” Fred and I both jumped up to run into the other room, but before we could get very far, Meester Boogers hauled ass into the living room, his jaws firmly clamped around the body of what I thought at first was a bird. It sounded a lot like the baby cardinals that have been brought into the house. “Squee!” it reiterated. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” “Stumpy!” I said loudly, and clapped my hands at him to make him drop the poor thing. “DON’T CLAP YOUR HANDS AT HIM!” Fred said, and bent down to grab Meester Boogers. “I think it’s! It’s not a bird!” “What the hell is it?” I asked, and ran over to open the door. “I don’t know! Some kind of mammal!” Now let me digress for a moment to say that I spent many minutes taking shit for having clapped at Meester Boogers last night, and yet “some kind of mammal” is the height of brilliance? Hmph. Fred ran out the door with Meester Boogers in his hands. “Squee!” said the mammal in Meester Boogers’ mouth. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” Fred dropped Meester Boogers and Meester Boogers dropped the squealer, and then Meester Boogers was a blur as he went after the little mammal and caught him again, clamping his jaws around the mammal’s stomach. “Oh my god!” I said. “Is it a chipmunk?” It seemed to have the tail of a squirrel or chipmunk, but seemed too small to be a squirrel. “Squee!” said the little animal angrily. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” Fred yelled at Meester Boogers and reached down and grabbed him and shook him a little, and then Meester Boogers dropped the squealer and Fred hung on to Meester Boogers, and the squealer ran away. “It’s climbing up the side of the house!” Fred said in amazement. “Yeah…?” “Up the bricks! It’s climbing the bricks!” I went over to where Fred was standing, holding Meester Boogers, and looked up to where he was pointing. Sure enough, the mammal was running quickly up the side of the house. I went in and got a flashlight so we could see it more clearly, and we decided that it was a young squirrel. It stayed there near the top of the house for an hour or so, and then when Fred went out to see if it was still there, it had disappeared. He checked the ground beneath where it had been to make sure it hadn’t died and fallen to the ground, but it was nowhere to be seen. Upon talking about it later, we decided it was a pretty damn good thing that Meester Boogers hadn’t dropped the squirrel when I clapped my hands at him, because the idea of chasing a little squirrel through the house is not one that fills my heart with joy. He was awfully cute, though. I hope he’s okay. I’m sure that next, That Bastard Meester Boogers will bring a skunk into the house.

* * * The spud and I had to go to her school last night after dinner to order her high school class ring. I don’t think I got my high school ring until I was a Junior and the spud is only a Sophomore, but at least this way she’ll get to wear it for a few years before she realizes that anyone who wears their high school ring past, say, the first year of college is a big goober. She chose this ring, if you were curious. We ordered it in Celestrium, which is the least expensive metal offered. I do love my child, but I don’t love anyone enough to lay out the $450 for 14K gold. That’s just ridiculous, y’know? Anyway, we got to the school right after 5, because the Balf0ur reps were going to be there from 5 – 7. There were a good number of people already there, but most of them were clustered around the display case of rings, so the spud and I went and stood in line to wait for the next available rep. You know, people are just such a huge pain in the ass. See, when the spud told me it was time to order a class ring (or asked if she could have one, anyway – it’s not like she said “Time to order a class ring. Pay up!”) she brought home the order form and booklet, and anything you needed to know was contained in that booklet. Yet people showed up with NO FUCKING CLUE about what they wanted and the sales reps were having to fill every friggin’ square in the order form in for these dumbasses. THEY DIDN’T EVEN HAVE THE COMMON DECENCY TO FILL IN THEIR NAMES AND ADDRESSES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. It took each parent/ child combo ten to fifteen minutes to have their stupid, stupid forms filled in by the rep. Know how long it took once the spud and I sat down in front of a rep? Three minutes. BECAUSE WE HAD OUR FORM FILLED OUT. All we needed to know was what size ring the spud wears and then the rep took the rest of the time to add up what we owed (my god, those rings are expensive. And the spud chose a nice average-priced ring, not one of the expensive ones.) and asked “Did you want to pay it all at once?” and I said “Yes” and she checked the “Pay all at once” checkbox, and then that was it – I didn’t even have to write a check because I had already written the debit card information in the correct place. Three minutes, folks. We waited 35 minutes for the idiots in front of us, and it took us all of three minutes. You know, it would never occur to me to show up at something like that unprepared. Because there’s no friggin’ reason you have to sit there and spell out your name and address for someone else WHEN YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT YOURSELF. Yet people show up all half-assed and “Oh. Was I supposed to fill out the form myself? I had no idea. Because I’m a half-assed idiot.” What the hell is that about? Always be prepared, people. Don’t be an annoying half-ass or one of these days I’ll snap and hit you over the head with my purse. And I have a heavy purse, oh yes. * * * The hunter. The mighty, mighty hunter. * * *]]>