DON’T GO IN THERE! when that happens, so Self? Let’s not go in there. Let’s go call Fred.”
I pulled the garage door closed and high-stepped it into the house, locking the door behind me. And I picked up the phone and called Fred.
It was busy, so I hung up, watched the garage door for a few minutes, then tried calling again. Busy. And I ranted to the cats that IT’S ONLY EVER WHEN I FUCKING NEED HIM THAT HE’S ON THE PHONE, IF I WAS CALLING TO ASK HIM A STUPID QUESTION, HE’D PICK UP THE PHONE IMMEDIATELY, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ARRRRRGH!, and the cats scattered. So I sat down and sent him an email asking if he’d worked out in the garage that morning. It would be unusual for him to work out in the garage then not lock the door behind him before coming back inside, because he not only locks the lock on the doorknob, he always locks the deadbolt as well, which always makes it a big pain in the ass for me to get into the garage in the morning, because my key doesn’t work well with the deadbolt.
I figured, since he sits and reads his email when he’s on the phone with me, he might do the same with other people, so I sat and hit “refresh” three hundred times, and tried calling him again and got a busy signal, and so finally I sent him another email saying Since you’ll apparently be on the phone forgoddamnfuckingever, did you work out this morning? Did you leave the door ajar? Or do I need to worry about someone being in the goddamn garage? and then I sent him a text message saying “Check your email, pls.”, and then I picked up the phone again to try calling him, and the phone rang, and it was him.
I explained what had happened, and he said “Take a gun.” Not “Don’t go in there!”, not “Call the police!”, not “Ask the guy next door to come look in the garage for you!”, no. He just wanted to make sure I took the gun with me when I went to see if anything had been stolen from the garage. So I went and got the gun from the bedroom (my gun, we call it.) and we had discussion about whether there was a safety on this gun (there is not), and then I took him with me via the phone while I went into the garage.
I was a little shaky as I looked around the first floor of the garage, then I said “I have a gun and I’m coming up there!” and I went upstairs.
And there was nothin’. No one was there, no vagabond laying asleep amongst our crap, no thief waiting to steal our 15 year-old vcr or exercise tapes or elliptical trainer, not even a troublesome squirrel. Not a damn thing.
I was almost disappointed that I didn’t get to shoot anyone.
This morning, I went upstairs to hang out with the kittens before I had to take them to the pet store. When I opened the door, kittens came shooting through the crack, and I bent down to halt them in their tracks, and I failed to take into account that there was a doorknob, and I hit that doorknob with the browbone over my right eye so hard I saw stars.
I bellowed and staggered around, and then remembered that there were kittens on the loose, and I chased one down in the bathroom (they run out of the kitten room and directly into the bathroom every single time, I don’t know why) and the other in guest bedroom, and I carried them back into the kitten room, sternly telling them how very bad they were.
I hung out with them for a few minutes, and then it dawned on me that there were only two brown tabbies in view rather than the usual three, so I went back out into the hallway and started looking. I saw no brown tabby anywhere upstairs, and so I went back into the kitten room to look, and still a brown tabby was missing.
I finally heard the far-off sound of an irate Stinkerbelle, and when I followed the sound, I saw a little brown tabby running around happily, surrounded by every permanent resident in the house. Stinkerbelle looked very angry (I guess he’d gotten too close to her), but the other cats just looked puzzled, like they weren’t quite sure what they were looking at.
I rescued the kitten, took him upstairs into the kitten room, and the kittens started acting like jerks, racing around, jumping on me, biting at me, just generally being pains, so I said “OKAY, I think I’m ready for you to go, brats!”, so I packed them up and drove them to the pet store. I gave them all the usual hugs and kisses, told them to get themselves adopted before Monday, and left. They watched me leave like, “Yeah, whatever. Buh-BYE, lady!”, and settled down for naps.
Ingrates.
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The kittens are at the pet store, as I mentioned, and so here are the last of their pictures.
“I got the box and it’s all mine now, HA-HA!”
Did I mention that they really like this thing?
I can’t stand how gorgeous Billy Bumbler is. And what a sweetheart – the happiest, most laid-back cat, ever. I swear he looked like he was wandering around in a drugged-out daze most of the time.
There it goes!
Susannah in motion.
Tommy liked this thing too, and thinks it’s unfair that those stupid kittens got to have it!
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“Harrumph.”
10/3/07