It Was Funny To Me
The span of time over which this thing played itself out covered roughly sixteen hours from start to finish. After a shoot me challenging week, it landed in me as one of the most hilarious things I’ve experienced in a while. Which actually isn’t true, in and of itself…but really an overcompensation in light of the please shoot me challenging week.
I needed to laugh, and this did the job.
So, the other evening, I’m sitting in this chair, right? Tap-tap-click all over the world on Starship Internet, right? Chit-chatting here, ignoring there, bleah-dee-bleah yada yada yada.
The whole house is (sign of Cross) asleep and, in the silence I finally remember my own name. Which is something only parents really appreciate, because on most days, who we are, what we need, why we get up and doing it all over again, DOES. NOT. MATTER.
At all. I mean, it does, but our spawn will never really appreciate it until their therapists, twenty years into the future, will have had it up to Here listening to them whine about how we screwed up their lives (and they’re going to do this, just like we did, so wake up, baby doll). And the therapist, having had it up to Here with the whining will smack them across the head, and employ what I like to call Single-Session Therapy in the form of, “Get over it! You have no IDEA the lengths they’d gone to to care for you selflessly.”
Except that I wasn’t caring for anyone selflessly. Even a little bit. Right then, I was wiped out, run over, and had my own version of having had it up to Here. I was just answering email and reading news. And, for what it’s worth Those Of You Who Think That’s Code for: www.IsThatEvenPhysicallyPossible.com, I actually was answering email and reading the news. So don’t start with me.
And, then she comes flying into the room like a bat outta hell. And by she I mean her:
That is our cat. The kids call her Katherine. I call her Stupid Cat. Because she is nuts and I’m not lying. If you’ve followed along here on WIP or on Facebook, or if you’ve suffered me in real life, you’ve probably heard me go off about how this Stupid Cat drinks water. By standing IN the water dish. And wakes me up everyday at 5:00. By licking MY BACK with her Black & Decker Sandpaper Tongue.
We got her a year or so again. Because we needed her help.
Backburner that for a bit.
So I’m sitting there the other night and this Whackjob Cat comes FLYING into the room playing with a cat toy the kids made for her earlier that evening. It was cute and then annoying and then off my radar screen, all within about 15 seconds because I was focused elsewhere. And if you’ve ever seen a cat LOSE. ITS. MIND. over an inanimate object, you know exactly what I’ll briefly describe with the following photos and few words:
FUZZY CAT TOY! GO! RUN! BAT-SMACK-SLIDE! CHASE!
GRAB! DODGE! SLIDE! BAT-BAT! DOWN THE STAIRS! GO!
INTO HUMAN’S OFFICE! SMALL FUZZY CAT TOY! ENGAGE!!
SLIDE! BAT! CHASE CHASE CHASE! HIT! HIDE!
STOP!!
STOP.
JUMP! GOT IT! KILL! KILL FUZZY CAT TOY! GO!!
FUZZY CAT TOY ESCAPES! REPEAT! FUZZY CAT TOY ESCAPES!! GO!!
Okay. Stop the film.
That photo right above? That horrible out-of-focus photo? Two things about that horrible photo:
Thing 1) All of these were taken with the beloved iPhone (sign of Cross). That’s why they’re of a lesser quality than the camera my wife will be getting me for Christmas. (Dear Wife, when you read this don’t forget to ask me exactly what camera you’re getting me for Christmas because if it’s not the right one I will be Displeased.)
Thing 2) The main reason all these photos are blurry, especially the one above—and if you’re wondering exactly what kind of life I don’t have that I would be chasing a cat around the house taking dumb ass photographs like this here’s why: I was laughing my head off.
I mean LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF.
And chasing her around the house to take pictures of her.
Okay, backburner all of that for a second, too.
Remember how I led off this one with ‘the other night?’ And have you noticed that the rest of these photos are not night shots?
Here’s the backstory on why:
So…that other night when I was sitting there and trying to ignore Whackjob Stupid Cat running in. And then out. Then jumping on the couch. Then across my chair. And I mean FLYING right over the moon across-my-chair, and then batting the stupid Fuzzy Cat Toy across my feet. Twice…
…I’d finally had it up to Here.
So since the cat was now frantic because the Fuzzy Cat Toy was stuck under the couch, I decided I’d go over to the couch and lift it up like a very hot and muscular High-Powered Man. Which I am. So I do.
I lift up the couch so that Stupid Cat can get Fuzzy Cat Toy and get out of my hair, right?
And she bats the toy and right across my feet.
Okay. Now.
Look at this next photo.
Yeah. Not a Fuzzy Cat Toy.
A Fuzzy Live Mouse.
And I drop the couch and LAUGH MY HEAD OFF.
OFF.
I am not afraid of mice. At All. I’m not afraid of snakes. At all. I’m not afraid of spiders (I used to be but I’m not anymore and that’s a long story for another time). But I realize, finally, that the Stupid Cat is doing her job.
The one I hired her for.
To be a mouser.
But I don’t feel bad for being annoyed, nor for swearing at her (and I did) (a lot) while she went bonkers while I sat there trying to focus elsewhere. And the reason I don’t feel bad for bad-mouthing Stupid Cat is because I was laughing too hard. Because when I lifted the couch and realized it was a Fuzzy Live Mouse running FOR. ITS. LIFE for the last forty-five minutes, its little heart no doubt beating like a snare drum…all I could think of in that moment was “what if Cute Redhead had been the one to realize, just now, that this was Satan?”
Because that’s what her mind would have registered lol. She would have seen the Darling Fuzzy Little Disney Character (that’s what I saw) and realized that Lucifer and The Alien and Shelob and Rapists and Monsters and Bugs (that’s what she sees) had all melded into one being and run across her foot. At night.
And I couldn’t stop laughing.
But eventually I did and went to bed.
[end scene]
Next day. Stupid Cat is still flying around the house chasing Fuzzy Cat Toy.
I forgot all about the night before (believe it or not, I forgot) because I hadn’t had coffee or any reason to live yet. So, all I knew was that I hadn’t had coffee yet, and, not until Todd has coffee, does Todd love you and have a wonderful plan for you life.
And when I finally gain consciousness, I realize Stupid Cat is still at it.
With Fuzzy Cat To—wait a minute.
“ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU’RE STILL PLAYING WITH THAT MOUSE?! HA HA! THAT’S HILARIOUS! OMG THIS IS AWESOME! ARE YOU KIDDING ME THAT IS HILARI—wait WHERE’S MY CAMERA?!”
And then Chase Chase Chase Click Click Click HA HA! Click OMG This is NUTS lololol click CLICK click-click-click HA HA HA!
So get this one. This is awesome:
Trapped. Spring Mechanism Engaged. Tail! Twitch Right!
Tail! Twitch Left!
And that’s pretty much it.
That is the physical comedy I watched for about sixteen hours and finally broke down and chased our Stupid But Great Mouser Cat around the house chasing some poor little disney character of a poor little mouse (sorry PETA lol) all over every inch of this house.
And if you think I’m making it up, look at this last one.
Which shows Stupid Cat totally standing right there on all four legs (you see only two, I know) but totally I So Have Your Fuzzy Ass lol but stopped while Disney mouse tries to figure out for the ten-millionth time in the last sixteen hours what in the Hell to do now.
Which may not be funny to you lol…
…but it was funny to me. Which is why I wrote this one down.
Love it! We had mice in Nashville and literally chased them around with brooms…and cats…two dogs….they were brave mice, but eventually they departed to their afterlife.
The way I see it, the stupid cat can’t catch a mouse and need you to do it for her. Who got had here? Not the “stupid cat”!
We have two cats. One to get the mice out of the wood pile, and one to play with it until it’s last dying breathe escapes from it’s tiny body. We have four dogs. One who can’t figure out if it is dinner time or treat time. One who will look at a mouse and then look away. One who will look at the mouse, look for the cat, look back at the mouse, one (who is a puppy) will pounce on the cat who is trying to catch the mouse.
i’m thinkin’ dinner should be at our house next instead…………..
Marykay…I’m proud. I’m impressed. I’m also certain you were screaming your head off.
Jan…
wait…a…second lol!
Janet…lol okay that made me laugh out loud in real life!
Lady B…prolly not unwise lol
Um, sooo what then? Stupid Cat finally DOES toast this frickin mouse, then wants to sit on your lap and lick your face? Sick.
…wait a second. Come to think of it, she was rather affectionate after that.
*iodine