Honest Conversation Is Overrated
Actual Human Interactions Witnessed Or Overheard
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century America
Dude: Why do you only talk back to one of your cats?
Me: Huh? Dude: You're always telling Selina to shut up, but you talk to Goose all the time. Me: Well...it's like living with two musicians. Motherfucker is like Macy Gray. She has an interesting voice but she doesn't talk or sing a lot, so you can have short conversations, and occasionally hear her quietly singing one of her many songs to herself. Me: Selina is like Whitney Houston, if Whitney Houston were the type of person who ran around the house at three in the morning repeatedly singing only the final chorus of "I Will Always Love You" at the top of her lungs. Dude: I guess that makes you Bobby Brown. Me: Shut. Up.
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Motherfucker scratches at door.
Me: Haha. You can't come in. How does it feel to have no opposable thumbs, cat? Motherfucker opens door and enters room, purring. Me: Uhoh. "Oh, are you my little purr factory? Yea. Do you make your purrs all by yourself to sell via The Internet? Yea. Your happiness doesn't depend on some underage child working for slave wages, does it? No. The only one who suffers for your happiness is you. Good girl."
* - I left the space between "TooHighToCount" and the hashtag symbol because I didn't want this filed along with people on illicit substances who were unable determine the worth of numbers. Mother Hubbard
MF Doom Goose Goostina Aguilera Goosabella Rossellini Punky Gooster Goose Valanche Goosey Lawless Togoose Letrec Goose Bigalow Brent Goostina Ricci Goose Springsteen Vodka Grey Lady Squirrel Girl Dustmop Floor Cat Grumbles Selina Ribcage responds to: Selina Shut The Fuck Up Shut Up, Cat (the sound of a sneeze, which I haven't figured out) Nermal Mystique Grey Lady Squirrel Face What? Fuzzy Jerkface (looks out the window)
Me: There's a door to door dog washing van across the street. Roommate: Eww. I guess the pug does need to be cleaned from door to door soon. Silence. RM: Oh. The service goes door to door to wash dogs. Me: Yes. RM: Feel free to post that to Facebook. The eight hundred year old cat I inherited a few years ago has had a rough week, and has been, among other things, becoming more vocal. His voice is pretty small, and it often comes from the empty room in my apartment, which is unfurnished, and echoey.
Tonight, while I was trying to get some writing done, I heard a steady stream of yowling, and opened the door to find all cats either asleep or drinking water from their bowls. I looked out the window and saw a woman with her baby and muttered "No one cares about your selfish problem, human child." I said it just loud enough that the woman looked up at the window and made a face. My least favorite part of cat ownership, aside from emptying litterboxes and cleaning up vomit, is listening to cats scratch things.
Whenever Selina coughs up a hairball, she scratches at the floor to let me know I need to grab some paper towels to clean up. Motherfucker scratches chairs when she is hungry, and worried that the only 1/4 full food dish may soon be empty. Zeke has no claws. I often wake up to the sound of scratching, and yell in the general direction of the kitchen. I almost always yell out "Selina! Cut it out!", even though, statistically speaking, there's a 50% chance of it being Motherfucker. This is usually followed by more scratching, one more yell, and then peace. I woke up around four to SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH. I yelled at Selina, who, it turned out was resting against my chest. Motherfucker was perched directly to my right, and Zeke was on my right arm. My house might have A Ghost Cat. About three years ago, I agreed to catsit a couple of geriatric cats for a friend while he looked for a new apartment. I did not want additional cats, as Selina and Motherfucker are already Too Many Cats.
After about six months (of the two weeks I was supposed to be watching the cats), I noticed one of the cats (Zion) was walking stiffly. I called the previous owner. We decided to take the cat to the vet, and while we waited, the cat tried to jump on a bench and had a bad fall. When we got the cat carrier, he just gave up, and died before the cab arrived. Since Zion died, the other cat, Zeke, has been super cuddly. He sleeps on my arm most nights. He follows me around a good portion of the time. He is what I assume optimistic people are hoping for when they get a cat. Whereas Motherfucker is a loyal cat who likes people but would rather sleep on your leg than be cuddled. And, Selina is a loud, furry, novelty siren that wants to be petted, but almost certainly not the way you are currently petting her. Today, Zeke was hanging out in the hallway, and I called him over, and on his way, he went down hard. Both of the other cats, ran into the hallway and started nuzzling him, and I, of course,completely melted down, figuring, well, my cat is about to die. I picked him up, brought him over to the bed. Spent an hour cuddling with him as he purred, and then, because I needed to get work done, I picked him up and put a pillow down near the food dishes so he could be comfortable. Well, it turns out, he's actually fine. That this might have been akin to a human stumbling because their foot fell asleep. I'm going to hold off on taking him to the vet unless he falls again because he has also melted on to the floor when I've brought out the carrier. Selina and Motherfucker don't like it but they don't shut down. And I'd rather have an old, happy cat whose health I'm not completely sure about, then an old cat who dies of stress because humans need to diagnose and try to treat everything. Zeke is somewhere between 18 and 4,000 years old. He's probably going to lose his balance every once in a while. May your next meltdown be so premature that it seems funny and unnecessary once you step away from it. May that project you're so freaked out about finishing on time have a deadline a month after the one you wrote down. May it turn out that your missing wallet wasn't stolen but is in a pair of pants you forgot you wore yesterday, and may it have twenty more dollars than you remembered. May it turn out that the person you opened up to who never texted you back had lost their phone, and they feel so guilty about not replying in a timely fashion that they buy you your favorite dinner. May it all be okayer than you imagined when you woke up this morning. There is a woman who occasionally visits my downstairs neighbor who goes into periodic screaming fits. It's usually late on weekend nights, and because the actual tenant is otherwise an ideal neighbor, I don't complain. But some nights I'm trying to get work done and can't handle her slew of loud obscenities.
After about a half hour of brief bursts of fuckery, Selina knocked over her waterbowl. I stood and stared at it for a few seconds before belting out Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" at the top of my lungs. There was no more noise from downstairs. The cats, however, being notoriously bad at directions, walked away from me. |
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