Month: November 2020

Making Friends, One Felony At A Time

The phone rings.

Me:  Hello?

Caller:  Hi there.  I live just down the alley from you and I thought I should let you know that Izzie has been spending quite a bit of time in my yard.

Me (nervous….do I need to apologize for my damned cat again?!):  Okaaaaay.

Him:  It’s totally fine!  I don’t mind at all, but I wondered if I should put some food out for her?  I have given her treats before when she stops by.

Me:  That dirty cat!  She has bowls and bowls of dry food and gets paté every evening.

Him:  I thought she was too healthy-looking to be a stray.  So I shouldn’t put out any food?

Me:  No, it’s not necessary to put out food, but she probably appreciates the treats.  I have to say that I’m surprised she lets you get close to her.  She hasn’t made you bleed?

Him (laughing):  A couple of times but we’ve become friends.  I could read her name on the tag quite a long time ago but it was only this morning that she let me flip it over to see the phone number.

Me:  Wow!  You’ve done well, then.

Him:  She helped me build the fence in my backyard in October.  She sat and watched me for hours.

Me:  She likes to watch a guy, who lives very close to you, do his gardening in the summer, too.  She spends entire afternoons with him.

Him:  Yeah.  She just sits and watches.  She’s sweet.

Me:  Ahhhh….that’s just a ploy to gain your trust.  She took the ladies at the end of the block hostage for 5 hours.  They had to escape through their front door.

Him (laughing again):  She wouldn’t let me in the garage this morning and when I tried to go around her she swatted at me.  I said, “Hey!  We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Me:  She stole a woman’s car two summers ago.  The neighbours heard the screams and came to get us.  So, don’t underestimate her motives.

Him:  She sounds like quite a cat.

Me (sighing):  I cannot count how many times I’ve had to apologize for her behavior.  I’ve tried to explain that she’s not allowed to swat or take hostages or steal buildings, but it doesn’t seem to help.

Him:  The guy at the end of my block has a cat and she’s been fighting with it.  I call her and she comes running across three garages, down my drain pipe and I give her treats after telling her to stop fighting.

Me:  I know!!  She was coming home looking like a crack whore for over a month!  We went on holiday for a couple of weeks, taking the cats with us, in September, and since then she hasn’t been in any more fights.  Maybe she just needed a time-out.

Him:  She was looking pretty beat up, for sure.

Me:  Well thank you for looking out for her.  And I appreciate the call to let me know what she’s up to.

Him:  No worries.  I can still give her treats?

Me:  Sure.  She loves treats.

Him:  Perfect.  Nice chatting with you.

Me:  Same here.

Okay.  So, no apologies were necessary and the blood was minimal.  I can’t help but wonder if Realtors will have to disclose Izzie’s presence to prospective purchasers of homes in the area.  I’m sure she would think it was cool, but driving home prices down might become an issue for The Viking and me.

Sigh.

I Was Evil Today

I was evil today.  I really tried to harness my evilness and I did beg Better Me to intervene.  I even enlisted The Viking to appeal to my better side, but Evil Me won the day.  That’s what happens when Better Me does all the heavy lifting and has decided to let Evil Me take the wheel for a change.

All it took was an email.  One lousy email.  To ruin the entire day.  Worse…..the email was harmless.  Innocent, even!  But previous email interactions left a foul taste in my mouth from all the sanctimony and Holier-Than-Thou-Dom that prompted my solemn vow of unhelpfulness forevermore.

We all have at least one person in our life who just rubs us the wrong way all the fucking time.  You don’t even like to be around them and those events that require proximity are always dreaded.  You’re never quite sure if they are totally unaware of how awful they can be or if they are aware and just like being that way.  You decide to believe it’s the first thing because who wants to think the worst of someone?  So, you spend years brushing off the snide and taking the High Road, certain that it must be a total lack of interpersonal skills and self-awareness.  But then comes the time when all the excuses in the world can’t explain it away.  There is no other explanation but Colossal Entitlement.

Unfortunately, I’m getting too old for this shit.  Taking the High Road is exhausting – mostly because I’m pissed off, stomping my feet, waving my arms, and shouting curses into the void the entire time.

via GIPHY

Sure, I could give it right back – I’m perfectly capable of treating someone like shit if I really put my mind to it – but I choose not to behave like that.  And, that would make being around me no more pleasant than being around them.  Instead, my brain goes into overdrive; hoarding and composing sarcastic and epithet-laced arguments that will put them in their place if I can only remember them when the time is right.

I had a small skirmish with an old, white guy in the grocery store parking lot a while ago involving a parking spot that I was already in but he wanted.  He behaved badly, I made a gesture, he said, “You don’t need to act like that, Missy” and I said…..

“If you’re going to act like an Asshole, I’m going to treat you like an Asshole!”

I was pleasantly surprised by my brilliance.  On the spur of the moment like that.  I usually have to wait until 3:00 in the morning to come up with such a perfect gem.

The Viking did manage to rein in my more militant inclinations today.  I didn’t write a scathing diatribe like last time, outlining and dissecting all the ways that a certain comment pissed me right the fuck off.  No, I just returned a quote and left it at that.  I don’t have to be ashamed of myself for behaving badly – I hate it when that happens – and chances are the recipient won’t even catch the significance.  Given the un-self-awareness and all.

Besides, isn’t there some adage about confession being good for the soul?  I do believe that makes all of you Confess-ees.  And that means I have a very, very good soul, doesn’t it?  And maybe I wasn’t actually Evil today.  Maybe just thinking about being Evil doesn’t actually make me Evil.  I do have self-control, after all.

I’m just going to chalk this up as Better Me – and The Viking, of course – managed Evil Me more than I initially thought.