Month: July 2022

Freeloaders

There was a wee bit of a mix-up and now we might have another cat. Or not. It’s confusing and too soon to know for sure.

Every night at 11:00 on the nose, treats are handed out to Teddy and Izzie, like alms for the poor except they aren’t poor, and Izzie isn’t as deserving as poor peasants. And I’m not a good acolyte, either. Okay, it’s nothing like alms for the poor so just ignore the whole alms thing.

Last night, close to 11:00, Izzie abandoned her usual routine of trying to hypnotize early treats out of The Viking and went to crouch in front of the cat door. That in itself isn’t unusual because she squats there all the time, daring Teddy to make it past her without receiving flesh wounds. However, the timing of the squatting was unusual. She’s usually more focused on treats than petty assault.

I assumed that she was feeling more militant than usual. “Izzie! Let Teddy in for his treats!”

She didn’t move. “Izzie!!”

Her left ear flicked in my direction, but she still didn’t move. So, I went to the door and opened it so Teddy could come in. Except he seemed sort of hesitant even though he could clearly see that Izzie was behind me and, therefore not a threat.

“Come one, Teddy. I chased Izzie away.”

He came up one step and that’s when I noticed that his tail was unbelievably huge. “Holy moly, Teddy! What’s up with the big tail? Come on. Come get your treats.”

He came up one more step. The Viking showed up and gave his version of encouragement. “What the fuck’s the problem? Come on, Teddy!” He shook the treat jug loud enough for every cat in the block to hear.

He came up the top step and looked at me.

What the fuck?! Was this even Teddy? Same colour, same eyes. The light on the fur around his ears were the same silver. But the tail is too long, isn’t it? And did he lose about three pounds since supper?

“I don’t think this is Teddy.” The cat now had two feet in the house, and it was obvious.

I turned to look at Izzie who was standing off to my left. She was wearing her frowny face and staring at me. Apparently, she knew it wasn’t Teddy and definitely didn’t approve of my invitations to Treat Time.

“Where’s Teddy then?”

The motion detector light came back on, and I thought I saw Teddy squatting on the garage roof. I grabbed a flashlight and aimed it at the garage. Yup. He was just sitting on the garage roof watching the show. “What are you doing up there, Teddy?”

I scooted Skinny Teddy out the door. “Okay. Let me get this straight.” I said, rubbernecking between Teddy and Izzie. “You two allowed a strange cat that we’ve never seen before to sashay right up to the back door? You even let me invite it into the house for treats?”

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Skinny Teddy was just sitting at the bottom of the steps, wondering if treats were still available. Fat Teddy still squatted on the roof and Izzie, bored with the whole thing, was cleaning her right ear.

“Do you know that The Viking and I were sitting out enjoying a beer the other day and a mouse – yes! A mouse! – spent at least an hour scampering around back and forth in front of the office door? Yes! AN HOUR! You guys drag the corpses of rodents and birds you’ve killed into the house but allow a live mouse free access to the beer drinking patio?”

No one moved. They weren’t even looking at me. “And you think you deserve treats?!”

Skinny Teddy took a step toward the bottom step. “You know what?! I’m going to ask Skinny Teddy for its* resume and references. Gawd! Maybe it will earn the food and treats we pay for. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that damned fly that bumped against every window for two days!”

I sent Skinny Teddy away to put together an employment package and banged the back door shut.

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Teddy immediately left his perch and headed for the house. Izzie took up her usual position beside The Viking to beg for treats despite my mutterings that they don’t deserve them.

They don’t care, because The Viking is the weakest link in this household and will give them treats whether they earn them or not. And most of the time, it’s ‘not’.

Freeloaders.

*I hadn’t taken the time to check his/her private bits and besides is it even polite on a first meeting?

It Could Happen to Anyone!

Sigh. I don’t usually screw up this bad. I’ve honed a combination of anxiety, chronic over-planning, and self-doubt to such an advanced level that it’s rare that I forget something of such importance. Sure, the occasional toothbrush or deodorant gets missed, but they aren’t really important in the grand scheme of vacations.

In my defense, we were leaving for vacation a day earlier than the original plan because The Viking decided, and that condensed my preparations from two days into one day. That’s important because my usual pre-vacation check, check, triple check, self-doubt, check, check, second self-doubt, and a final check was cut off after just two checks, and I only had one day to run all errands and chores. Also, The Viking usually fuels up the bike the day before we leave so we just get on the bike and go first thing in the morning, but this time he decided he should mess with our scientifically proven process of vacationing and would fuel up on the way out of the city. In other words, we were throwing all caution to the wind and recklessly hoping the Vacation Gods were in our favour. They weren’t.

The first sign of the colossal clusterfuckery headed my way happened at the gas station before we ever left the city. The Viking opened his wallet to pull out the credit card to stick into the pump….

“Where the fuck is the credit card?!!!”

During one of those errands the day before, I needed the credit card, so I just stuck the card in my wallet. Had I returned the card to his wallet immediately, he would have been none the wiser, but I hadn’t and that one little thing was nothing short of a sin of biblical proportions and, trust me on this, The Viking is extremely good at pinpointing sins of biblical proportions and exactly who is to blame for those sins of biblical proportions. And, since I didn’t need my wallet on the first day, it was buried in the depths of Jolene’s over-stuffed side bags. At that point, we both decided that it was easier to just pay with cash than scatter our belongings all over the parking lot of the gas station to find my wallet. We should have known better. This is what happens when we fly by the seat of our pants, with no method to our madness. And, had The Viking fueled up Jolene the day before, he would have caught my clusterfuck. But, he didn’t. Our fate was inescapable at that point.

So, we drove four and a half hours, blissfully ignorant. We pulled into the parking lot of our pre-booked hotel and dug out my wallet.

Time.

Stopped.

Blink. Blink.

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My wallet did not contain the credit card.

The Viking grabbed my wallet out of my hands and looked for himself. No credit card. He pulled his wallet out again and nope, no credit card.

Shit.

The Viking started a curse-y stream of mutterances of doom and the ending of all our hopes and dreams forever more, while I prepared for the biblical consequences of my clusterfuck. How could I have lost the credit card?! If it wasn’t in either wallet, then it had to be in my coat pocket or still sitting on the counter at the parts store.

The Vacation Gods must have decided to give us a small bit of luck though when the hotel desk person didn’t ask to see the credit card. We had booked and paid for the room on Expedia, but usually, we are asked for the card anyway. This time they didn’t, so at least we had a bed for the night.

Six o’clock the next morning, we loaded Jolene up again and drove four and a half hours back to Calgary in sub-arctic temperatures which The Viking had tried to avoid by leaving a day early!

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I ran for my coat and…no credit card!

I ran to the car and frisked it thoroughly…no credit card!!

I must have left it on the counter at the parts store. My head was ready to explode. I don’t lose things! How could I have lost THE CREDIT CARD of all things?! The Viking was pacing.

I reached for the phone to call the parts store, and there, on the top of The Viking’s computer tower, was the credit card. I almost cried. It took me only a second to realize that I must have been sidetracked on my way to put the credit card in The Viking’s wallet. A phone call? A customer? With the panic of changed plans and the parts run and talking with the house sitter and getting more cat food and finishing laundry and customers coming at the last minute…it could happen to anyone.

So, 8 hours of driving just to get back to where we started, and then another 8 hours to go where we wanted to go and where we had a hotel room waiting for us. A 12-hour driving day. And it was fucking cold until we got back to where we started that morning.

In a post-apocalyptic clusterfuck de-brief we decided that getting a second card for me to keep in my wallet at all times would protect his card from being pinched from his wallet and the $100.00 for that second card was more than worth it.