Dog-ish Cat

My son's cat, Chester, is about three years old now, and he's become quite good at playing games, in more ways than one.  When my son is around, he follows him around like a puppy, and only has eyes for him, and plays up to him like crazy; nuzzling him, mewing at him for attention, and jumping on his lap to get petted.

HOWEVER.....


When my son's not here, he makes use of everyone else for getting the attention he wants, especially my daughter, who's decided to take advantage of that situation and teach him tricks.  He follows her everywhere, even into her little "club," as she calls it (really a blanket over a table and shelves that makes a sort of tent), jumping on her lap or next to her as she watches television.  She calls him, he comes.  They have a game that they play with each other where she chases him, and then he yells at her when she doesn't follow, and once she comes to him in answer, he runs off again, expecting her to chase him some more.

So yesterday she decided to take advantage of the situation, and went in to get some treats for him and try something else to see if it would work.  I suddenly hear, "Mom, you've got to see this!"

She comes into the room I'm in and informs me that she's taught Chester to "sit" like a dog.  I've never known a cat to do that, so I had to see.  She called him over and he looked up at her expectantly.

"Chester, sit!" she says, and darned if the cat didn't sit!  Just like a well-trained puppy!  I was amazed, and told her that I'd never seen a cat do that before on command, which I hadn't.  But if anyone could do it, it would be my daughter, who's always had a way with animals anyway.  It wasn't just a one-time thing, either, as he's still doing it when she tells him to.

Except when my son's home.  He won't do it for anything, and in fact, ignores everyone else when my son's around.  Little traitor!

So my daughter told me I should tell this story, and even gave me the title for it, which I thought was pretty apt.

And they say you can't train a cat.  I never have believed that, but didn't think they could be trained on command, like a dog, either.  Yet another crazy pet that we've seemed to acquire.  Not one of them normal, that's for certain.  Whatever "normal" is.

Highway Bridge Diving

This summer it seems like it's been more rainy than usual, with several storms that have caused a lot of flooding on the roads and in the streams and ponds, which reminded me of something that happened several summers ago during a huge rainstorm.

The neighborhood we lived in was near the highway, and there was a bridge that ran over it at one point, where the street went through.  You could walk across the sidewalk on either side and look down onto the highway and see the traffic speeding by.  That part of the highway sloped downwards, and didn't start back uphill for quite a ways up the highway.

One late summer afternoon, we were treated to a downpour that lasted for quite awhile.  The gutters in the streets were overflowing, so much so that the manhole covers were raising up and crashing down with the water's movement.  The drainage ditches along the highway were full of debris, causing the water to back up onto the highway, and make what looked like a very large pond, right underneath the bridge.  Traffic was at a standstill, as the water had risen to well over six feet high, even higher in some places.

Somehow, some person got the idea that it would be fun to go swimming in the "pond" under the highway, since there was no traffic moving and the rain had slowed by then to a normal storm, and several people ended up sliding down the grass at the sides of the highway and into the water, swimming around in there like it was meant for just that purpose.  That was bizarre enough, but it got even weirder.

A complete idiot that was walking over the highway got the bright idea to use the railings as diving boards, and began to jump off the top of the railings and down into the water below!  What was worse was that once he'd jumped off, several other people decided to try it, and began climbing up on the railings and jumping, too!  A couple of my friends and I just stood and watched these morons, wondering how they kept from breaking their necks, but apparently the water was deep enough to prevent that.

Finally, the police arrived with their bullhorns and started warning the jumpers to knock it off first, then told the swimmers still below to get out of the water.  Before that, though, every time someone jumped, the idiots would clap and cheer every time someone dove off, as if it was some sort of competition.  Luckily, nobody started anything with the police and did as they were told, and everything ended peacefully.

After that, the drainage ditches were cleared on a regular basis, and since then the highway has been widened and a new bridge built over it, so there haven't been any more floods under the bridge.  My kids still don't believe me when I tell that story, though.  I guess it's just too hard to actually imagine something like that happening.

But it did.  Honest.

"Please Come to Customer Service"

My dad and my brother, the wrestler, went to Wal-Mart for a quick trip so that my brother could get a new supply of contact lenses.  Once they'd finished at the optical department, my brother asked my dad for $20 and went off to look for something, while my dad was in sporting goods getting what he needed.

When Dad finished up, he went up to the front of the store to wait for my brother, as he didn't know where he'd gotten off to.  He waited.  And waited, and waited.  No sign of my brother.

Dad, not being a shopping kind of guy anyway, got tired of waiting and was well past ready to leave and go home by then.  So he decided the best thing to do would be to have my brother paged to come up to the front so that they could leave.  He went to the Customer Service desk to ask them to page him.

My dad then got an idea to be funny, but that would get my brother's attention immediately, without anyone else getting the joke.

Suddenly, over the intercom where the whole store could hear, the woman's voice spoke out, "Dick Trailer, please come to Customer Service.  Dick Trailer to Customer Service."

Soon Dad saw my brother coming up to meet him, laughing at Dad's use of his wrestling character name instead of his, and shaking his head.  Dad was highly amused with himself as well, and laughing as my brother approached.

So the thing to remember here is, don't ever take off and leave Dad to his own devices, especially at Wal-Mart.  When he's ready to leave, you'd better be ready as well.  And no fooling around!

Having A Baby

After giving birth twice, I'd like to offer a bit of advice on one of the choices moms-to-be are faced with when it comes time to actually have the baby.  I mean when you're in labor.

Do not be brave.  All that whole malarkey about "natural" childbirth?  Yeah, I was going to go that route with my son, then gave up after 12 hours of labor and got the epidural.  Truly a gift!  I couldn't feel a thing from my chest down, and after that, hardly any pain.  The relief was enormous!

When it came time to have my daughter, I'd told the doctor on my last visit before I went into labor that I wanted the epidural.  He notated it on my chart, and said it wouldn't be a problem.  Yeah, right!

I started having labor pains at about 10:00 a.m., and went to the hospital.  After being examined, it was determined that my daughter was turned face down instead of up, therefore she had to turn before she could be born.  So they sent me home, with instructions to drink a glass of wine (why, I do not know to this day), and have my husband massage my lower back so that she'd turn.  Since I hadn't eaten because you're not supposed to do that when you're in labor, I was starving, so we stopped on the way home for dinner, me having contractions throughout the meal, which I had a glass of wine with, as per instructions.

Once home, we followed the rest of the instructions re:  the massage.  And did that ever work!  I immediately began having very strong contractions, and could hardly walk.  I called the Doctor on call (not my regular doctor), and she argued that if I could talk through the contractions, more than likely I still wasn't ready, even though the contractions were very close together.

"Lady," I told her, "I can talk through anything.  I'm going to the hospital to have this baby.  Whether you show up or not makes no difference to me," and I hung up.

I was lying in the back seat of the car as my husband drove, convinced that he was going to have to deliver the baby, especially after my water broke on the way.  We finally got to the hospital after what seemed like forever (we didn't live all that close to it, either), went into emergency.

The girl at the emergency room desk asked, "You're not going to have that baby here, are you?" to which I replied, "I can't guarantee anything at this point."

They had someone come down from labor and delivery to examine me, and determined that yes, I was ready to deliver, so they put me on a gurney and began wheeling me up to the maternity ward, telling me not to push!  Somehow, my body didn't want to cooperate with that order, and pushed anyway a couple of times on the way up.

Once in the delivery room, I asked if I could have my epidural.

"Oh, honey," the nurse said, "you're way too far gone for an epidural!"

"Excuse me?"  I asked.  "Are you insane?"

She assured me she wasn't, and from then on, I yelled and screamed and threatened my husband with bodily harm, until finally, my daughter was born at 12:55 a.m. and the pain was over, thank goodness!  Right after she was delivered by the resident there, the doctor on call walked in, telling me how "good" I'd done.

"How do you know?" I asked, still annoyed with her.  "You weren't even here!" and the resident smirked.

I have since had great respect for women who give birth without drugs.  They say that you forget that birthing pain once it's over.  Bull-loney!  The only thing positive I can say about it is that the recovery time is easier without the epidural, but that's it.

So I've done both, and my advice, whether it matters to anyone or not?  Get the epidural.  It's worth it.  Really.

Chocolate Shake

One thing I've learned over the years about small children, they usually know what they want, and they have no problems letting anyone else know, either.  And they want it NOW!!!!


Case in point:  Many years ago, my friend Sherri's daughter, Barbie (who's now over 30 and a mom herself) must've been about three years old or so.  It was summer and hot, and we'd decided we'd drive to Dairy Queen and get something cold to drink, figuring we'd get milkshakes, because they make the best ones.

Barbie had been very quiet in the seat between us, and Sherri drove around to the menu board and speaker.  However, as soon as the person inside asked, "May I take your order?," Barbie decided that was the time to make herself known.

She leaned over Sherri and out the window, yelling, "Chocolate shake!  Chocolate shake!  I want Chocolate shake!"

Sherri was absolutely mortified!  Barbie continued on, repeating the same thing over and over, until finally Sherri managed to get her to stop hollering, while I, meanwhile, had been no help whatsoever, as I was laughing too hard to do anything else!

There was no sound from the speaker for a few seconds, until the person came back on, laughing as well, and said, "I'm guessing someone wants a chocolate shake?"

"Um...yes," Sherri replied, then continued to give them the rest of our order before driving forward to the window.

As we drove up, the employees were still laughing, as was I.  Sherri had blushed beet red, though, she was so embarrassed, though she was finally smiling!  She passed the cups to me and a small one to Barbie, who grinned from ear to ear.

She nodded, took a drink, nodded again, still smiling and said, "Chocolate shake!"

I started laughing again; she was so happy to have gotten what she wanted.  Sometimes it definitely pays to let people know what you want, and be consistent about it!  It worked for Barbie, anyway.

The Wrestler vs. Taco Bell

My youngest brother, at the very least, is a character.  Things are never dull when he's around; that's a given.  He's been a professional wrestler for the past several years, and though not in the "big leagues," he's quite popular in the local wrestling leagues, known as Big Dick Trailer, a redneck character that actually is a lot like he is in person.  He stands about 6'4" tall, and is well over 200 pounds.  Not a small person.  But I digress.

He was over here recently while my parents were away for a weekend, and was planning to spend the night.  We were waiting for my nephew to come over, as he'd called earlier saying he was going to stop by.  My brother kept asking, "Where is that boy, anyway?" and finally decided he'd call him.  They went back and forth for awhile, as my brother didn't bother to say who he was, just, "Where the hell are you?" when my nephew answered the phone, to which my nephew replied, "Who IS this?" to which my brother pretended he was insulted.  Eventually they got that settled, and my brother informed my nephew that before he came over, he'd have to go by Taco Bell and get us some food.  Of course, my nephew had no money, so he had to come by the house first for that, and also to get a list of what everyone wanted, which he did, taking my son with him along with one of his fraternity brothers who was with him when he arrived here.

After quite awhile, they finally arrived back with the food, laughing and carrying on, and saying that we'd better check the bags and make sure all the food was there, because they went through the drive-through, which was extremely busy, and were convinced that the employees at the Taco Bell were, and I quote, "smoking something."  Sure enough, after checking, there were a few items missing.

This did not please my brother.  He took the receipt, checked to see what was missing, circled those things on the receipt plus a few other things for good measure, and called the Taco Bell!  He explained to the guy who answered the phone there that his nephew had just been there and that we were missing food from our order, then says, "First off, we ordered a box meal, and there's no box!  What's up with that, man?"

The person on the phone replied that they were out of boxes.

"They said you guys are down there smoking something!" my brother then said.

The idiot on the phone replies, "Quite possible," instead of denying it as he should have, then tells my brother to bring back the food and the receipt and they'd make it right.

"I can't bring back the food!"  my brother replies, "I've got a bunch of drunk people here (we weren't!) and they're hungry, so they've already started eating the stuff you did give us!  Tell you what.  I'm gonna send my nephew back down there with the receipt and what we're missing marked on it, and you guys can make us some new stuff, how's that?"

The idiot didn't even bother to argue, just agreed to it, so off go the boys, back to get the missing food.  My nephew said that when they drove up, he said into the speaker, "Yeah, my uncle just called..." and the guy interrupted him and said, "Yeah, we know; pull on through!"  So they did, gave him the receipt, and soon had the missing food, along with a couple of "extras" that they brought back.  That made my brother very happy!

Another lesson in life:  Do NOT EVER mess up a wrestler's food order.  They're very serious about what they want, and they expect to get it.  Especially if it has to do with food.

How Frank Adopted Us

We had never intended to have a cat.  At the time, we had a dog and three birds, so a cat just didn't seem to fit in.  But Frank had other ideas.  Or someone did, anyway!


It was November, and getting cold out in the evenings.  Mom and I were walking to the polling place to vote, as it was election day.  I don't remember what or who we were voting for at the time, but the polling place was just around the corner from where I lived at the time.  As we turned the corner, we began to be followed by a cute little black kitten, who meowed at us on the way, so we reached down and petted him, then went in to vote.


When we came back out, the kitten was sitting there patiently, as if waiting for us, and proceeded to follow us back to my house.  I opened the door and he followed us in, as if he belonged there, the little stinker, but Mom took him back outside as she left, as we were thinking that as friendly as he was, he had to belong to someone.  I felt a little bad about leaving him outside since it was cold out there, but tried not to think any more about it.


My husband came home from work, and after he'd sat down, I told him that we almost had a kitten earlier, and was going to tell him about the kitten that followed us.


He replied, "You mean that little black cat that's out front jumping around?"


"He's still out there?" I asked.


"Oh, yeah, I saw him when I came up.  He ran right to me, and he's out there jumping around and playing in the bushes."


We both looked at each other, and I said, "You know, it's going to get awfully cold out there...."


We both got up and went to the door, and sure enough, there was the kitten, sitting at the bottom of the steps and looking up at us.  So we brought him in.


Mischa, the dog, was thrilled!  She loved cats, and immediately tried to make friends with him, but he was having none of it, at least, not then.  Instead she got growls and hisses, so we put the cat in what was our spare bedroom just for the time being, borrowed food and cat supplies from my brother, and kept him as ours for the next 19 years.


So you see, we didn't adopt Frank.  He adopted us.  He was quite adamant that we had no choice in the matter.  Silly humans that we are.