When the evening's thin, you're a beautiful...

Not that I intend this on being a series or anything, but this is my Saturday evening:

Long time visitors to the Palace know my opinion on cats (see Spawns of Satan). Long time readers will also know my relationshop with my friend Ghostie, the Dead Boy Wonder (see Wrapped Around My Lil Finger). Long time readers will also remember last summer, when Ghostie's family went on vacation and I was asked to check on thier cats for them. Oh, the...hijinks that ensued.

At ANY rate, Ghostie and his family are gone again on vacation, and they asked me check on the cats again this year. Well, how can I say no? I mean, Ghostie is the best sidekick a gay man could ask for. he does practically whatever I want him to do (wearing talking in a totally NON-sexual context here. Ghostie is on the other side of the fence). And his mom makes me stuff to eat. Last year it was two big containers of beef stew. This year, it was a big container of pot roast, with taters and the works! How sweet is that? i mean, the family is VEGETARIAN, and the mom makes me MEAT since I check on her cats? Are they not the coolest family. (well except for the whole freaky vegetarian deal. And the fact they have cats in the first place. But I digress...)

At ANY rate, after the...issues I had last year, I learned my lesson. I was NOT going to do this alone. I needed cover, support...hell, cannon fodder to distract the demon spawn maybe, who knows? So who could I ask, but AG! And she agreed to go along with me....IF we went out to eat afterwards. Well, actually, i suggested that to sweeten the pot for her, cause she doesn't like those lil bags of hairballs anymore than I do.

So, using our helpful picture icons, we see that this story involves:

Uncle Polt, himself, and

Ag!

(You may be wondering about the Auntie Mame poster to designate Ag. Well, her nickname is Agnes because a previous friend of hers told her that she's like Agnes Gooch, a character in Auntie Mame. And try as I might I could NOT find a photo of Peggy Cass as Agnes Gooch from the movie. So, I had to just settle on the movie poster itself.)

I got back from work (which was a bitch in and of itself. I got an hour of overtime, which is good, but dammit, I actually had to work! I had to handle like three times or so the normal influx of clients! It was inSANE! But again, I digress...), and showered and relaxed a bit to prepare myself for this...adventure...yeah, okay, we'll call it that.

So we get there, and gather up thier papers and mail, as instructed (and no, Ag did not rifle through the mail, nosily seeing what bills and flyers and magazines they had gotten [and no, I didn't later waste time nosily rifling through the most recent Sports Illustrated looking for photos of the Duke Lacrosse player, all to no avail], no not at all), and then got to the door. Well, first we had to fight our way around an overgrown large shrubbery that was blocking half the front walkway, but that was perhaps the easiest thing we had to handle.

So, the door. Well, I had the key, and I unlocked the deadbolt, and turned the handle...and the door didn't open! Now, mind you, they have an alarm, and I had the code to disarm it, but I couldn't do that from outside the door! And I had no way to get in. I tried the key again, and still nothing. And again and still nothing. And I thought at any minute, the alarm was gonna start clanging and the cops were gonna be on thier way.

And then I thought about putting the key in the lock on the handle, and it opened. And then I heard the alarm start beeping. SO I ran over and disarmed it. Second hurdle cleared.

We went into the kitchen and found a note taped to the door. It said to put the 2 white bowls in the fridge in the one room (yes there was MORE than one room) with cats in it. When we opened the fridge, we found three bowls. Hmm, what to do now? So we decided since the note only read two, that's all we'd put in the room. Taking a bowl each, we made our way upstairs.

There are 4 bedrooms upstairs. They had put a note on one door saying there were three cats inside and that's where we were to put the food. ObBviously, Ag and I had been talking the whole time coming up the stairs, so the cats heard us, and were meowing right on the other side of the door. I thought it was kinda cute. And we opened the door just a tad, and one little black paw came and kinda waved back and forth. I thought that was kidna cute too. but that's where the cuteness ended for the day.

As we opened the door, Ag tried to keep the cats inside. Right. Might as well try to nail Jello to a wall. Before we knew it, two of the cats were out the door and down the stairs. We tried to coax them back upstairs and in the room by waving the bowls of food in front of them, and one of them actually did make it TO the stairs, but balked at going up them. bastard. SO it was kinda clear we were gonna have to just round 'em up by hand. And when I say 'we' I mean 'Ag', cause I'm allergic to cats.

(indeed)

SO she gave me the second bowl of food and somehow managed to get a hold of one cat. She carried it out in front of her, as if it were something toxic...which, well, since it was a cat, it might have been, who knows? BUt I laughed at the way she was carrying and she said she had to, cause she didn't know if these guys had claws or not. Ohh, interesting thought, it hadn't occured to me. And I was happy, yet again, to be allergic and therefore unable to handle the hairballs from hell.

(running amok in London!)

When almost to the top of the stairs, it occurs to me, the door to that bedroom is still hanging open as we left it, and to our knowledge, only two cats ran out. SO, it would be possible that while we were downstairs the third one may have run out. Swell.

(dive for cover!)

So Ag manages to get the cat to the top of the stairs when he wiggles free. But by then, I've got the bowl of food out and he follows me into the room to start eating. And while he was eating, I left the room, shutting the door. One down, one to go.

(getting ready to pounce on this poor unsuspecting woman and sink its claws into her eyeballs)/span>

We tried with food to get the second one, but in the end, Ag just had to corral him in the living room and carry him upstairs again. And this one, she found out, did inDEED have claws! We managed to get him into the room without the first one running out, he was busy eating, thank God. And we shut the door behind us so we could check on thier water. We gave them some, and as we went to leave, we saw the third one: a big gray furball, sitting in the corner next to a chair, presiding over the spectacle like a hairy buddha. Without too much comment, we quickly left the room before the other two would notice and dart out...again.

(red eyed flying demons! demons, I tell ya!)

There was the master bedroom left. This one said there were two cats in the bathroom attached, and we should make sure the hallway door was shut before we opened the bathroom door. This did NOT bode, I thought. It meant these cats were runners, and I decidedly am NOT!

(NO PICTURES! NO PICTURE! GIMME THAT CAMERA!!)

No sooner did Ag open the bathroom door, than there were two meowing streaks of hair zipping across the floor. One went immediately to a wicker basket, hunched up and began clawing it. In preperation to slice into our flesh, no doubt. The other ran to the far side of the bed and all that could be seen was the end of his tail sticking out from underneath. yeah, these two were gonna be fun.

(Swatting the camera from your hand)

We checked the bathroom for food and water...and the smell of thier litter boxes knocked us back into the bedroom! No wonder they wanted out of there so badly! How could two cats smell worse than three cats? Maybe the big buddha cat in the other room was sitting there, cause he had his little paws crossed cause he couldn't go around the other kitties? Maybe these second too cats were more...prolific in thier poopin? Oh who knows? All that matter was the odor from that bathroom damn near singed our eyebrows off.

(screw the claws, he's gonna bite a chunk out of your flesh!)

Ag managed to get the raking-of-the-claws cat and put him back in the bathroom, where he didn't want to go (and with that smell, who can blame him?). We stood there and tried to call the second one out, but he wasn't coming. I flopped down on the bed and said it was hopeless. Ag got on the bed too and suggested we sit there and wait him out. yeah, like that would happen.

(leaping onto this happy couple to shred them no doubt)

As I went to get off the bed and just before my feet hit the floor and yanked them back up and told Ag to check under the bed cause i just KNEW that hairy host from hell was waiting right under the bed to slash my Achilles tendon with his claws, and then when I couldn't stand and fell down he'd be on me and slicing and dicing my flesh up. Perhaps even julienne my ankle! Laughing, she got down and looked under the bed, the cat was near where she was, so I safely got off the other side.

(You've got to be properly dressed and armed to safely fight off a horde of tabbies!)

We decided against reaching under the pull the cat out, neither of us wanted our forearms shredded. We tried calling him out, pffft, right, like was gonna work. It's a cat, not a dog. Dog's come we called, cat's have answering machines. So we left the bathroom door open so the cats could come and go as they pleased between the rooms, and we hurried out the door, shutting it behind us.

(they train 'em young, even a kitten can be deadly. Don't let the cuteness fool you!)

Across the hall was Ghostie's room...door wide open. An open invitation, if you will. We went in. And what kind of friends would we be if we didn't do just a little sabotage to the room? But he's such a good friend, well, we had to do more than just a little sabotage. I don't remember all that we did, and even I did, I wouldn't write it here. Ghostie could read it and that would eliminate the surprise of finding what all we did. Hehehhe....a couple months from now he might find something, and then he'll remember us and laugh. Or well, WE'LL laugh when he tells us about it anyway.

After this, we left and got the door locked without issue. Or at least without setting the alarm off, which is kinda the same thing. Our mission accomplished, we went to Cafe Del Sol for supper, which as always good. I overdid it with a MOUND of pasta, and deep fried ice cream afterwards. (yeah, i'll skip the blood sugar test Sunday morning, I told myself) and then we drove to the Dollar Store for some things. And then home, full, happy and satisfied, just like one ought to be on a Satruday evening.

I've also managed to recall a few quotes from the day:

"Sure, I'll stand here, so when the alarm goes off, the cops'll just shoot me first." - Ag
"God, I HATE pussy!" - Polt
"I don't wanna be flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water with my ankles bleeding while a herd of cats use me as a clawing post!" - Polt
"I didn't break it, I didn't break it!!!!" - Polt
"Oh, I did a slutty Polt thing recently!" - Ag
"I love a man with a baby. They're so caring and compassionate-" "And their biceps bulge nicely when they lift up the babies!" - Ag

POLT = listening to "Hands Clean" by Alanis Morisette

I just wanted to say I've always admired you as a scientist and a champion of justice and I'm really sorry I puked you up like I did. - Catgirl, DK2