Piper was my baby.
Edloe was my Grumpus.
Frisky was my fluffball.
Bruwyn was my Boo.
Myst is my Missy.
Tinny is my squeaky.
And Nardo was my buddy.
Every cat gets their name, and their own special name.
When I give them their special name, it’s for them to keep.
Okay, so I wanted to name Myst “Baby” when we got her.
And both Bruwyn and Myst were the baby panthers.
But nobody ever again will ever be my buddy.
As much as Tinny asks for hugs, and Myst lays in my lap and purrs.
Some things are forever.
Category: My stories
Up in the garden
For the first few years, things were pretty rough for the orbital colony.
We worked out the pumps and hydroponics working, and achieved near-sustainable levels of efficiency.
There were still some issues with trace elements, nutrient loss, and other problems inherent in a closed entropic environment.
So, we started a marketing plan for the elderly. Invited them to spend their golden years in orbit with reduced gravity.
And they came.
Most didn’t survive the boost to orbit. We fed them to the composter.
The crops come in great now.
But just in case, let’s order up another shipload of geezers.
Jackie Fucking Collins
Jackie Collins the writer died recently.
She made a fortune off of writing tell-all novels about her friends and the gossip they spread about their friends.
If any of her friends pissed her off, their shit appeared in her novels.
Especially if they dished shit on her. Including her skank of a sister.
I know that it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but in her case, what’s wrong with dishing shit on her now? What a bitch!
Now her shit is appearing in the tell-all gossip rags.
Because nobody had the guts to say it at her funeral.
Whiskers
Jack. He was my grandmother’s second husband. He had a little dog from his first marriage named Whiskers. It was a Schnauzer, or was it a Terrier? The dog was really old and slow, and it wasn’t aware of us or anything.
The first night we were there, the dog let out a huge groan and laid down, and it released a puddle of shit. No, a lake of shit. Jack walked through that lake of shit, got down on his knees, and hugged his dead dog. “Good Whiskers,” he said.
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
Adult in a candy store
It used to be that there were only plain and peanut M&Ms.
Now, they’ve got pretzel, almonds, mint, and all kinds of specialty flavors for the holidays.
And you can get different colors and special messages.
Hershey’s kisses did the same.
They used to be plain chocolate, but they added almonds and swirls and caramel and all kinds of crazy flavors.
There’s so many varieties of KitKat and Snickers and other candy bars, it’s scary.
Which helps me to run past the candy aisle and pick up healthy fruits and vegetables.
(Don’t get me started about the varieties of apples!)
Well trained
My new iPhone arrives tomorrow.
So, why am I updating my old phone’s operating system to OS 9.0.1?
I don’t know. Just like I didn’t know why I updated it to OS 9 a few days ago.
It’s a habit, I suppose. When they tell me that I need an update, I update.
Sure, I have to find a power cord and a decent WiFi connection, and then I have to wait ten minutes or so while it updates, but I still update it.
Apple has me well trained.
Which is why I keep buying iPhones, I suppose.
My Curse
I never got to know my great-grandparents. They all died before I was born.
The last one to go died just a few months before I was born.
I saw a Super Eight movie of her patting my mother’s belly.
She was saying something, but the movie had no sound.
Even if I could read lips, the film quality was poor, and it hadn’t been preserved well.
I asked my mom if she could remember what my great-grandmother had said.
“It was an old Yiddish curse,” she said.
Seeing how my life has turned out, it has probably come true.
I feel fine
When people ask me how I feel, I tell them.
No, I don’t say “I’m fine.” Or “Everything is great.” Or “Could be better.”
Because things are never fine. Or great.
And just because things could be better, they won’t turn out that way.
Instead, I tell them everything in excruciating detail. And I don’t ask them how they’re doing, either. Because most people ask how you’re doing so they can tell you how they’re doing.
Hell, I’ll make shit up. Because it’s easier to forget things when you’ve got worse things to worry about.
And I’m fine with that.
Pods
I grew up with coffee cans in the pantry.
This whole newfangled coffee pod craze makes no sense.
How the hell are you supposed to bury money in the back yard with those?
You can fit a few pennies in those things. Maybe a folded-up dollar or two.
But in order to bury your entire fortune, you’ll need to tear up your whole yard to plant a few thousand of these dinky little things.
Won’t the neighbors notice the mess?
And by the time you buy enough pods to fill up with your money, you won’t have any money left.
The Truth
What do you do with a prisoner who has information?
Torture them? You won’t get the information you want out of them. And it’s against the law.
So, the government asked Dr. Odd to come up with a truth serum.
After weeks of research and experimentation, he had one.
But instead of making people speak the truth, everything they spoke became the truth.
Which was not a good thing in the hands of terrorists who wanted to overthrow the government and kill the infidels.
Doctor Odd took the serum himself.
Everything’s changing.
For the better.
And you know that’s true.