life: a quick excerpt into the insanity of my brain the past two weeks...
I'm stuck on writing a paper and taking a brief creative-break.
I wrote this for the owners of the house/cats i was watching the past two weeks. It's very... WTF... but ::shrug:: I think I'm slowly losing my mind, so I might as well embrace the insanity.
Enjoy!
____________________________________________________________________________
While the Pets are away, the Cats will play…
The Adventures of the Amazing Butzky and Invisible Oliver
With their pets off in some foreign country - without permission - the lives of our heroes were rather dull. They found themselves prisoners in their own home, their only escape being to the triple-degree heat of the garage during the day times. Butzky complained to their substitute pet daily about the intolerable inconvenience of being denied his out-doors meanderings, but it was no use as the cat doors stayed locked. He even sat on her computer keyboard and regularly demanded her attention, but she never let him out.
Oliver, meanwhile, went on strike. The invisible big cat decided to stay locked in his pets’ room tucked away under the bed rather than be at all sociable with the insufficient and most definitely temporary replacement pet. She did well enough at keeping his water dish filled and his food bowls were monitored, but out of sheer protest, Oliver refused to eat the wet food in the kitchen. He left it to Butzky and eventually the substitute caught on and stopped putting out a bowl for Oliver.
Finally one Friday, Butzky thought he had found his way out! He overheard the hired-on ‘temp’ talking with the contractor early that morning and snuck immediately out to the garage area where the contractors would be working. When the temp shined a flashlight in the crawlspace to check for cats, Butzky craftily hid until she had gone back down the ladder. However, he heard the evil temporary pet warn the contractor about the cats that were waiting to sneak out. Of course, the game was up and he knew it, so he trudged back in to the bar area to go up the stairs… only to find the stairway door closed! The substitute pet had thought she was being smart in locking the cats upstairs, when she had really locked poor Butzky downstairs. The injustice of the crime was just one more reason, Oliver would later declare, that the temporary pet was definitely temporary. Alas, poor Butzky survived the droll contractor while he did his work and waited patiently by the bar for the substitute pet’s return. When she did, he made sure she got an earful of complaint for his suffering.
The temporary pet’s one redeeming quality for Butzky - aside from her comfy keyboard and laughable attempts at conversation - was that she occasionally brought him a doofus dog for his personal entertainment. The dog was harmless and not very quick-witted compared to Butzky’s superior feline intellect. Butzky prided himself on the various ways he developed to torment the dog without once getting in trouble. Every time he outsmarted the doofus, the temporary pet would scoop him up and carry him away to somewhere the dog wouldn’t be bothered, and every time Butzky purred his approval very noisily from her shoulder to further annoy the dog. If Butzky had bothered to keep tally it surely would have been “Butzky: 22 zillion. Doofus dog: goose-egg.”
The other amusing days were when the pet brought her other humans, for 4th of July out on the patio. Butzky finally knew the freedom of the back patio! But the humans wouldn’t let him past the stairs. Butzky stuck his head through the bars and was eyeing the distance to the ground - he could make it easily, of course, but he had grander plans for his seventh life - and was shortly afterward shuttled back into the house.
It was the next day that the substitute pet caused a bit of a stir. The power went out unexpectedly, all over south Chico apparently, and the temp was fussing about something called ‘homework’ that couldn’t be printed without electricity. Such a silly small thing sent her running from the house at nearly midnight, not to be seen again until the next morning. The temp really could be amusing when she wanted to be, but the amusement was short lived because Butzky’s wet-food breakfast was late with the help not upstairs to wake up and see to it. Since then, all the clocks in the house blinked the wrong time, too; it was quite ridiculous and thank goodness the neighbors weren’t visiting to see their sudden lack of class.
The temp had an amusing fit a few days later when she realized that the Great Room TV had somehow been reset by the power outage and would not receive any satellite, DVD or VCR signal. She started making calls the next morning to see about getting it fixed before Butzky and Oliver’s pets got home. Oliver snuffed that a good replacement would never have let the power go out in the first place, but Butzky figured the substitute wasn’t smart enough to knock out all the lights outside the Great Room windows.
Butzky watched a local news interview with an apparently popular family member, but opted against trying to go for a visit while she was in town. The substitute pet obviously would have a mental break-down if he wasn’t around to fix things. So Butzky took to following her around everywhere she went. He laughed at her attempts to figure out vacuuming and was not at all surprised when the chore was given up before the wand and hose had even made it out of the laundry room. He looked at her funny as she muttered rude things at the kitchen thermostat when it tried to tell her to change the filter. As a result of that incident, the kitchen AC was traded for open windows for the rest of her stay. It got to be rather hot in most of the house after that, so Butzky became particularly fond of his basement lodgings.
Oliver the invisible snuck from the bedroom to the library, then more often to the garage. He let the temporary pet see him twice on Friday and even, finally, spoke to her on Saturday. However, he was chiefly berating her for letting the power go out again that morning.
All day it was out. So for most of the day, the temp made herself scarce, again fretting about things called ‘homework’ more loudly than she worried about Butzky’s food. The dishes went unwashed, the bed sheets sat in an unruly mess on the washer, and the refrigerator sat full of the food the temp had been expressly instructed to feed to Butzky if she didn’t eat - and he knew this because he had seen his pet’s note and knew how to read between the lines. The temp returned Saturday evening when it was cooler and saw to the chores that could be done. She entertained Butzky with a few bad translations and the proper strokes, but by the stroke of 9pm, she was gone again, afraid of being caught by another power outage. Who knew humans could be such chickens?
It gave Butzky hope that his pets would soon be returning when the temporary replacement scrambled through in the morning without her usual backpack. She refreshed his food as was the custom but didn’t stay long, instead promising him that his owners would be back in a few hours for him to pounce on. Boy, did she have it backwards. But in light of the good news, Butzky decided to let her grievous misunderstanding of a cat’s empire pass by. Oliver, however, heard and was much more intent on telling her of her errors. Of course, he was hidden at the time and she paid little attention to him. It was obvious that the substitute didn’t understand a word he’d said. After all, she owned a doofus dog and couldn’t be expected to grasp the complexities of the situation.
And so it was, with the temp gone again, that the two felines of the home lounged near the door in expectation of their own pets’ return. If they had forgotten to bring home a snip of Irish catnip, Oliver warned invisibly, there would be messes made. The amazing Butzky just sniffed his agreement and settled into his cool spot under the table.
WELCOME HOME!____________________________________________________________________________
tah dah!
yeah, i know. cat humor is amusing, but rarely done right. this was yet more proof.
I wrote this for the owners of the house/cats i was watching the past two weeks. It's very... WTF... but ::shrug:: I think I'm slowly losing my mind, so I might as well embrace the insanity.
Enjoy!
____________________________________________________________________________
While the Pets are away, the Cats will play…
The Adventures of the Amazing Butzky and Invisible Oliver
With their pets off in some foreign country - without permission - the lives of our heroes were rather dull. They found themselves prisoners in their own home, their only escape being to the triple-degree heat of the garage during the day times. Butzky complained to their substitute pet daily about the intolerable inconvenience of being denied his out-doors meanderings, but it was no use as the cat doors stayed locked. He even sat on her computer keyboard and regularly demanded her attention, but she never let him out.
Oliver, meanwhile, went on strike. The invisible big cat decided to stay locked in his pets’ room tucked away under the bed rather than be at all sociable with the insufficient and most definitely temporary replacement pet. She did well enough at keeping his water dish filled and his food bowls were monitored, but out of sheer protest, Oliver refused to eat the wet food in the kitchen. He left it to Butzky and eventually the substitute caught on and stopped putting out a bowl for Oliver.
Finally one Friday, Butzky thought he had found his way out! He overheard the hired-on ‘temp’ talking with the contractor early that morning and snuck immediately out to the garage area where the contractors would be working. When the temp shined a flashlight in the crawlspace to check for cats, Butzky craftily hid until she had gone back down the ladder. However, he heard the evil temporary pet warn the contractor about the cats that were waiting to sneak out. Of course, the game was up and he knew it, so he trudged back in to the bar area to go up the stairs… only to find the stairway door closed! The substitute pet had thought she was being smart in locking the cats upstairs, when she had really locked poor Butzky downstairs. The injustice of the crime was just one more reason, Oliver would later declare, that the temporary pet was definitely temporary. Alas, poor Butzky survived the droll contractor while he did his work and waited patiently by the bar for the substitute pet’s return. When she did, he made sure she got an earful of complaint for his suffering.
The temporary pet’s one redeeming quality for Butzky - aside from her comfy keyboard and laughable attempts at conversation - was that she occasionally brought him a doofus dog for his personal entertainment. The dog was harmless and not very quick-witted compared to Butzky’s superior feline intellect. Butzky prided himself on the various ways he developed to torment the dog without once getting in trouble. Every time he outsmarted the doofus, the temporary pet would scoop him up and carry him away to somewhere the dog wouldn’t be bothered, and every time Butzky purred his approval very noisily from her shoulder to further annoy the dog. If Butzky had bothered to keep tally it surely would have been “Butzky: 22 zillion. Doofus dog: goose-egg.”
The other amusing days were when the pet brought her other humans, for 4th of July out on the patio. Butzky finally knew the freedom of the back patio! But the humans wouldn’t let him past the stairs. Butzky stuck his head through the bars and was eyeing the distance to the ground - he could make it easily, of course, but he had grander plans for his seventh life - and was shortly afterward shuttled back into the house.
It was the next day that the substitute pet caused a bit of a stir. The power went out unexpectedly, all over south Chico apparently, and the temp was fussing about something called ‘homework’ that couldn’t be printed without electricity. Such a silly small thing sent her running from the house at nearly midnight, not to be seen again until the next morning. The temp really could be amusing when she wanted to be, but the amusement was short lived because Butzky’s wet-food breakfast was late with the help not upstairs to wake up and see to it. Since then, all the clocks in the house blinked the wrong time, too; it was quite ridiculous and thank goodness the neighbors weren’t visiting to see their sudden lack of class.
The temp had an amusing fit a few days later when she realized that the Great Room TV had somehow been reset by the power outage and would not receive any satellite, DVD or VCR signal. She started making calls the next morning to see about getting it fixed before Butzky and Oliver’s pets got home. Oliver snuffed that a good replacement would never have let the power go out in the first place, but Butzky figured the substitute wasn’t smart enough to knock out all the lights outside the Great Room windows.
Butzky watched a local news interview with an apparently popular family member, but opted against trying to go for a visit while she was in town. The substitute pet obviously would have a mental break-down if he wasn’t around to fix things. So Butzky took to following her around everywhere she went. He laughed at her attempts to figure out vacuuming and was not at all surprised when the chore was given up before the wand and hose had even made it out of the laundry room. He looked at her funny as she muttered rude things at the kitchen thermostat when it tried to tell her to change the filter. As a result of that incident, the kitchen AC was traded for open windows for the rest of her stay. It got to be rather hot in most of the house after that, so Butzky became particularly fond of his basement lodgings.
Oliver the invisible snuck from the bedroom to the library, then more often to the garage. He let the temporary pet see him twice on Friday and even, finally, spoke to her on Saturday. However, he was chiefly berating her for letting the power go out again that morning.
All day it was out. So for most of the day, the temp made herself scarce, again fretting about things called ‘homework’ more loudly than she worried about Butzky’s food. The dishes went unwashed, the bed sheets sat in an unruly mess on the washer, and the refrigerator sat full of the food the temp had been expressly instructed to feed to Butzky if she didn’t eat - and he knew this because he had seen his pet’s note and knew how to read between the lines. The temp returned Saturday evening when it was cooler and saw to the chores that could be done. She entertained Butzky with a few bad translations and the proper strokes, but by the stroke of 9pm, she was gone again, afraid of being caught by another power outage. Who knew humans could be such chickens?
It gave Butzky hope that his pets would soon be returning when the temporary replacement scrambled through in the morning without her usual backpack. She refreshed his food as was the custom but didn’t stay long, instead promising him that his owners would be back in a few hours for him to pounce on. Boy, did she have it backwards. But in light of the good news, Butzky decided to let her grievous misunderstanding of a cat’s empire pass by. Oliver, however, heard and was much more intent on telling her of her errors. Of course, he was hidden at the time and she paid little attention to him. It was obvious that the substitute didn’t understand a word he’d said. After all, she owned a doofus dog and couldn’t be expected to grasp the complexities of the situation.
And so it was, with the temp gone again, that the two felines of the home lounged near the door in expectation of their own pets’ return. If they had forgotten to bring home a snip of Irish catnip, Oliver warned invisibly, there would be messes made. The amazing Butzky just sniffed his agreement and settled into his cool spot under the table.
WELCOME HOME!____________________________________________________________________________
tah dah!
yeah, i know. cat humor is amusing, but rarely done right. this was yet more proof.