Elegy for a Kitten

I was on my way to the store the other day when I saw the carcass of a dead cat frozen stiff by the side of the road. I immediately thought of my ex-wife. Then I started wondering how I made that connection. So I retraced my train of thought (which isn't easy): some of the tracks don't line up quite right, the transformer is a little quirky, one of the boxcars is missing a wheel and I haven't been able to find my engine in years.

Anyway... I was on my way to the store to see if I could find some left-over Valentine's candy. I figured the stores probably over-estimated how many men would try buying their way out of trouble with a cheap box of chocolate. I just hoped I could get there before all of the fat chicks cleaned it out.

In case you haven't figured it out - I have always been a hopeless romantic. So I have to admit that the irony of my divorce coming so close to Valentine's Day is not lost on me. But the divorce is FINAL and, as a result, I feel I have learned some valuable lessons:

One, is that if divorce wasn't so expensive and difficult, women probably wouldn't want one.
Two, is the reason divorce is so expensive is that it is worth it.
And three, is that divorce is probably the last time you can completely satisfy your wife.


It also let's you finally see your partner without those rose colored glasses.

petty
adjective
1 petty regulations: TRIVIAL, trifling, minor, small, unimportant, insignificant, inconsequential, inconsiderable, negligible, paltry, footling, pettifogging; informal piffling, piddling, fiddling. ANTONYMS important, serious.
2 a petty form of revenge:SMALL-MINDED, mean, ungenerous, shabby, spiteful. ANTONYMS magnanimous.

Since it took two years after the separation for her to agree to the details of the divorce, I'm thinking #2 is the one I'm looking for. Oddly enough, the process also smells like number two.







Divorce also makes you aware of how people change. I remember, when we were young, how she used to be my playful little Kitten . That was my pet name for her. Kitten. Years later, after the kids were grown and my health and earning capacities were failing me, she wasn't so much "playful" as she was "playing me". And I came to realize that the cat that the kitten became had the morals of an alley cat. Not long after that she turned feral.


In the end, now that she has her own place, she has at least one cat that I know of and is probably well on her way towards becoming a crazy cat lady.




Did I mention that I am allergic to cats? I could go on but I don't want to be accused of beating a dead pussy.

But all of this does help explain how, in the constant conversation between the voices in my head, one of them could say, "Speaking of a dead pussy... have I ever told you about my ex-wife?"

.

Principal - 2, Kittens - 0

When it was all over, the smell of cordite hanging in the air, the kittens lay in a pool of their own blood, eyes lifeless, and the words of the school principal echoed down the empty corridor, "Nine lives, my ass! Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa!"

I was shocked and saddened to read the following news story:

INDUS, Minnesota — A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month.

Wade Pilloud, who resigned as principal of the Indus school, 40 miles west of International Falls, said he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap.

Pilloud said the shooting, which occurred on school grounds, endangered no one.

"I have bred cats, and I currently own two myself," he wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I am not a cat hater. I did not want the animals to suffer."

The incident happened Sept. 21, and several students still on the grounds for after-school activities heard the shots. The school has students from kindergarten to 12th grade — about ages 5 through 18.

"There were parents who felt, apparently some rather strongly, that there were concerns about the safety of their children," said Joseph Flynn, an attorney for the South Koochiching/Rainy River School District. "The district's position is that safety was not compromised."

John Mastin, acting sheriff in Koochiching County, said Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor.

County Attorney Jennifer Hasbargen said Friday that the case was under review.

Mastin said the shooting put no one in danger but said Pilloud used "poor discretion and poor timing," especially amid the growing fear of gun violence in schools.

The district put Pilloud on administrative leave after the incident. Flynn said Pilloud agreed to an undisclosed settlement and resigned.

First off, the story called the kittens "orphaned" because their mother was killed. Don't both parents have to be dead for them to qualify as orphans? Or are we just to assume that these are black kittens?

The story goes on to say that Pilloud shot the kittens to spare them from "starving to death." So apparently they were living in or near the school cafeteria. More than likely, the animal trap the mother was killed by was a giant rat trap set by the cafeteria workers.

The account claims that Pilloud could be charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of the weapon, a misdemeanor. I understand, in the current climate in which we live, why even having a firearm in a school would be a felony, but why is shooting one a misdemeanor? Is it, in the eyes of the people who wrote the laws, worse to actually own a gun than to use it? It seems like the second part would be more dangerous. And why are they calling it a "reckless discharge"? He hit the kittens didn't he? That sound like an accurate discharge to me. If the story said he hit a third grader, a dissected frog and "wounded" one of the kittens -- that would be a reckless discharge.

And the thing that cracks me up is this idiot principal who lost his job over this. Did he get up that morning, strap on his side arm and mutter between clenched teeth, "It's me or those kittens today!" Or did he get up, put his gun in his briefcase, like every morning, ready for some snot-nosed third grader to lip off again and the kittens just got in the way? We may never know. I doubt that when he was going to the Frostbite Falls Teachers College he ever thought it would end this way. Unless he was plagued by kittens back then, too.

Finally, I got a kick out of the name of the county. Koochiching. It sounds like the noise a cash register would make in a strip club. Koo-chi-ching! Kittens and strippers.

I hope nobody thinks the strippers are orphaned.

A Little Strange Pussy

I was amused by a story about a cat cloning company that has gone out of business. Genetics Savings & Clone (I'm not making that name up), a San Francisco biotech company that sold cloned pets, sent letters to its customers last month informing them it will close at the end of the year because of little demand for cloned cats.

Apparently, $50,000 for an identical clone was too expensive when you can get a "pretty close one" at the pound for free. That and you still had to teach Mr. Scruggins II his name, he needed potty trained again and, even though Mr. Scruggins I was neutered, it seems that stuff grows back during the cloning process.

And isn't that a puzzling little bit of pet ethics? Why would anyone pay to have their pet spayed or neutered and then pay again to have it reproduced? This one must keep Bob Barker awake at night.

As a purchaser of the cloned cats I think I would want to look behind the counter to see if there wasn't just a box of kittens that they were charging $50,000 each for.

And how did the process work, anyway? Did they give the cat in question a kitty porn magazine and a plastic cup and send him off to a private room? Or was it the pet owner's responsibility to whack off the cat manually? And how would the clone turn out if some of the owner's spit got mixed in with the sperm sample? I'm just wondering, is all.

Besides, if you had an extra $50,000 laying around the house and you were thinking about cloning the cat -- wouldn't that money be better spent on a shrink?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219957,00.html