Cats, Ghosts and Beef (Oh my!)

I do not like cats. Never have, never will; they seem to serve no purpose other than to remind me that I never went to grad school. But it wasn’t until last night that I realized that the feeling was mutual, and the stakes have been raised to the point that apparently there was a meeting, and the cats now want me dead. I am not kidding.

For the month of July, I am cat-sitting for my friend Hellen while she’s in France (bonjour Hellen!) There are two cats: a black one and a gray one. Sad to say, although I’ve known these cats for years I have never really learned their names, no matter how many times Hellen tells me. I know one of them is called Jackson. The black one is old and sick and has lost a lot of weight recently – I’m ashamed to say that when I walked in and saw how skinny he had gotten I actually thought “ooooohh…I need to get on his program!”

And actually there’s only one “l” in Helen, but I am using this opportunity to bitch about why people would assume there are two “g”s at the end of “Greg.” If I had a nickel for every time some motherfucker wanted to spell my name “Gregg” I could almost buy a fucking gallon of gas by now. Why would anyone assume the default spelling to be with two G’s – wouldn’t the baseline standard for the name be based on the most universal of all Greg’s, ie Greg Brady? If you weren’t sure, wouldn’t you assume it was spelled like Greg Brady? But no, I say my name and some dipshit will immediately scribble out GREGG, to which when I correct them they look at me and say “Really?” The following conversation has actually happened on more than one occasion:

“Name please.”
“Greg.”
“Spell that.”
“G R E G”
“2 Gs at the end?”
“Did I say 2 Gs?”
“Really? Only one G? You sure?”
“ (blank stare…prolly touching my balls) “
“Hmm.”

Why even ask me how to spell it in the first place if you’re so sure of 2 Gs you’re willing to argue with me? You’re gonna argue with ME about how MY name is spelled??!! Hey, when a lady in my boudoir tells me she came, I fucking believe her; no more questions asked. I’d like to do this one day:

“Name please.”
“Greg.”
“Spell that.”
“I have no fucking idea.”

Grrrrrrrrrrr!!

Anyways, as I said I’m cat-sitting for Helen, which I’ve done before on a few occasions. I have always had a certain unspoken arrangement with the cats: I keep their food dish filled, and they try to explain to me who’s buying all these Nickelback albums. A nice arrangement, I had thought at one time. But any ideas of friendship or camaraderie ended last night when I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, probably sketching out some new ideas about the Tunguska event and how a man-made recreation of it could play a part in reversing global warming, and I heard a loud noise to my back right. I look across my shoulder and there it was - a large, bulky 4’ x 3’ mirror teetering on top of a sideboard, about to topple over. And guess whose splendid, bordering-on-the-absurdly pleasing body is directly in it’s path? Greeeeeeeeeeeat. With a sudden lurch it fell forward; I barely turned my head back in time to avoid getting clocked in the noggin and I could feel the wind as it juuuuuuuuuuuust missed scraping the back of my naked back (sorry Helen!) I braced myself for the shower of glass that was sure to come; in these nanoseconds I can honestly say I was not looking forward to having to hire a frivolous, frothy Mexican lad to pick shards of glass out of my back. For my birthday or after a night of carousing, fine, but not due to a real emergency. The mirror hit the floor, and I actually shook a little when the thunderous clap exploded behind me. I allowed a few seconds to pass, and then I turned around and looked down at the floor…water was everywhere, as the mirror had broken the cats’ water dish. “Great,” I thought to myself, “the ONE time I actually fill it, and this shit happens.” Several pieces of the wooden frame were splayed about, broken off by the collision with the floor. I was actually a little more shaken up than I’d like to admit, and then I noticed with wonder that the mirror had not broken at all. What the fuck, I thought, looking at it. The thing fell from a height of almost five feet, how the fuck did it not break or crack at all? Then I saw something even more curious – though it had been pushed over face-forward onto the floor, the mirror was laying with the glass towards the ceiling. What the fuck – I should be looking at the back of the mirror, judging by the way it had fallen. I know this cause I saw the glass of the mirror rushing towards me before I turned away at the last second. And yet…the fucking mirror was on the ground FACING up!! Wtf??!! How was this even possible? As it was late at night my mind ran hog-wild for a few seconds, and I could come to no conclusion other than there must’ve been some supernatural forces at hand here. Seriously, how else could one explain it? Something falls over face-forward, yet miraculously rests on its back? What the fuck is this, Tera Patrick?

I was becoming a little freaked out by all of this when my eyes wandered to the site where the mirror had been...and there it was, the reason the mirror had fallen over in the first place: the gray cat. He was coolly staring directly at me, not moving as his eyes pierced mine. My body went cold as I realized what was going on: the fucking cats were trying to kill me!! The gray cat did not even move or hide, or cover up what his intention had been. He may as well have said “We hate you, we hate your stupid cracks while watching television, we want you dead. And put a shirt on, fat boy.” So now I hafta deal with creepy supernatural shit going on in an apartment that is relatively strange to me, and my roommates want me dead. I have turned into the Puck of cat-sitters. Great. How did it come to this? And, just to add insult to (possible) death, in the meantime I have to feed them and change their litterbox. I'm the cuckolded husband who buys Viagra for his wife's fuckbuddy. How great is this?

And I know what you’re thinking: “oh Xmastime you’re just being silly, shut up. I’m horny!!” Fuck that. Last night after all this had taken place I got up to take a piss and I left the bedroom door open by accident, just enough for the black cat to waltz in the bedroom. Where the cats are not allowed. When I got back I realized the cat had slinked into the bedroom, and I know I’m supposed to look for him and toss him back out into the living room. Fuck that I thought - it’s 4am in the morning, I’m going back to bed, I’ll find him in the morning. Then as I was lying there I realized oh shit…what could be easier than dude crawling on top of my sleeping face and covering my mouth and nose so that I wake up in a sheer panic, unable to breathe, I suffocate to death cause there’s a cat wrapped around my head? Holy fuck!! Side note – obviously I would like to throw in a “Xmastime killed by big furry black pussy” joke here, but I cannot in good conscience give Star Jones any more publicity than she already gets. I scrambled outta bed, turned the lights on and dug around for 20 minutes til I got the goddam thing and put him back in the living room. Going back into the bedroom I made sure to shut the door tight. And then, because this is how one thinks when he believes he’s under attack from both unexplained forces and cats that both want him dead and can physically turn doorknobs with their paws, I made sure to lock the door.

Christ. This is what my life has come to. Held hostage by some cats and ghosts.

Amazingly enough, this isn’t even the biggest “Wow, is Xmastime a loser!” moment associated with my staying at Helen’s apartment. Hard to believe, I know. I’m with you. A coupla summers back I was cat-sitting, and it coincided with my absolute nadir in terms of being broke. I don’t mean broke as in “I may have to transfer some funds from savings to checking,” I mean broke as in “maybe if I make a Chinese friend he can show me how to cook these cats so I’ll have something to eat.” It was, in a word, bleak: I had zero dollars to my name, and the White Castle burgers left in the freezer didn’t quite stretch out the whole month like I had hoped. Hell, I was proud I made it to hour 2 before they were gone. Rough times. So one day I was over at a friend’s house doing something, I don’t even know what. Let’s call this friend, just for purposes of this story, “Jerry.” No one was home, so of course I poked around the fridge before I left. And there, in the freezer was…five pounds of ground beef! Yes!! According to the date on the packaging it had been sitting in the freezer for three months. In the VERY BACK of the freezer, you may wish to know. I started thinking to myself hell, they probably didn’t even remember the meat was even in there. They had tons of food and money, what the hell would they even care if they did notice (which they wouldn’t)? Besides, I told myself as I slipped it into a plastic bag to carry back to the apartment, of course I would replace it before they even knew it was gone (which, as we’ve all agreed, they wouldn’t.) Giddy as a fat girl going to a sweatpants 2 for 1 sale, I skipped back to the apartment thinking of all the burgers and tacos and tacos and burgers I was gonna be making; when I got home I stuck the meat in the fridge to thaw, and waited. And by “waited” I don’t mean “went on with my life til the stuff was thawed out,” I mean “pulled up a lawn chair, carved out a window in the door of the fridge and had my nose pressed up against it, waiting for the shit to thaw.” Of course I realized it would take a day, so I went on with my life. That is, sitting on the couch waiting for the stuff to thaw.

MEANWHILE.

As it turns out, Jerry’s parents were coming up for a few days to visit, and as a courtesy THEY were gonna stay at Helen’s apartment; for 2 or 3 days I would be relegated back to my own loft. And, of course, like a complete fucking idiot I left Helen’s and got all the way back to my loft before realizing I had left my precious 5 lbs of ground beef behind. Not to worry, I thought; I’ll come up with some excuse to pop by to see Jerry’s folks and slip away with my ground beef. Noooooooo problem.

At this point, you’re probably thinking “Xmastime, how is it even POSSIBLE you don’t have a wife already?? Wow!!!!!!” I know, I know. It’s a mystery!!

Anyways, the first evening his parents are in town we all have dinner over at Jerry’s house. Jerry, his wife, and Jerry’s parents and me. A nice dinner, a few pops, a nice time etc etc. And then all of a sudden from outta the blue, Jerry’s mom leans over, touches my knee and says

“Oh Xmas don’t worry, I threw that 3-month old meat that was in the fridge in the trash for you.” And went back to sipping her wine, knowing that she had just done me the biggest favor in the world.

Had we been on an episode of Happy Days or Money Shotz XII I would've issued a spit-take; but since this was (unfortunately) the real world, I was forced to sit there, frozen half-smile on my face…shocked and horrified, my first instinct was to spring up and scream at her “what the fuck is wrong with you!?!? Are you crazy you stupid bitch!?!?!??!!!!!!” But of course the only thing more pathetic than stealing ground beef out of your friend’s freezer is acting as if the world has come to an end upon finding out it has been thrown away. If you’re 30 years old and let on that you’re screwed because there’s no way you can come up with the $4 for meat that's been thrown in the trash, there’s just no way of looking cool, is there? Can’t be done. So I had to act nonplussed, totally whatevs. “Oh, there was old beef in the fridge? Hadn’t even noticed; but thanks! Wine?”

And don’t think for a split second I didn’t think to myself “alright alright, don’t panic…I’ve had the air conditioner cranking for abut 100 hours, the beef is prolly still cold in the trash…”

Sigh. Complete fucking loser, table for one please.