The Day When Everything Was Difficult

You know how most days everything just goes as it is supposed to? Then there are those days when the dehumidifier decides it needs to run all day and all night without taking a drop of real moisture from the air. It's the same day when the dogs in the kennel decide to jump on you with their muddy paws and the break light comes on in the truck.

But who knew it would also be the same day you hit a cat with your car, except the cat wasn't completely dead and the owner was standing there, at the mailbox, where moments before the cat was bumping its owner with its cute little head, until it saw my car and darted in front of it, despite the fact that I hit the brakes as soon as I saw the cat.

Ugh.

I turned the car around immediately, where the cat was in full flail. Oh. I wanted to hurl. It finally....stopped. The owner lady, with her mail in hand was extremely nice about it and wasn't nearly as freaked out as me. I apologized up and down, which probably any insurance company would say was a bad thing. Anyway, I told her I had a cat that looked just like that one and was so sorry.

The woman then went on to tell me that it was "Miss Kitty," who was one of her best mousers. I was feeling a little green again, imagining that now the woman's yard would be overrun with mice. THEN she told me how the cat had delivered FIVE litters of "purebred" kittens. First alarming thought....FIVE litters? Is she unaware of the pet overpopulation problem? Then she explained that a cat down the road came over and sired at least three of the litters and every kitten had been orange like Miss Kitty.

Uhh...forget the problem of overpopulation, she didn't even realize the definition of what a purebred cat was.

This only made me feel slightly better, however.

Somehow, I made it to Wal-mart to buy figs. This was so extremely difficult it made talking to that farm woman about her dead cat at the mailbox seem like a walk in a catless park. I had to ask two employees. I almost gave up, but considering I'd killed the county's best mouser, I thought I should at least persist to buy what I sought. It would do Miss Kitty a great honor to at least purvey the figs.

And $1.98 later, I had myself some figs, and carefully drove past the site of the slaughter, where Miss Kitty was no longer in sight.

Here I'd been already to do some stress eating and I had completely lost my appetite. Instead, I did stress shopping at Stites and managed to find a steal on Colby cheese and gingerbread latte creamer.

Coming in the door, I still felt sad, and oddly numb. Having my cats greet me made me feel worse. However, there was a package on my doorstep. It was something from my mom. In it were the promised sweaters (we'll call them vintage) and....

...one of her amazing Gingerbread men!

Look - it's like he's crying.

I feel better now.