The Junk Drawer

Anyone who works in an office environment comes to expect certain things:

1. Staff will always be a little slow-moving on Monday mornings.

2. Meetings will always run later than expected.

3. No one ever wants to make the next pot of coffee.

4. The copy machine needs paper the second you’re about to use it.

5. Staff don’t clean the kitty litter box often enough, which is a shame because everyone knows cats will go anywhere they please when it’s not kept spotless.

Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.

My sister Marlene works at what I thought was a cat-free, poo-free insurance company. When she sent it to me, the first thing I wrote her was “You’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

She reported back, “We found it in our office this morning. No one knows how it got there.”

I replied, “Who disposed of it, and more importantly, can I blog about it?”

Marlene replied, “One of the guys picked it up and Gina sprayed Bath & Body Wash on the spot, but we have no Lysol….Yes, you can blog about it, in fact, the lunch bunch said you would have a field day with this….”

She and her colleagues have two theories:

1. A cat or other animal got in somehow - maybe Louie - he’s a cat that roams outside. Somebody in one of the buildings of our industrial park feeds him, but he’s allowed to roam.

2. The cleaning people brought their pet.

My money’s on Louie. All I’m gonna say is they should be real happy that Louie left his calling card in an obvious, open space. Otherwise, I’d hate to be the poor soul who sits down at his desk Monday morning, bleary-eyed from the weekend, only to find a fresh Tootsie Roll next to the keyboard.

What’s that saying? All the world’s your litter box?

Oh, and God bless the person who thought to take this picture. I love that it was the first thing someone did before cleaning it up. There’s a Junk Drawer magnet for you if you want it.

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Among the qualities I wish I was blessed with is the ability to tell jokes. Can’t do it. I’d have to read from a card to get it right, and somehow I think cue cards detract from the hilarity, don’t you think?

“A duck, a nun and a priest walk into a bar…” Wait, wait! “It was a dog, a nun and a priest.”  Oh, poo! That’s not it! Let me check my cards. Yeah, real smooth.

I’m a little better at practical jokes. I once kidnapped a Chia Pet Turtle from an office I used to work in, took pictures of it — blindfolded — and then sent pictures back to my officemates with a ransom note that I had a friend mail from out-of-state while she was visiting family. The note was made from letters I cut out from magazines and newspapers and was signed “The CLA” (Chia Liberation Army). Ahhh, good times.

The last joke I tried to play was on my husband, Dave. My niece gave me a stuffed black cat that looked like our kitty Shadow.  Attempting to scare up some fun, I put it in Dave’s car, attached to the steering wheel. He usually leaves for work fairly bleary-eyed, and I thought it might be fun to give him a heart attack. It didn’t. He thought I was lame, but gave me an “A” for effort.

A few days went by and I thought I’d try to scare him again by sticking the cat in the dinnerware cupboard. He went in for a plate that night, gave me a weak shoulder shrug and blessed my little heart for trying.

I gave up my quest to scare him with the cat, forgot all about it, then came home to find this when I went to heat something for dinner.

Don’t do this to someone you love because they just might die on you.

When I opened the door and found the cat in the microwave, I let out the kind of scream that comes from deep within. A scream that surprises you because you never knew you could make that sound. A scream that is followed by a punch to the husband.

My heart did not stop beating fast for about five minutes. There were no laughs. I was mad at Dave for a day. Yeah, I love a good practical joke. Except when it’s played on me.

Anyone pull off a Class A stunt and not get punched for it? I need some recommendations because I haven’t gotten back at Dave yet.

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Until now I had only considered my cat Shadow’s butt to be a weapon of mass destruction. Last month I wrote about how she mortified me by dropping a fart grenade in front of my plumber.

Today I’m happy to report that Shadow can use her butt powers for good, as well. It dispenses tech tips.

Here’s how it happened:  My husband Dave was doing some online shopping when Shadow decided the keyboard would be a fine place to get comfortable. She laid down across the whole keyboard and her butt landed hard enough on some keys to screw up the screen Dave was viewing while he was scrolling with the mouse.

The screen content went from normal size to gigantic with that little trick of hers. Once he shooed her away from the desk, Dave had to figure out which key caused the screen text to enlarge so much. After some fiddling around, he discovered it was the CTRL key. It seems if you press CTRL while scrolling up or down, the screen’s text size enlarges or minimizes as you scroll.

In almost ten years of working in the computing industry, I have never known about this little tip. And I can really use it now, since my eyes are not what they used to be. The beauty part is it’s not just for web browsers. The technique works in programs like Microsoft Word, where the view is enlarged, but your font size stays where you want it.

What makes this technique better than other text enlarging maneuvers is that you don’t have click around menus inside each program to find what does the job. That’s what I used to do — for years. Now it’s just a simple CTRL and scroll!

Thanks, Shadow, for sharing your buttalicious talents. See how much better it is to use your powers for good?

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I know. It’s sad and it doesn’t make any sense. Welcome to our Pumpkin Tree Display. We never intended to leave our autumn pumpkin display out on the patio, but it just happened. OK, strike that. It didn’t just happen. It happened because we are the laziest people we know.

Then a friend gave me a small artificial tree to stick out there because we can’t keep a tree in the house. Our cat, Lucky has "chewing issues," and would likely eat the needles and puncture a necessary organ. This is how we still enjoy a tree and keep Lucky from using up some of his nine lives.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope that Santa is good to you and better than he was to me. Today I woke up with a huge zit on my chin. So now when I have family pictures taken of me today and tomorrow, I will be instructed to cover up that thing or get out of the picture. Can someone please tell me when the pimples of my youth will stop showing up on the face of my 40-something self?

Happy Holidays to all my zit-free bloggy friends!

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I came very close to giving up blogging this week. Moving from Blogger to WordPress was no picnic and I wondered if it was all worth it. I finally got some outstanding issues resolved and I’m happy to say that I’m not giving it all up.

During the five days it took to fully make the transition, I had reason to laugh only once. It was when I discovered the following two videos.  The first one shows two chatty cats having a conversation in their native feline language. The second one is its interpretation to English.

Until I can get my bearings back to write something unrelated to my blogging nightmare, I want to share them both with you. Even if you’re not a cat person, you can’t not think they’re hilarious. Enjoy!

The Feline Language Version

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Last week my husband Dave and I called for a plumber to fix a problem in our powder room. The toilet had minor issues, but we worried somehow it would turn major and we’d have a flood on our hands. For the record, we specialize in flooding basements, not bathrooms.

Nice plumber man shows up at our house bright and early and gives us the good news that it’s not a major problem. It costs $300 to fix a minor problem. I can’t help but wonder how much a major problem would cost. I’m clearly in the wrong business.

So he gets to work on our toilet and after about ten minutes realizes he needs more tools for the job and leaves to grab something out of his truck.

Because cats have a sense of humor, my cat Shadow, the one with occasional intestinal issues, decides now would be the right time to have some fun with everybody.

She got up off the couch, walked past my feet and stopped. And then she went pfffftttt. I thought "Oh, Shadow. No. Not today. Not now. We have company!" Well, plumber company. But still, company.

When Shadow passes gas, you know it instantly. She can pollute a whole room quicker than you can say "Where’s my gas mask?"

In all fairness, we were well-warned of her Silent But Deadly propensities by the foster parent who cared for her before we adopted her. The day we picked her up we were given one warning before we put her in the car.

"Shadow sometimes poops when she’s nervous. She doesn’t like cars much."

We thought how funny this was until Shadow let us know just how nervous she was only two miles out from the foster mom’s house. We were still twenty miles from home when it happened.

"Oh. My. God. She pooped. What are we going to do? Open a window! No! Don’t do that! It circulates up front! Air! I need air!!!"

We figured that the lesser of two evils was, believe it or not, to keep the windows closed. So now we were only 90% sure one of us would vomit. And then we hit construction.

We quickly pulled over and I tried to remove the offending deposit, but Shadow freaked out so bad in the carrier, I couldn’t get near it. So we were left with the poop and left with the gag-inducing odor.

The smell in the car for the entire ride home was criminally bad. It would have smelled sweeter if we had worn fully-loaded diapers on our heads and then submerged ourselves in a vat of sewage. The girl has a problem.

So back to the pfffftttt. After Shadow dropped the grenade and pulled the pin, she walked right into the powder room and began inspecting the plumber’s work so far. It almost didn’t matter that she walked in there with the cloud following her. The whole downstairs area was already a hot zone.

The one thing that came to mind as I pinched my nose was "What will the plumber think when he comes back into the house? He’s going to think it was me!"

When he arrived back to the work area, I looked up and said "Brian? It’s Brian, right?"

"Yeah."

"Um, that … um… smell you’re smelling? I have to apologize for my cat. She did it. I’m terribly sorry. You have to work in that small space and it’s horrible. I’m really sorry."

He looked at me point blank and said "I’m a plumber. You think I haven’t smelled anything worse than that? Don’t worry, I can take it."

I could have been no happier to write a check for $300 after forcing a complete stranger to stick his head near my toilet and smell my cat’s ass for the rest of the job. Plumbers are worth their weight in gold.

As for Shadow, she got a bowl of Beano for dinner and I may make her wear a diaper the next time we have visitors.

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Last month I wrote about my new, awesome Sony Bravia HDTV. Dave and I have been enjoying the Sunrise Earth program on the Discovery HD Theater channel a couple times a week. Stunning is the only way to describe it.

Evidently cats can enjoy it too! It’s been reported that cats have some trouble distinguishing between real objects and those projected on an HDTV set. Here is Shadow enjoying penguins from a recent episode of Sunrise Earth. Her head moved back and forth, following them as they waddled across the screen.

She sat like this for almost ten minutes. If you have cats, you’ll know they can barely sit still for any length of time unless they’re sleeping. Easily distracted, they’ll respond to the slightest movement. I was able to go upstairs, prep the camera, and take a few shots without her budging from this spot. She sat there for another five minutes afterwards, enthralled by the penguins.

I was going to suggest she’s in this trance-like state because she has a little brain. But that’s pretty much how I look when I’m watching Sunrise Earth. So let’s just say I must have the smartest cat in the world, shall we?

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We’ve all had moments where something fortunate happens to us and it can’t be explained by logic or reason. Some call it luck, some call it fate, some call it divine intervention. One of those moments happened to me this week.

WARNING! The post includes the following: cats, rodents and bugs. If you’re turned off by any of these things, I urge you to click away now and come back tomorrow.

When I started this blog two months ago, I vowed it wouldn’t turn into a blog about my cats. Just so you know, it’s still not going to be a cat blog, but this story does involve a cat, so I have to make an exception. It’s more about bugs, which isn’t much better.

First, let’s meet Stinky.

Stinky is one of our first cats together. We got her and her brother from some friends almost 15 years ago. Her brother, Calvin, is since deceased (RIP buddy). In human equivalent years, Stinky would be on Medicare by now. She’s a self-confident old girl whose partying days are behind her. She doesn’t care, for instance, that this pose is not a good look for her. She lets it all hang out and we let her do whatever she wants. At her age, she’s pretty harmless.

However, there are times when she surprises us and acts all kitteny and spry. About two years ago, she shocked us by bagging her first mouse (I’ll spare you the picture, and yes, I took a picture). We didn’t witness her kill her prey, we only saw the damage. She dropped it on the patio and then laid down next to it, all proud of herself. Luckily for us, the mouse was gone the next day and we didn’t have to worry how to dispose of it. We presume it met its second demise at the claws of some other ravaging animal that happened upon a free lunch. Such is nature.

After the mouse incident, we realized Stinky’s days of being harmless were over and now we had to be mindful of whatever she set her eyes on out in the yard, whether it be bugs, birds or chipmunks. No one is safe now.

Fast forward to this week. I’m reading a book all comfortable on my nice new couch and for reasons unknown I decide to check on Stinky. Despite the collar she wears to keep her within the bounds of our invisible fence, she’s been known to not care too much about the shock fence and sometimes crosses it despite the zap to her neck.

When I look out back, I’m instantly relieved to see her still on the patio, but this relief quickly turns to fear when I see that she’s crouched over the edge of the porch staring at something. This can’t be good, since cats stare at only two things:

1. Imaginary objects that exist only in their pea brains.
2. Living things that are smaller than them that they’re thinking of killing.

I’m instantly aware it’s something in Category #2. I can just about make out what that something is — looks like a meaty spider. But because it’s fairly dark outside, I can only make a positive ID if I get within inches of it.

I don’t have many choices here. Get closer and see what it is, and freak out. Consider that whatever it is might jump on me when I get very close, and freak out. Pick Stinky up by the hind legs and drag her away from what she wants to maim, kill and eat, and freak out. Basically, I’m freaking out. And Dave is nowhere to be found, so that is not an option either.

With my crappy options, I proceed anyway. I opt for picking Stinky up by her backside and she begins to growl at me. Not a problem, since I don’t have far to get her in the house. When I get to the door and deposit her inside, I glance back to see what it was she was so intent on investigating.

Meet the praying mantis.

I suspect what I thought was a balled-up spider was just the head of this thing. What will give me nightmares for months to come was the fact that it RAN AFTER ME while I was carrying Stinky inside. I barely made it in before I slammed the door shut on it.

Can someone please explain to me why bugs can’t just simply be gross? Do they also have to torment me by chasing me down?

It was long, ugly and FAST! Apparently they can attack and kill prey larger than themselves. Read more about that here, but only if you’re not eating right now.

Once safely inside, with the door shut, I began to thank God that I got up off the couch when I did. I don’t know what made me go check on Stinky, but I’m convinced if I hadn’t done it at that exact moment, I would have had to try and get this disgusting creature out of her mouth somehow, some way. I can barely think about it without wanting to throw up. I like to think it was divine intervention that saved me.

I’m sorry if I grossed anyone out here, but if you stuck with the story, thanks. You’re a better person than me.

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I break stuff. It’s what I do. On Sunday I broke our toaster while cleaning the kitchen. This is not the first time I’ve damaged a fairly important piece of an appliance and it won’t be the last.

Here’s a rundown of all the fixtures I broke:

The victim: Toaster
When: Last weekend
How it happened: I picked it up by its pushdown button to move it to a cabinet and the whole thing crashed to the floor. The button broke off and cracked into two pieces.
Can we still use it? Yes, the larger of the two pieces slides back onto the metal lever quite nicely.

The victim: Vacuum cleaner
When: About 3 months ago
How it happened: No idea. The metal hook thingy just broke off from cord tension over the years, I guess. And now there’s nothing to wrap the cord around.
Can we still use it? Yes, but it’s only used in the garage because when you turn it on, it smells like an electrical fire. I won’t use it in the house. I shouldn’t even let Dave use it in the garage, but hey, if your husband will vacuum anything, you let him. Bought a new vacuum for inside that won’t spontaneously combust, because, you know, fire bad.

The victim: Carpet shampooer hose
When: Almost a year ago
How it happened: There is a knobby thing that connects to a thin tube that solution runs through. I over-twisted it and now it twists no more. FACT: Duct tape does not fix everything.
Can we still use it? Nope. But I keep it hanging in the garage because I’m too lazy to throw it out. New hose fixture is on the right.

The victim: Garden hose pipe
When: Last summer
How it happened: Ran the lawn mower into it. I’m a pretty spastic mower. I mow the grass about as well as a Flowbee cuts hair.
Can we still use it? Yes, but you have to turn the water on by the nub that remains. A rubber gripper used for opening jar lids does the job just fine. I don’t know why we keep the broken piece.

Because I’m trying to earn knob karma for all the ones I’ve broken, here’s one I actually fixed myself! The previous knob would never secure well enough to keep the door completely closed and our trouble-making cat Lucky would always run full tilt into it and push it open. Because it’s the door to the laundry room, I was always afraid he would chew through the dryer hose and get stuck in the vent (he has a very little brain).

I wanted to surprise Dave with my knob-fixing abilities and decided to install a new one myself. With some phone assistance from my brother-in-law, Dale, I was able to do just that. Lookie here!

p.s. It was fun to watch Lucky run headlong into a door that used to open real easily a minute ago. The skull that protects his little brain makes an interesting sound when it hits wood. Don’t worry, he’s OK.

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Halleluia! All of the work and waiting is behind us. The furniture arrived today! After getting it in place, we realized while we like it, we don’t love it and began having flashes of buyer’s remorse. But that could change after a few days of getting used to it.

Here’s what we like about it:

1. Both the recliner and the couch are extremely comfortable, and that’s the biggest plus. The old furniture was too soft for comfort. No more sinking into the middle crevasse.

2. We think we hit the mark on the color scheme. The dark colors are richer-looking and warmer than the old pieces. The table lamp you see here is from another room. Seeing brass with the furniture tells us that’s what we need to buy. For a while we were thinking porcelain, but not anymore.

Here’s what we’re on the fence about:

1. The recliner is probably too big to be paired with the couch. We didn’t know this because it wasn’t paired with it in the showroom. To make it worse, our living room is so small that this is the only configuration that’ll work.

2. The patterned pillows are a bit much. They actually sent us the wrong ones. We asked for a set of two patterned, and two solid blue (to match the couch). It’s an easy fix, but we’re bugged about it now.

Here’s what could get Lucky killed:

See him under the chair? It’s the first place he went because he likes to play fast and loose with his nine lives. Dave’s already worried that when he gets up from the reclining position, he’ll squash him. We figure Lucky will crawl into the metal folding mechanism, fall asleep in there and get crushed when he puts the chair in its upright position. Lucky may not be so lucky one day.

UPDATE: Ten hours after seeing our new furniture arranged the way you see here, we’re working hard on rearranging it. We’re not making maximum use of the space we have, so we want to figure out a way to move the chair as far from the couch as possible, and put the television in its place.

Not sure how this will all go down, but I’ll post back with another picture if we get it just the way we like. For now, we’re still only liking the setup. We’d much prefer loving it.

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I knew it would happen, but just not this soon. We’ve had our new coffee and end tables for a mere 200 hours. Been enjoying them. Until I moved some books aside on the table and shrieked.

The damage: Coffee table. Three fresh claw marks. Lovely.

The perpetrator: Lucky, the soon-to-be pawless cat. Where’s that rotary saw?

If anyone knows how to conceal scratches on wood, I’d much appreciate hearing from you. We don’t want to make things worse by using the wrong product on it.

While I’m at it, anyone want a spastic cat who never sleeps and doesn’t understand the meaning of "For the last time, get off the table!"?

p.s. Our new couch and chair are coming on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll be reporting back on the damage to those in no time at all.

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I’m cranky this week because it’s been so busy at work that I thought Tuesday was Thursday already. It really felt like four days’ worth of work crammed into two. We have our old ugly furniture paired with our new tables and now it looks like Unclaimed Salvage & Freight in my living room. And we’re starting to wonder if La-z-Boy will ever send us our new furniture. I have to fight for space at my kitchen sink because my fat cat insists on drinking her water straight from the faucet … and I keep letting her. How stupid am I? Don’t answer that. Plus a spider may have just crawled into my cup of coffee.

What better time to post a list of 10 things that annoy me. I’m so in the mood!

1. People who can’t control their car alarms. Guess what? No one cares if your car is getting broken into, stolen or damaged in any way. In fact, is there anything I can do to help?

2. People who pay for groceries with a check. A check? Are you kidding me?

3. Brittney Spears. Tell me, why is she still here? After Sunday’s MTV Music Awards disaster she needs to pack up her lingerie in a really tiny suitcase and call it a day. Call it a career, actually. And take your dancing pole with you.

4. Billy Mays, the ear-piercing, high-octane infomercial pitchman for OxyClean and something orange that cleans everything. I can never get to the mute button fast enough.

5. People who let their dogs crap on my lawn, and then walk away. You’re supposed to be carrying it around in bags, aren’t you? And, by the way, how does that steaming pile of poo feel when you pick it up with your bare hand from the inside of the bag? Reason number #284 why cats rule.

6. Red light runners. Um, you do know you can kill people doing that, right?

7. Microsoft for too many reasons to list. But just for today, you annoy me because you think everyone has the 20/20 vision of an 18-year-old. Why on God’s green earth can’t you make the Office 2007 program buttons bigger? You know, the ones people use a hundred times a day? Plus now to open the File menu, you have to click that big gumball Office logo, that’s if people even know what it is.

8. That lady who drove practically attached to my trunk yesterday who was not only talking on a cell phone but smoking a cigarette. It was fun to watch how you managed that and I did want to see you get into an accident, just not with me.

9. Hard plastic packaging you have to risk life and limb cutting open. Since when did a $10 cable require Fort Knox protection? Seriously, can’t it just go in a box with a lid?

10. This video and accompanying song. I stumbled onto it a while back and now every time I see a furniture commercial, I’m reminded of it. Not as bad as Pop Goes the Weasel, but it’s in the general vicinity. Beware.

Please don’t write me to say "lighten up." If you do, you’re going to make my next list.

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