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Kat Karma

Started by Grendal_71, December 19, 2012, 11:24:04 PM

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Grendal_71

Hi folks.  It's been a while since I posted anything in this venue, but as I have recently made a return to the community, that same freedom of time/space has also allowed me to begin writing again.  While I am working on a new project in the military sci-fi thread, a recent event in "real life" was burning its way out of me and demanding to be put down in text.  It also served as a nice break from my self-imposed 5K a week quota on my current primary focus.  I hope it is enjoyed.  -Gren
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Grendal_71

I'm a pretty nice guy; really.  I may play at being a big, dumb redneck jarhead hick, but I believe I have some rather...enlightened views on life, the universe and everything.  I cook, clean, watch kids, change diapers, help shuttle young 'uns to and fro, all that happy mess; and I do it without complaint, mostly. 

To that end, I found myself cleaning the kitchen one weeknight evening.  That's not much of a stretch as it is actually a chore I handle routinely in our home.  My in-laws were coming for a visit over the weekend as we prepared to celebrate my oldest child's ninth birthday.  We were also having another family or two come over, so there was a fair amount of cleaning to knock out before the week's end.  The wife had taken the oldest out on an errand for a few hours, so I was on my own for the time being.  I think they were going to a city council meeting so that the wife could challenge the soulless, corporate, un-environmentally sound local politicos, and the girl was going with her to watch mama tilt at a windmill or two; a usual evening in our happy little home.

I put the two younger kids (both boys) through the evening routine of a messy dinner, baths, jammies, stories, and bed.  Once that was done I found myself, as I mentioned, attacking the messy detritus in our kitchen/breakfast nook area.  I was kneeling under the dining room table vacuuming up stale cheerios, cheese, crumbs, and my personal favorite, dried oatmeal flakes.  We feed our kids oatmeal on a steady routine, and the middle boy refers to it as "oatmilks".  These aren't the usual Quaker oats out of the big cardboard tube (though I do use an old recycled Quaker Oats tube as the storage receptacle...like I said, we're "green"). 

No, these are (Product name omitted, but there is a color in it!) organically grown non-GMO'd, non-glutin'd oatmeal flakes harvested by Benedictine monks who are paid a fair wage, and are milled with compressed sonic waves from Beethoven's fifth.  I swear, I think each individual flake probably costs as much as a drink from a vending machine.  So, when my lovely heathen savage children eat their "oatmilks", they tend to...scatter them around, naturally.  To this day, I honestly believe I can feed a third world nation from the chow those kids toss onto the table and on the floor.  Once these heinously expensive oatmeal flakes are cast to the floor to dry in clumps or individually, it falls to someone (me) to police them up and toss them into the compost bin (like I said, "green", right?). 

So there I was, on my knees with the vacuum hose as I sucked up the errant bits of dried food from the floor under the table.  The oatmeal flakes make me think of discarded scales from some large whole-grain dragon that has left them around the house during the course of its journeys.  You'd be surprised where I've found those little dried clumps of my wasted income. 

Right across from my grunting, kneeling vacuuming self was the cat food bowl. It's for...you guessed it...our cat.  Now, a quick word about the cat; his name is Cinnamon, and he's an orange tiger stripe who is a tomcat's tomcat despite a visit to the vet for "tutoring" and getting stuck with a name like "Cinnamon". 

Incidentally, I voted for "Blackheart Rodent Face Eater", but was over-ruled by the triumvirate of pouty lips, so "Cinnamon" it was.   I have to say, without reservation, this is one cool cat.  He is gentle and patient with all three kids, sleeps on their beds from time to time, and has  never mauled any of them...even the middle boy who still occasionally tries to "ride" the cat like a little pony.  If I were Cinnamon (stupid name), I would surely have jacked up the little dude at least once by now. 

For all his gentleness with my offspring, Cinnamon (shudder) is an absolute sociopath once outside.  He spends his nights inside with us, but spends the early mornings and bulk of the afternoon KILLING EVERYTHING HE CAN FIND.  Mice, field voles, small birds (sorry about that one), small snakes; he doesn't care.  He kills and eats them with an abandon that is both gratifying and horrible to behold.  He does occasionally vomit up half-digested field mice on the front porch; and while disgusting, is a sin easy to forgive.  After stepping on one such pile of refuse in the dark, barefoot, I have learned to look where I step on the porch.  If Cinnamon does have one flaw, it is that when he eats from his bowl, he has a tendency to fling the odd bit of kibble from his mouth. 

It's almost like a piece of cat food gets caught in his mouth somehow, and he then spits it out while still trying to eat more food.  Greedy cat.  I might also relate on how he'll walk onto my face at 0430 every morning so that he knows I know he's hungry, or his bladder is full, but I do not want to digress too far.

Yes, the similarity of my own messy offspring's eating habits is not lost on me either.

Again, so there I was, quickly vacuuming up dried oatmeal and other food castoffs, muttering about the injustices of always cleaning up after a family of heathens that don't pick up their own messes when the cat sauntered into the dining area, observed me for a second, and then hunkered down to chow on his own bowl of food.  Out of the corner of my eye I spied him take a few bites of his kibble, then spit out one, two, three small chunks. 

No problem.  I had the vacuum, so I quickly leaned over and sucked up the small pieces of his discarded meal.  Easy stuff, and I was back to my work under the dining room table.

Then I heard the tell tale click of another piece of kibble hitting the floor; and another. 

I looked over, and sure enough, the cat had dumped more chow on my clean floor.

I sighed and leaned over with the hose.  Whoosh went the vacuum and the food was again gone from sight.

Back to the pile of human food.

Click-click. 

The little orange booger had done it again.  Again.

I looked over at the food on the floor, and at the medium sized scarred muscular tomcat happily eating his dinner.  I was almost done cleaning up the kid's mess, and I anticipated moving onto some other chore as yet undefined before my evening was done, and there was this darned cat dumping food on the floor I had just cleaned up.
A small, mischievous devil piped up deep inside me.
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Grendal_71

Poke him with the vacuum hose.

No, I can't do that.  It would be mean.

Yes, it would; and funny too.  Do it Marine.

No.

Do it you sissy.  He's jacking up your floor again.  It won't hurt him none.

I...I

Do it.

So I did it.  I reached over, quickly and delicately and touched the end of the vacuum hose to Cinnamon's shoulder.  Instantly I felt the suction pull against his fur and skin.  At a half second past "instantly" Cinnamon shot straight into the air; literally straight up.  His tail, normally a perfectly vertical pencil of orange, lowered itself horizontal with the floor and expanded into a giant bottle brush of orange and white spiky fur.  With Cinnamon went the food dish. 

Straight up into the air with him.

It flipped over itself once, twice, three times, and then clattered to the floor.

Cat food kibble scattered and skittered all over the wooden floor in a wide fan of little brown "X"'s; under chairs, under the baking stand, under the kid's painting easel. 

Every.  Freaking.  Where.

Cinnamon landed, already facing away from the offending vacuum and human who had violated his dignity, and was out of the kitchen and up the stairs before the last of the kibble stopped sliding across the floor.

I stood there with my mouth open, jaw dropped, hand limply holding the still whirring vacuum nozzle looking at the mess I had wrought.
There really wasn't much more I could do.  I turned off the vacuum, found the broom, dustpan, and foxtail.  It only took a few minutes to sweep all the cat food into a pile, really.  In fact, the effort prompted me to clean the floor even better by causing me to move other pieces of kitchen/dining furniture so I could sweep under them.  No great loss. I guess.
By the time the wife and daughter got home, everything looked squared away again.  The cat stayed hidden for a while in our closet, sleeping on old baby clothes.  I suppose I should be grateful he didn't defecate on my PT gear.  I guess I would have deserved it if he had.

Why did I do it?  Not sure.  Was I railing against some perceived unfairness of the universe and the perceived unequal inordinate amount of cleaning I was doing?  Did I, a fairly nice guy with few enemies and a gentle nature, succumb to my darker nature for a moment?  Or did I just decide to do it because it was relatively harmless, seemed funny, and with little probability of it making a mess?

If it was the latter, boy was I wrong.

I still don't know the answer.  I do know this.  Karma, like the infamous "Murphy" is funny, fickle, and will absolutely kick you in the privates if you tempt it.  Cinnamon and I still get along fine, and I guess all is forgiven.  He still climbs onto my head at 0400-0430 every morning, looking for chow or at least an open front door so he can relieve himself and go find something to kill.

If there is a lesson to this, I'll offer it.  If you are ever tempted to poke your cat with a vacuum hose.  Make sure they are not near anything that can make a mess.  Yeah, that's about it.


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BlueBard

That. is. hysterically. funny!!!

You really need to send that story in somewhere... Reader's Digest, maybe, or some Cat fancier's magazine.

The real shame is that you didn't get to capture that on video... guaranteed viral.
STO/CO: @bluegeek

Grendal_71

Thanks BB!  I consider any praise from you worth a great deal!  I know it's not "fan fiction", exactly, but it was a fun little piece to write, and I thought it might provide some funny distractions on the board.  Glad you thought it was amusing.

It's probably just as well I didn't get any photo evidence of the event.  The wife would have been most displeased to see me "torturing" the cat so, and my language following the flying bowl would not have passed muster on YouTube, methinks.  :D
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Glitch Girl

:D  Nice anecdote  Grendal.  Very funny.  As having had a cat myself I can well imagine the scene.  Thank you for sharing this - it's not fanfiction, but it is a fun piece of writing.
-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka