The Unfortunate Cat Smuggling Incident of 2018 in Dramedy

Just returned from some late night smoking out on the front steps in a polka dot bathrobe and old pj’s. Listen, you can take the girl out of the white trash upbringing, but you can’t take the dysfunction, childhood trauma and basic shitfuckery out of the girl. Also, just to complete this classy image, I had a rough day & was crying so profusely earlier that my face is puffed up & my eyes still basically look like little slits…I look like that depressing character from that total crotchkick of a sadfest, My Girl. No, not Dan Akroyd. Macaulay Caulkin. I look like him after he got stung by all those bees and the innocence of a million schoolgirls died right alongside his poor welt-y ass. Yeah, what color does a mood ring turn to signify you’re feeling DEAD, Thomas J? #StillNotOverIt

Anyway…

Of course, as I sat out there smoking my cigarette, looking for just a thimble’s worth of peace, the neighbors across the street were all out and about. They were packing a U Haul at 10:30 at night….because…why not. At first, I thought about stubbing out my cigarette and going in–but realized I didn’t particularly care if they saw me out there, as they already think I’m unhinged due to the great unfortunate cat smuggling incident that happened right after they moved in.

Wait…

Cat.. smuggling…incident?

Why are you surprised? My life is calibrated to disaster.

Ok…so a year or so ago…it was a cold morning. I got to work and heard loud mewing…I thought someone was pranking me at first…till I realized the sound was coming from inside the house, so to speak. And by house, I mean FROM UNDER MY CAR’S HOOD. I open the hood–only to have not 1, but 2 cats jump out. At first I could only stand there in open mouthed surprise…because you know, those yuppiefuck Subaru ads never told me that unintentional cat transport is an activity I could engage in if I bought into the Subey lifestyle…ya know, besides joining a garden co-op, wearing flannel ironically as you spin yarn made from only the most liberal sheeps’ wool to be knit into vagina hats, adopting a milennial’s student loan balance…ya know, the like…

So as these 2 fluffbastards race off, I realize that I must have inadvertently catnapped pets out of our neighborhood under the hood of my car. I also realized that now they wouldn’t be able to get back home if I didn’t collect them and take them back to our neighborhood. At first, I tried to lure them with the sausage from my breakfast sandwich. One of the cats fell for that trick… I grabbed him and shut him in the car. The other cat ran away and hid under another vehicle. My friend, Randi, happened to be pulling in to the parking lot and so she tried to lure him out using the ham from her lunch. My director pulled into the parking lot to see both Randi and I in the midst of our rescue operation. She looked at us 2 weirdos, squatting in the cold by the side of a car with lunch meat in our hands. After a moment of us all staring at each other, our boss shook her head, said, “I don’t want to know” and walked away. Randi finally was a total hero and finally crawled under a vehicle to grab the cat and put it in my car.

Now what to do with the cat? Oh wait, sorry…That’s right. Cats. Plural.

I got thinking about how we had neighbors who had just moved in… “Maybe these are their cats!” So I drove back home, as fucking Furry Krueger & Texas Chainsaw Meowsacre climbed all over me and tore me up with their razor sharp claws…. I left the cats in the car and knocked on our neighbors’ door, never having met the man and not for a minute considering my crazed appearance…I was in a hurry to get back to work, so when the new neighbor answered the door all sleepy eyed & in pj’s—I just blurted out the reason for my visit.

Me: Do you have a cat?

Neighbor: Pauses Yes.

Me: Is he…home?

Neighbor (clearly deliberating whether or not to shut the door in my face): …….Yes.

Me: Are you sure?

Neighbor (wondering why I am so interested in his cat): Pretty sure.

Me: Oh. Hi, by the way, I’m your neighbor–I live across the street–and I have to tell you, I accidentally smuggled some cats to work today. Yes, SMUGGLED them under the hood of my car. I thought they might be yours.

Neighbor (even more afraid, now that he realizes that Gootsy Malone lives across the street): They’re not.

Me: Well, this has been weird—and I have 2 stolen cats to rehome now—so good day.

I returned to work and was late to an interview with a prospective staff. (My supervisor was handling the interview in my absence.) I rushed in and tried to explain to the interviewee why I was a little late. My story sounded ridiculous AND like a total lie…”erm, I’m sorry I was late. I was just rescuing some cats that non-consensually came to work with me…on my car’s engine…and then I had to traumatize my new neighbor.” I managed to complete the interview and it was at this point that I happened to just look down. Oh no. I forgot the cats had carved me up in the car with their nails, when I was en route to acting out a scene from my one woman show Crazypants for my new neighbor. Because I was in such a rush–I didn’t realize that I had blood all over the front of my dress from those adorable little psychos trying to murder me with their claws…and I had both talked to the neighbor like that & interviewed a potential employee like that. Well, that doesn’t suck at all.

Needless to say, the new neighbors & I never had another conversation after that initial introduction in the midst of my feline catch and release program. Most of the time, they wouldn’t even acknowledge me if we were both headed to our cars in the morning. So tonight, as I smoked, I just sat and watched them pack up their moving truck… I kept struggling to make out if the items they were loading looked any more normal than the ones that would come out of my house…They didn’t appear to be so, but it was hard to see with my tired eyes like dull change shoved into the coin slot of my swollen eyelids.

Ya know what? Fuck them anyway. I was only trying to be nice. That’s how we do it where I come from.

-Written in 2018