Annabelle jumped onto my computer table and placed a sheet of paper in front of me.
Did you write this? she demanded.
Well, let me see what it says. I picked up the paper and read it. In large bold print it read: DEATH TO PICA CATS!
They’re all over the apartment! She sounded very angry. Are you behind this?
Annabelle, you caught me. I’m rather embarrassed by it. I lost my temper. I don’t feel well enough at the moment to put up with Stella’s paper shredding. Yesterday, she destroyed two rolls of toilet paper. Two rolls! I cannot run into the bathroom with my current bladder and bowels out of control to find the toilet paper shredded all over the floor. Will she ever stop this? Neither you nor Thatch ever caused so many problems.
Bladder and bowel issues? T.M.I! Yuck!
Says the cat who never buries her litter, I thought. Instead, I said, Since this surgery, I cannot control my bladder or bowels. When I run to the bathroom, I am really, really running to the bathroom!
Will this change?
I think so, but it’s not returning to status quo fast enough to suit me.
Are you taking out your frustrations on Stella?
I hope not. I really do hope not. The truth is, I worry about my health and what becomes of you, Thatch, and Stella if I drop dead. If my plans got screwed up, and you all ended up at the Manhattan Animal Control Centers, I don’t think Thatch or Stella would ever come out of there alive.
What about me?
You’re so friendly, I think you would be adopted in a minute. It’s Thatch and Stella I worry about. He’s such a scaredy-cat, the ACC monsters would never let him adjust. They’d mark him as anti-social and kill him as soon as they could. Stella’s adorable. but if she got adopted, her adopters would return her after she destroyed a roll of paper towels or toilet paper or decided to play rough and bite and scratch. That’s all the ACC needs to liquidate. Returns seem to indicate failure to them. I don’t want that to happen to either Thatch or Stella. Any dog or cat that cannot dance to the ACC tune is dead meat.
That’s awful!
You’ve been there. You know the system. The people in charge are psychos and monsters.
Well, you must stop bullying Stella. I understand your concerns, and luckily, she doesn’t know what a pica cat is.
Thatch outgrew it.
Stella isn’t Thatch.
I love little Stella.
She loves you. Every time you lie down, she runs to curl up beside you.
I’m not a bully!
Yes, Daddy, you are. What did your Aunt Dorothy say about your grandmother bullying your mother?
That made me stop to think. My poor mother always claimed that her mother had never loved her, and I only learned from my Aunt Dorothy, my mother’s oldest sister, long after my mother had died that my grandmother made my mother the target of her resentment and unhappiness, a scapegoat to be humiliated and ridiculed. This was a side of my grandmother, whom I adored, I never saw, but I do remember my grandmother scolding my mother for her poor housekeeping – you can eat off Lois’ floors they’re so clean! – and I also remember how, once my grandmother died, my mother’s poor attempts to keep house went totally to hell. I remain surprised today that my father, brothers, and I were never felled by E. Coli from a filthy kitchen. On the positive side, my mother certainly strengthened our natural immunity systems. But, sadly. my mother was an unhappy woman – and a lazy slob – who preferred shopping, dining out, watching the soaps, and reading bad romance novels to housekeeping.
Bullying breeds bullying, sadly, and I had observed my mother’s youngest sister’s treatment of her youngest daughter, one of my sadly more awkward cousins, who suffered constant scolding and mean, cutting humiliation at every turn. Her two older sisters were pretty and flirtatious, but the youngest sister was dumpy, dull, a slow learner, and maladroit. Even worse, I felt my aunt encouraged her four sisters to treat her gauche daughter like a pariah.
My Aunt Dorothy had plenty to say. And you’re right. I treat Stella too often like I treated my cousin. I promise I will stop doing that.
Stella’s tragedy is that she’s not beautiful or talented like me.
She’s a pretty cat.
She lacks that Je ne sais quoi that I possess in spades, bit I admit, she’s pretty. And she lacks Thatch’s graciousness and wit.
I think your Aunt Dorothy would find her appealing.
Ant Dorothy was a sharp cookie. You would have loved her. She’d play piano and you could sing your show tunes.
I like that. Where’s your piano, Daddy?
Lost in a terrible bedbug infestation around 2008.
Pity. Well, Thatch and I have business to attend to. Will you stop being mean to Stella?
I love Stella, Annabelle! I will make an effort to never again see her as my awkward cousin. I wonder whatever happened to her?
You don’t know?
No. I lost track of a lot of cousins when I moved to New York. I don’t even know if she’s alive now or even how old she is!
There was a huge crash in the bathroom.
What was that? Thatch yelled. He jumped off the dresser and ran to the bathroom. Annabelle and I followed. Stella lay in the bathtub, surrounded by the broken pieces of my net pot that she had somehow tossed off the ledge of the sink into the tub. As soon as I got on my knees and began removing the shards from the tub, Stella jumped onto my shoulder, bit my ear, and ran from the bathroom with Thatch in hot pursuit.
She really loves you, Daddy! Annabelle turned and ran off to join the fray.
Take me back to the hospital, I moaned. I’m not well enough for this crap.
©2020, Larry Moore
Annabelle & Thatch 