Redneck Studies: A Close Call, Parts & Labor Included

Neighbor Dan came over Saturday evening shortly after my brother had left for work. I thought he might be coming to visit the kittens as he and his youngest daughter had done the day before but he was stopping to let me know he had my brother on his phone. My phone was charging at the time. It's a problem with not having a land line anymore.

It seems my brother had been driving on our town's main commercial drag, a six lane (not counting turn-offs) "boulevard" of chain restaurants, strip malls and big box stores when the front end of his truck just fell off about four blocks from work. He needed cash for the tow truck. I grabbed $100 from my brother's stash and headed out.

When I found him, he had managed to pull over into a turn-out lane and was out of the main flow of traffic although that did not stop several inattentive idiots, despite his hazard lights flashing, from pulling in behind his truck as they attempted to enter the mall.

He hadn't been kidding about his truck. It looked as if the left front axle had broken or at least separated from the differential. The end of the axle and the ball joint were just lying there on the road. The wheel was turned in and down at a 45 degree angle and the entire front of the truck sagged. It was a good thing he was in town where the speed limit is 45 mph and traffic volume often prevents even that. If he'd been on the highway when that happened the truck would have gone head over heels and he'd be dead now.

And here's where we get to the Redneck Studies. The thing is, that's exactly the part of the truck he'd had repaired only about 1000 miles ago.

Your typical redneck will opt for the independent contractor, good ol' boy almost every time. The main exception is retail where Wally World wins out over mom-'n'-pop. It all comes down to price, quality be damned. My brother had taken his truck to two guys who used to work for an established (but still local and otherwise good ol' boy himself) mechanic. (They claimed they left voluntarily because they objected to certain of his business practices which is just the unverifiably generic excuse I would expect from a couple of guys who were probably let go for being slackers, but I'm cynical that way.) Be that as it may, they quoted my brother a really good price for the work and he let them at it.

You get what you pay for is a maxim that does not register with rednecks.

I offered to stay with my brother but he declined as there was nothing, really, for me to do there and I'd left my dinner on the stove so I went home before the cats could get to it. My brother had the truck towed to the guys who messed it up, left it parked blocking their garage bay and walked home. I gave him my car to go back to work. So now we're down to one car until the truck is fixed or he can convince his insurance to pay for a rental and since he drives for a living that may not be automatic.

Bogarting the Mouse

My brother brought home Little Gray Mama from the vet all "fixed" and dopey from the anesthesia and announced that she is now "Jasmine." At first, I thought maybe the vet had uncovered a hidden ID or assigned a new name with every neutering but my brother said, no, he just liked Jasmine, so Jasmine it is. Being that she's basically a Russian Blue (except for the tuxedo and golden eyes) and definitely not Persian I would have thought something Slavic rather than Southwest Asian might be more appropriate.

In retaliation, and in keeping with the theme, I have named the kittens Scheherazade, Dinarzade*, Paribanour** and Mittens***. Not that it makes a difference: 1) they're cats, they have their own names and will not answer to the ones we give them, and 2) in a week or so they'll all (with the possible exception of Mittens) be gone.

The kids noticed mama was missing and were acting a little weird most of the day but things got back to normal pretty quickly when she returned even though she didn't have the energy or desire to interact with them. Just having her around improved their attitudes and they played together for a while creating a pulsating, wiggly gray rolling fluffball that went up one side of the couch and down the other, across my feet and around the living room until it disintegrated into a freestyle tag team wrestling match.

Dinarzade found one of the tiny catnip mice and the more she played with it the more pronounced its effect on her became. She started off repeatedly rearing on her hind legs and pouncing on it with all her strength and ended up with it clamped firmly in her teeth and growling a cute tiny kitty growl if any of the others came within a foot of her. Actually, she growled even when no one was near her. Her growls are what attracted the others but she became very defensive and had no intention to share. The longer her little trip lasted, the more paranoid she became. Fortunately, exhaustion kicked in before she totally flipped out.

And the other kids turned out to have no interest in the mouse anyway.

* Scheherazade's kid sister and accomplice and the one she was really telling the stories to although with the understanding the Sultan was eavesdropping.
** Princess of the realm of fairies in one of the stories.
*** Because she's a gray cat with four white paws. What the hell else can I name her?

'Fraidy Cats, Fierce Kittens and the Impending Big Surprise

My brother bought some toys for the kittens: some jingle balls and tiny catnip mice. I scattered them around the living room and the kittens turned themselves inside out trying to avoid them. It's been five days now and, finally, two of them won't turn tail and run when I roll a ball at them.

Little Gray Mama got into the catnip mice. It took her a couple of days to approach one so maybe the kids' chicken-heartedness is genetic. I have yet to see any of the kittens with a mouse but suspect they must be getting into them because every now and then they go completely hyper and start bouncing off every object in the room.

The one thing the kittens are definitely not afraid of is heights. They love to climb. Specifically, on me. And anything I'm on, like the couch. Despite wearing socks and long pants, my ankles and shins are a crosshatch of scratches. They prefer to swarm on the (correct) theory I can't always stop them all at once. Two of them will start up my legs and a third will just leap for the couch cushion or start up the arm rest. Just when they're in a fuzzy mound around my feet, when I think I've finally tired them out and lean back to resume my book, I find one has snuck up the back of the couch and is reading over my shoulder. They'll rest or play among themselves for fifteen minutes and then start all over again.

We had a thunderstorm last night. The kittens were all eating solid food from mama's dish when the first thunder clap hit. Three of them made a beeline directly to, under and into the recliner where they'd made their nest. I have no idea where the fourth one disappeared to. At least LGM had the rest of the plate to herself.

Speaking of eating solid food, now that the kittens prefer kibble to mama she's been getting increasingly desperate to get them to nurse. She'll aggressively grab a kitten, hold it down despite its protests and lick it over and over but almost all they ever do is squirm away. Occasionally, one of them will humor her but they're really not interested anymore.

Which leads directly to the Big Surprise. For LGM, not us. Tomorrow is her appointment with the vet to check up on her battle wounds (which are looking pretty good although I fear there may be some permanent scarring of her beautiful sleek gray coat). Since the kids are weaned, it's time to disconnect the kitten-making bits.

The Devil Made Him Do It

I was reading the dead-tree news in the library the other day (one of the benefits of living in a town/county full of geezers is that enough of them are technophobic traditionalists to support a viable old-fashioned news paper) when someone stopped just beside my chair and held something out to me.

I looked up to see an older gentleman, thinning gray hair slightly longish and in need of a comb, tallish, bundled in an old black quilted polyester ski jacket (it's currently 90F (32C) outside). He was offering me a small, oblong pamphlet with a dull red and black cover. He said nothing. I shook my head, no. He moved on.

It was a Chick tract!

I haven't seen one of those in years and I've never seen a human being actually distributing any although they must since I can't imagine how they get onto washroom counters and bus terminal seats otherwise.

I believe Jack Chick is still alive. If so, considering his anti-Catholicism and special feelings toward the Society of Jesus the thought of a Jesuit Pope must be driving him (even further) over the edge. At least the old guy wandering around our library was harmless enough. I don't know if he managed to give away any of  his paranoid, hate-filled comic books, though.

"Check For Kittens Before Sitting"

That was the note I found in my brother's block-letter printing on the seat of the recliner when I came home yesterday. Now that the kittens pretty much have the run of the house (except my brother's room and bathroom which are Bartleby's refuge and my room and bathroom which are my refuge) they are managing to squeeze themselves into all sorts of awkward places. There are enough spaces and hidden openings in the workings of the recliner that a kitten could easily climb up inside and get squished if the occupant were to extend the back out.

So I attempt to count them all before doing anything. Which is not always easy because the kids have decided to make a nest of their own, away from mama, in the linen closet at the end of the hall in front of which they had found Mom's giant stuffed apron-and-cap-wearing granny mouse that they used as a surrogate their first night free. Even Little Gray Mama can't find them there. This morning she was crying right outside my door (which is adjacent to the linen closet). We went looking for them throughout the house only to find them, one by one, squeezing out from under the closet door and happily stumbling down the hall.

When I go home now, I immediately change into raggedy pants, T-shirt and old shoes so the kittens can climb to their hearts' content. And they do, swarming me wherever I go. I fixed a salad last night, standing in the kitchen with one kitten wrapped around my knee and another on my shoe trying to figure out how to get past my ankle.

Last night I spent most of the evening in the recliner not reclining trying to read a book while kittens swarmed my legs and the chair from every possible direction. I had to keep stopping to pry them off me and the chair and plop them back down on the rug where they would immediately try again. I confess that most of the time I was giggling like a five-year-old. My only respites were when LGM decided to nurse them after which they all (including mama) feel asleep in a pile wherever that happened to be.

For the record, LGM is not shy and is happy to nurse anywhere the kids are together and hungry. Last night it was on the kitchen tile and the living room rug by my chair. This morning it was right outside my bedroom door after we tracked them all down. She seems to prefer to lie on her right--that is, the injured--side, which may explain why she didn't want to nurse the first day after the fight. She did try lying on her left one time but the last kitten to the party ended up accidentally pawing the wound which hurt so much she stopped in mid-feed, got up and walked away.

The Intensive Day-Care Ward

I came home last evening to find a makeshift assembly of corrugated boxes in one corner of the living room looking for all the world like one of the forts we kids would build on a rainy Saturday. Four or five smaller boxes, on their sides, formed a kind of corral in which rested a large carton on its side.

The large carton was the one in which the kittens had been living out in the lanai.

The kittens were all in the house. As was Little Gray Mama. Who had been on the receiving end of a mauling.

My brother found her in the lanai earlier that afternoon with several impressive gashes in her right side (and possibly a couple of puncture wounds, as well). He pulled everyone inside and then rushed her to the vet who pumped her full of antibiotics and ran a bunch of tests. (No feline leukemia. Other results to come.) The vet shaved the wounded area in order to clean it out and actually made it look worse as now there is a palm-sized furless patch of pink skin which looks more like a bite was taken out of it than just slashy scratches. Whoever she fought with was larger than her. The parallel scratches are long and widely spaced. She took two, possibly three, hits to her right side and what looks like a bite to the butt. She's limping a little, favoring her left hind leg. My brother said she was very quiet and cooperative at the vet. I think she might have been, and might still be, in shock. He brought her home after two hours and went off to work.

LGM was in the kitchen lying by her food dish when I came home. The kittens went berserk as soon as they heard me come in and began mewling, squeaking and chirping nonstop. They also began jumping, clawing and scrabbling their way out of the corral. It only took a couple of minutes for the first one to figure out how to leverage herself up at the intersection of two cartons after which it became a running battle to catch a loose kitten and dump her back in before the next one got free. At one point, LGM got up and hid in the pantry. There were three of them gamboling about the living room before I found a couple more cartons and placed them at the corners of the corral. (Think turrets at the angles of a castle's curtain wall.) It didn't work 100% but it did slow them down enough for me to be able to fix dinner.

Little Gray Mama was totally disinterested for most of the evening and paid no attention to the kids except for one venture to look over the wall when they were being particularly vocal. When my brother came home we opened up the wall figuring they might be hungry and momma might not be able to get over the barrier. They all came tumbling out but only to explore. Not one of the kittens even tried to nuzzle her. They did follow me around as if they'd imprinted on me. I could go up and down the hallway with a line of them behind. The biggest problem is being careful where to step as there are now furry little mobile land mines constantly underfoot almost begging to be squished (except when they're climbing my pants leg almost to the knee).

When I went to bed one of them parked herself outside my door and began chirping with the pitch, regularity and volume of a smoke detector with a dead battery. When I got up this morning all four of them were just outside my door snuggled up against a large stuffed mouse doll wearing an apron and cap that Mom had made ages ago.

LGM still wasn't in the mood to nurse, although the kids were asking for it by now, so I made a mush out of some of the kibble and laid down a plate for them. Three of them ate at least some of it but momma got into it as well despite having her own plateful no more than three inches away.

Meanwhile, Bartleby has retired to my brother's bathroom, which is about as far away as she can get from the rest of the house, where she has taken up residence on the lid to the toilet seat. One must now ask her permission before using the facility. I suspect she intends to never leave.

Update: And my brother just reported LGM has started nursing again. She must be feeling better.

Before She Teaches the Kids to Kill

Came home yesterday to find Neighbor Dan and the younger Neighbor Dan Daughter out in the lanai playing with the kittens. I like that it's that kind of neighborhood.

Neighbor Dan has examined the kittens a number of times and concluded we have three girls and a boy. Or maybe four girls. Or maybe not. I say take 'em all to the vet as soon as possible so it won't make any difference.

And take Little Gray Mama, too. She killed a bird a couple of days ago (and has probably killed more but that's the only one I caught her with). I heard several avian complaints from the mango tree and recognized them as anti-cat comments from back when I lived in Connecticut and the neighbor cat would come into my back field whereupon several species of birds including crows, robins, cardinals and a Baltimore oriole would all cooperate, forming a circle around the intruder, just out of reach, moving across the field from bush to branch, always with the cat in the center until she got too frustrated and went home. It wasn't an accident; they did it several times.

Anyway, I went to investigate and found LGM under the mango with a small crow she had just killed and was now trying to eat despite being fed between two and four times a day at our house and who-knows-how-many times again over at Neighbor Dan's where she disappears for hours on end. I took it away from her and gave it a quick burial and she let me know she was not pleased that I would waste a perfectly good bird like that.

Neighbor Dan's Daughters also discovered the partial remains of a couple of lizards in the lanai the day before so the sooner we can get the kids weaned the sooner we can get her fixed as well and maybe then her reign of terror will end.

Meanwhile, Bartleby watches a palmetto bug walk between her paws with total disinterest.

Where Cliches Come From

Somebody is so going to have his keys taken away.

I stopped in at the supermarket on my way home yesterday to pick up some carrots to make cole slaw with the leftover cabbages from our St. Patrick's Day dinner for which my brother had bought two heads, one green and one purple, which is way more than we needed for corned beef and cabbage for just the two of us. We, in fact, used a half head of each for the dinner and the other two halves have been in the refrigerator ever since, but won't keep too much longer.

I was only in the store for a few minutes but came out to find the fire department just arriving. There had been an accident in the parking lot and they pulled their huge pumper up to it blocking an entire aisle (fortunately not the one my car was in. I was one aisle over and three cars down from the scene). They may have been in the neighborhood because they arrived awfully fast and without any fanfare.

As the firemen/EMTs checked on the older driver who was still in his car, one of the people standing around (a woman whose SUV was now blocked in by the fire truck and who was settling in for a wait) told me the accident happened when the 87-year-old gentleman tried to back out of his parking space, mistakenly floored the accelerator and plowed in reverse into a sedan on the opposite side of the aisle, turning it and pushing it into the next car over. That third car also slid sideways but missed the fourth car by less than an inch (I looked).

Old person. Parking lot. Wrong pedal. Multi-vehicle accident. Check, check, check and check. Florida. Check.

A police car pulled into the parking lot as I pulled out, also with no fuss or other display of urgency, but as I approached the intersection an ambulance came blasting through with sirens and horns blaring and lights flashing. Either the firefolks had determined the old gent was having issues or the ambulance crew realized they were late to the party. Hope it was the latter.