The Glass is Half-Full

The trip across the country to retrieve Logan and her goods was as innocuous as was possible for a 3200 mile journey undertaken in 72 hours. Then again, I am Machine - plus, I had a co-pilot.

That said, when the second car in the caravan showed up at the door with three kittens and two hedgehogs - yes, hedgehogs - things became a bit less innocuous. I am not a cat-person; never have been. This is well-known and the entire story is documented in my semi-autobiography "A Bunny Screaming", available on Amazon.com or Lulu.com (shameless plug). Anyhow, I told the kids that the animals could stay, amending the statement with the proclamation that I would drown them and their menagerie and take my lumps on CNN if the kitchen wasn't kept clean.

The picture above is of the kitten "Mer", which means "sea" in French - at least that's what Logan says. After watching the animal, I am beginning to think it means "Short-Bus". Watching the kitten sit still, his head slightly swaying back and forth as the others frolicked about gave me the first inkling that all was not Einsteinian in the Feline Kingdom. "That one's fucked up," I said, pointing at the swaying grey animal. "What?" Logan said. "You think so?" Just then, the cat toppled onto its side, apparently suddenly quite sleepy. I shrugged. "Might be narcolepsy, but something is not right with that little shit."

Logan frowned. "But look at it this way," I said, shrugging. "At least he's not required to operate a bulldozer, or write a treatise on world peace. He just needs to know where his food is and where to take a shit." Logan nodded; I continued. "He's probably not the one who will be performing your lasik surgery or splitting the isotope, or whatever the fuck those scientists are doing in their little laboratories... He's just a cat. He can bumble around a little bit and things will still work out fine..." Logan smiled - the girls like it when I say "fuck" or "shit" around them; it makes them feel like real adults. Which is cool by me, until they abandon a conversation in favor of a rerun of "Dexter's Lab" that they've only seen a half-dozen times on the Cartoon Network. "In fact," I said, "I don't think cats even give a damn..." We watched Mer, who curled up on the carpet and went to sleep as the others cavorted to the mysterious area behind the refrigerator. "I'll bet," I said, giving the child/woman a kiss on the top of her head, "that he could be the president of the kitty United States, if he put his little simple mind to it..."

Logan looked up at me with doubt in her eyes. Allie and Seth chimed in from the background: "No way..." "No fucking way..." I shrugged and waited for the tears.