Author Archives: Kurt Luchs

A Brief Conversation with My Hair

By: Russell Bradbury-Carlin

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Me: My Hair has had a career defined by wild extremes. Each highlight, such as His First Trip to the Barber, has been followed by failures like So This is a Mullet. I am confident that My Hair will have lots to say in what is his first opportunity to speak out publicly. Welcome, My Hair. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule.

My Hair: The pleasure is all mine. Frankly, I thought no one really cared about my career anymore.

Me: Let’s start by focusing on some of those moments when you struggled. What were you thinking when you found yourself working on The Too Tight Perm?

My Hair: Yes, yes, that was quite grueling, wasn’t it? Well, the fact is, I had always had dreams of being a loose mane of long curls — unkempt but sexy — kind of like a modern day Jim Morrison. I expected a loose perm, but came out with a set of tight curls — more “Weird Al” Yankovic than Mr. Morrison.

Me: Did Shave It All Off come as a relief after this experience?

My Hair: Somewhat. Actually, Shave It All Off had been something I wanted to work on since the Limp Mohawk Incident — another tragedy that I’d rather not get into.

Me: Let’s go back to some of your early work. What do you look back on most fondly?

My Hair: From my early years, I look back on Before My Classmates Cajoled Me into Washing My Hair Every Day as a particular nadir. Before then, I basked in the innocence of just being who I was. I did not feel the incessant pressure of needing to look like everyone else. I miss the days of that free-flow of creativity: letting dirt and dead leaves stick to me for days on end. Splattered mud was a form of unconscious self-expression. All of my contemporaries were in a thriving creative cauldron; then came junior high school. Suddenly, my peers were smothered in gels and drained of life by blow-dryers. That’s when I became involved with The Hairspray Debacle. Can after can of that stuff can rot your brain and eat away at your follicles. Let’s just say — when you wake up one day surrounded by empty cans and the dank scent of aerosol in the air, you learn to stop cold turkey.

Me: Your career kind of faded for a bit. You were long ignored and didn’t try anything new or edgy as you attempted to do in your 20’s.

My Hair: I chalk that up to the relative implosion that followed Damn, Is My Hair Thinning? I found myself in a deep depression. I was riddled with anxiety and my contact with the outside world became limited. I became a virtual recluse — hiding under baseball caps and winter hats. As far as I was concerned I would have been happy to never see the light of day again.

Me: That changed, however.

My Hair: As everyone knows, I came out of my shell with I Have a Girlfriend Who Loves Me, Potential Male-Pattern Baldness and All. Yes, thank God for that. If that hadn’t happened, I might have languished in constant reruns of Shave It All Off forever.

Me: These days you seem to have gained the respect of your peers. You are very visible and generally admired, or at least tolerated by your audience. Do you think it had much to do with I Have a Girlfriend…?

My Hair: Most definitely. Especially because that was followed by She Married Me, Now I Can Go Completely Bald and I Won’t Be Alone. This whole period of my life has given me a confidence I never had before. It’s allowed me to tap into a sense of just being myself, which I never had as a youth. I think this happens to most in my position. It has also given me the confidence to engage in riskier material again.

Me: You mean such things as Why Pay $25 to a Hair-Dresser When I Can Cut My Own Hair with a $25 Pair of Shears?

My Hair: Yes. And Mutton-Chops Can Look Good on a Forty-Year-Old.

Me: Well, I want to thank you for talking with me today. Before we go, can you tell us which of your future projects you are most excited about?

My Hair: I probably shouldn’t say anything about this, since so few know about it yet, but I’m currently in hot negotiations over Honey, What Do You Think of Cornrows?

*****

If you enjoyed this piece, visit Russell Bradbury-Carlin’s web site: AllMyShoesAndGlasses.com

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The Elephant in the Corner

By: Tom Conoboy

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Just when everyone had successfully managed to ignore it, the elephant sneezed. Rolling our eyes, we looked to the corner of the room where it was seated uncomfortably on a bulging armchair with a Gauloise in its trunk and a tumbler of whisky by its side. “Sorry,” it said, “just ignore me.”

“The thing I never understood,” said Marcie, “is why we got that elephant in the first place.”

“That’s the point, woman. It’s not meant to be there. It’s like, symbolic, get it?”

Marcie didn’t. A star of adult films when she was younger, she didn’t get much these days except the odd STD outbreak whenever she was vexed or the moon was too bright in the sky. The latter was her own diagnosis, admittedly, one which Doctor Loveridge didn’t share, though he was careful not to reveal his skepticism for fear that Marcie would leave and stop revealing her exotic, pneumatic chest arrangement. The third breast had been a masterstroke on Doctor Loveridge’s part, and even Marcie was getting used to it now, although suitable bras were still an issue.

“Run it by me again,” she said.

I shook my head. “Marcie, I’ve explained this to you a hundred times.”

“In one ear and out the other,” said the elephant, waggling his own for emphasis. The lampshade billowed in the breeze, casting odd shadows on the mantelpiece and the stolen Munch paintings on the wall.

“Don’t you diss me, you great lump of gray blubber,” said Marcie, standing on her dignity and getting it dirty.

“Or you’ll what?” said the elephant.

“Hank, shoot it.”

As it happened, I was holding a revolver in my hand — metal, black, with a banana-shaped barrel which Reg the Rat assured me meant the bullets would travel faster.

Maybe they did, but they never hit their target.

Mind you, an elephant was hard to miss. I eyed it speculatively.

“You’d be amazed how far a trunk can reach,” said the elephant, blowing smoke rings and spearing them on its tusks. “And how fast it can move. Drop the gun now, sucker, before I knock your head into yesterday, whenever, wherever.”

I looked up and saw a face in the mirror, Reg the Rat, his whiskers quivering with amusement at my predicament. I didn’t care. What Reg didn’t know was that the elephant was tired of his drug-taking and had hired a hit man — Jackal Jack — to take him out before the end of the week. I held back a smile.

“Take a seat, Reg,” I said. “We’re just debating the elephant.”

“Where ya’ been, Reggie,” said Marcie. “I missed ya’, hon.”

“Afghanistan, babe. Poppy season. Collecting the September harvest. Cold out there, too, I’m telling you.”

“Tell me about it,” said the elephant. “That swine Hannibal made me march through the Khyber pass in the middle of winter.”

“Rubbish,” I said. “That was the Alps, and it was two thousand years ago. You weren’t there. Not even your mummy’s mummy’s mummy’s mummy was there.”

The elephant snorted. Reggie the Rat caught most of the blast, leaving him covered head to toe in greenish-yellow mucus. I’d describe him as a drowned rat but that would be too clichéd. Nonetheless, an oxygen-deprived rodent he certainly was.

“So you think,” said the elephant, “that marching with Hannibal is any more unlikely than me sitting in an armchair in your living room, do you? Get a grip, man.”

Marcie stamped her foot. “Will somebody PLEASE tell me what he’s doing here! I don’t understand.”

Reggie the Rat cleaned his whiskers with a copy of the New York Times and tossed it to the floor. He patted Marcie’s arm, leaving a trail of elephant mucus down it. “The point about the elephant in the corner, Marcie,” he said, “is that it’s something so conspicuous it ought to be talked about, but no one dares mention it.”

“But we have, guys. We’ve been talking about it for the last ten minutes, haven’t we?”

“Ah,” said Reg. An uncomfortable silence settled as we sought a way to contradict her. We couldn’t. Reg looked at Marcie. Marcie looked at me. I looked at the elephant.

And, at that moment, with the most rueful of grins, the elephant vanished.

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Redshirt Academy

By: Mike Richardson-Bryan

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Okay, cadets, welcome back to the Starfleet Security Specialist Workshop. In Module I, we studied basic drill, chain of command, and tricorder etiquette. In Module II, you’ll learn how to recognize common dangers and how to deal with them.

Assisting me this session will be Ensign Kenner. He’s the fellow in the back with the large-bore phaser rifle and the nervous tic. Are you ready back there, Ensign? Is it set to you-know-what? Then we’re ready to begin.

Before we do, though, I’d like to address some of the comments I heard during the break.

Some of you expressed misgivings about a career in the Security Division. Now, it’s true that the life of a security specialist — or “redshirt,” as we’re popularly known — is a dangerous one, but space exploration is dangerous no matter what color your shirt is. Besides, a career in the Security Division offers all kinds of fringe benefits that you won’t find anywhere else.

For one thing, the Security Division has the best teams in Starfleet, including the defending parrises squares champions — go, Fightin’ Sand Bats! — so if you’re into sports, then this is the place for you.

For another thing, redshirts get more meal credits than other specialists. While the goldshirts and blueshirts are picking over their synthloaf for the third day in a row, the redshirts are eating like kings. Indeed, a typical redshirt eats so well that you’d think every meal was his last.

Finally, redshirts have the best opportunities for advancement in the fleet. Other specialists often spend years in the same position, but there are always openings for ambitious redshirts, sometimes two or three at a time. Heck, pass my course and you could find yourself serving aboard a starship next week.

So, to sum up, the life of a redshirt has its dangers, but it also has its own unique rewards, so keep an open mind.

Now, before we continue, let’s observe a minute of silence for the cadets who died during Module I, especially that guy from Spokane who was turned into a cube and stepped on.

Was that a minute? Who has a watch? Okay, let’s get started on Module II.

As redshirts, it will be your duty to protect the ship, the crew, and to a much lesser extent yourselves. That means knowing how to recognize danger and how to react accordingly. Of course, danger can be hard to spot on strange alien worlds, but you can always fall back on the tried-and-true techniques that have made the Security Division the respected institution that it is today. Let’s look at a few examples now. Ensign, start the film.

Here we see a landing party exploring a crash site. What’s the first thing they should do? That’s right, Ledbetter, they should split up, and pay close attention to how they do it: the captain, the science officer, and the doctor go off together in one direction, while the redshirt goes off in another direction by himself. That’s textbook splitting up. And now that the redshirt is all alone, the energy cloud that’s been waiting to pick the landing party off one by one can come out of hiding and attack him, like so. Ooh, that had to hurt. The redshirt is dead, but when he fails to check in later, his teammates will know that there’s danger afoot.

Let’s look at another film. Here we see a redshirt exploring alien ruins when suddenly he comes across a strange alien artifact throbbing with some strange alien power. What should he do? No, Birch, he should NOT report in and request instructions. Haven’t you been paying attention? I don’t care if he has TEN communicators and an Aldis lamp, that’s not how we do it. Anyone else? Right again, Ledbetter, he should walk right up to it and touch it, and there he goes. Ooh, that wasn’t pretty, was it? Again, the redshirt is dead, but when his teammates find what’s left of him, they’ll know to keep their hands to themselves.

Let’s look at one more. Here we see a redshirt exploring an abandoned settlement when suddenly a bunch of creepy children come out of nowhere and surround him. What should he do? Right again, Ledbetter, he should assume they’re perfectly harmless no matter how crazy or feral they look. Even as they inch closer and closer, picking up rocks and makeshift clubs as they do so, he should just stand there asking them where their mommies and daddies are until WHAM! Ooh, what a way to go. Once again, the redshirt is dead, but when his teammates see the children frolicking in his blood, they’ll know that those children are trouble.

Okay, enough films for now, it’s time for the real thing. Ensign, release the M113 creature. Isn’t she a beauty? Now, the M113 creature — or “salt vampire,” as it’s better known — feeds exclusively on sodium chloride, something the human body has in abundance. Don’t worry, though, the creature is perfectly harmless as long as OH MY GOD! BLAST IT, ENSIGN, BLAST IT! AGAIN!

Whew. Okay, how many did we lose? Three? That’s not so bad. Remember that Horta sensitivity training seminar we had last year? Now that was brutal. Shame about Ledbetter, though.

We may as well take another break. Everyone go get some coffee while we clean this up. When you come back, we’ll tackle Module III: Introduction to Zero Gravity Hygiene.

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One High Fever, Unabridged

By: Kurt Luchs

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I’m no Dale Carnegie, God knows, but I recently stumbled upon a principle of mental health that no person wishing to retain his sanity should ignore. In short, it is this: Never open a dictionary unless you have a specific word, a particular verbal destination in mind. To do otherwise is to play Russian roulette with your faculties, the difference being that with a dictionary there is, so to speak, a bullet in every chamber. I speak from bitter, brutal experience.

Just this morning I was searching Random House’s dictionary for clupeid, that is, “kloo’ pe id, n., any of the Clupeidae, a family of chiefly marine, teleostean fishes, including the herrings, sardines, menhaden and shad.” I read through that definition 19 times. It had a rhythm as compelling as any by Bob Marley and the Wailers. By the time “clupeid” had burned pinholes in my pupils, I had forgotten why I had looked the word up in the first place. Luck had been on my side, though. I had set out to locate a single word and had done so without bringing shame to myself or my family (a family of chiefly marine, teleostean fishes, by the way). I had been able, after some effort, to avert my gaze to an especially informative advertisement for women’s undergarments in a nearby mail-order catalog belonging to my wife. Where was she now, the traitor? Shopping, probably; leaving me here alone with the Random House Unabridged. As well to leave a child in the same room with a man named Guido.

I opened the volume and quite by chance stood goggling at the same page where, in my innocent youth, I had looked up “clupeid.” The hair at the back of my neck slowly stiffened with repulsion. I had landed full force on clypeus (klip’ e es), “the area of the facial wall of an insect’s head between the labrum and the frons, usually separated from the latter by a groove.” Think of that! On the facial wall of every last vermin in the world, the clypeus was separated from the frons by a mere groove! Who could bear it? I ran a trembling index finger down the column, hoping for a soothing adjective, a prosaic noun to calm my nerves.

Instead, the final word on the page transfixed me. Cnidocyst (ni’ de sist), It had a foul, almost sinister sound. I repeated it several times in spite of myself. Cnidocyst. Cnidocyst. What it was I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. But it was too late for squeamishness. I read on.

Why, a cnidocyst was nothing but a nematocyst! It said so right there in black and white. How foolish I had been after all. And a nematocyst was…well, a nematocyst was simply a…a…what was it, anyway? According to the ghouls at Random House, a nematocyst is “an organ in coelenterates consisting of a minute capsule containing a thread capable of being ejected and causing a sting, used for protection and for capturing prey.”

A more flimsy tissue of euphemisms would be impossible to concoct. “Capable of being ejected,” the man says. I’d like to see the one that isn’t ejected! “Used for protection and for capturing prey.” Indeed. It’s used for making a damn nuisance if I know my coelenterates — and I think I do. If I had a nematocyst to my name those coelenterates wouldn’t be swaggering like psychotic sailors, capturing helpless prey and causing wholesale carnage, no sir. There wouldn’t be a coelenterate standing in the joint when I finished with them. I could lick ’em all, I could — I checked myself before complete hysteria had hold of me.

I was beginning to wish I had stayed with “cnidocyst.” Innuendo was preferable to outright horror. I felt a compulsion to turn back to “cnidocyst,” praying that the sight of a familiar word, however nauseating, would take my mind off the chilling implications of “nematocyst.”Any port in a storm. On the way to “cnidocyst” I paused among the “D’s” long enough to pick up another happy zoological term, “dulosis,” or “the enslavement of an ant colony or its members by ants of a different species.” Slavery, right here in modern North America! What next?

I made it back to “cnidocyst” all right, but there was little relief in the reunion. It sounded as ugly as ever, and if a cnidocyst was a nematocyst and vice versa, any preference of mine amounted to a choice of evils, no more. Lost in thought, my gaze wandered. I gaped at the word above “cnidocyst.” It was “cnidocil,” obviously a close relative. There was the same squinty, pinch-faced look, the same unctuous air of authority. Cnidocil (ni’ de sil), “a hairlike sensory process projecting from the surface of a cnidoblast, believed to trigger the discharge of the nematocyst.”

“A hairlike sensory process” — again, the words were vague but the images they conjured up were not. I had the desperate certainty that if I encountered a hairlike sensory process, even a small one, I would be incapable of any reaction except screaming myself into a dead faint.

I noted the stock journalistic jargon, “believed to trigger the discharge of the nematocyst” (my italics). It’s considered poor form among journalists, and I suppose, by extension, among the compilers of dictionaries, to prejudice a case by making direct accusations against any of the parties involved, even when their guilt is a public fact. Thus we have “suspected” assassins, “confessed” kidnappers, and cnidocils “believed” to trigger the discharge of the nematocyst.

But in analyzing this nicety I was forgetting a very important factor, the word just above “cnidocil” — “cnidoblast,” or in plain Pig Latin, “the cell within which a nematocyst is developed.” Clearly I had situated myself within a massive web of intrigue, a conspiracy of international proportions. The cnidocil was a trigger man, a gunsel working for the cnidoblast, who was shielding the nematocyst, alias the cnidocyst, alias the “cnida” (from the Greek word for nettle). Paranoid psychosis nearly had me in its grip. I was sinking fast. I fought to maintain consciousness as I babbled like Gertrude Stein, “A cnidocyst is a nematocyst is a cnida is a nematocyst is a –” Then, mercifully, I passed out.

The touch of a cold, wet cloth on my forehead brought me to. I recoiled at first, then allowed my face to be stroked by a pair of delicate feminine hands. It was my wife, back from her shopping spree.

“I told you never to drink before sunset,” she chided me. “You never listen, do you?”

“Easy, hon, or I’ll sic my nematocyst on you,” I said.

“What were you drinking — alcohol or chloroform? Come on now, get your head up. Let me show you what I found at the mall: A brand new hair extension!”

“You mean a hairlike sensory process,” I said. She let my head fall back on to the tile and went to mix herself a double Scotch and soda, no ice.

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Hot Dogs: Crisis in America

By: Eric Feezell

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When it comes to hot dogs, Americans aren’t getting what they need.

It is estimated that over 44 million working Americans and their dependents do not have access to hot dogs, while another 38 million have inadequate or limited access. Together, these figures comprise nearly one-third of the United States population — an overwhelming chunk of Americans daily forced to ponder: what if someone I love needs hot dogs? What if I need hot dogs?

It is a vicious cycle for these have-nots. More citizens each day, already hungry and sick, are being forced into physical and economic destitution without hot dogs. Routinely will those without Hot Dog Plans (HDP’s) simply avoid the acquisition of hot dogs altogether, despite what their bodies tell them. This self-enforced neglect has culminated in higher overall hot dog costs, as those without HDP’s generally do not get hot dogs until it is too late, thus often requiring costlier forms of hot dogs. Meanwhile, the countless dollars pumped into uncompensated hot dog treatment fall in the form of higher federal taxes on the doorsteps of those who are fortunate enough to possess hot dog assurance, intensifying the economic divide such that hot dogs are fast becoming considered a luxury rather than a basic human right.

But does the hot dog problem really have to exist? The majority of hot dog-assured Americans receive their benefits through employer-instituted plans (nearly 120 million people). The second-largest sector of hot dog-assured Americans receives coverage from the government under the Hot Dog-Care and Hot Dog-Aid programs (both ultimately boons to the American taxpayer, costing billions of dollars per year to maintain). Yet for that unfortunate one-third of the population, accessibility to hot dog care is at the whim of an employer or, in the case of federally funded programs, is limited or outright denied due to strict governmentally-dictated eligibility requirements.

Whether assured or unassured, the average American is being led down a treacherous path by those in control of hot dog-supply distribution and hot dog-program management. With the price of prescription hot dogs skyrocketing in recent years, more employers have been forced to pass costs along to workers in the form of higher-premium HDP’s and smaller, less frequently distributed pay raises. Many employers are also denying workers family hot dog coverage to further cut expenditures.

In most cases, this is being done not out of desire, but necessity. Smaller businesses in particular face grim chances for survival in light of rising hot dog costs, forcing them either to lay off workers or limit coverage for existing workers — either instance driving deeper the wedge into this ever growing economic chasm. And all the while, the Hebrew Nationals and Oscar Meyers of the world are reaping the profits.

Unsurprisingly, these very same companies are backing a questionably effective approach to this national emergency in the form of Hot Dog Savings Accounts (HDSA’s), which are growing in popularity with employers. An HDSA works like a normal savings account, wherein an initial sum of money is deposited by the employer and gains interest over time. HDSA’s are helping many smaller companies cut down on monetary contributions and are even being touted by the government as a viable option for hot dog reform in the face of the hot dog crisis. But this argument is specious, at best.

What HDSA’s fail to take into account is that depending on the hot dog needs of an individual — whether, for example, one needs multiple hot dogs, needs to add chili or cheese, to upgrade from generic to premium condiments, or standard to kosher — the amount within a given HDSA simply might not be enough to cover costs. The potential success of HDSA’s relies upon the dangerously utopian premise that the need for expensive prescription hot dogs more often than not befalls the elderly, who have earned enough through employer contributions and compounded interest to cover any hot dog needs. And this is not always true.

What HSDA’s really do is lower the bar on hot dog care. When the child of a single working mother possesses a congenital condition requiring hot dogs, or when one half of a dual-income household is stricken with terminal hot dog need, daunting questions arise: are these persons to be held economically accountable for having coverage, but not having enough? And furthermore, in the end, who will pay?

Americans must ask themselves if this country is truly on the road to hot dog reform, or on a different, darker road altogether. We must look outside our own borders at alternative hot dog systems, such as to the north, where Canada has implemented Universal Hot Dog Care to staggering success. The rising costs not only of hot dogs, but of ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, and other such hot dog-related goods, can no longer be footed by the impoverished while hot dog companies grow richer and continue to wield their indomitable lobbying influence on Capitol Hill. It is time to question the relationship between the government and hot dog care, to ensure all Americans the rights of life, liberty, and everything else in this world that cannot be fully enjoyed without hot dogs.

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UFOs: The Secret Air Force Files

By: Kurt Luchs

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Through a top-level security leak at the Pentagon, we were able to gain access to the most guarded information in the world, the Air Force’s file on unidentified flying objects. Up until now these reports were known only to the Russians and the Chinese, and then only in very poor translations. At last the truth can be told.

*****

INCIDENT: March 17, 1962. Three giant cigar-shaped objects were sighted over New York City, flying in formation with a huge ashtray. Millions of seemingly normal citizens witnessed one of the objects blow a definite smoke ring over Manhattan and then flick some ashes on Brooklyn. Then, within seconds the entire formation had lifted away, signaled a left turn and vanished, never to be seen again.

EXPLANATION: In this case the observers are fictional, not the UFOs. It is common knowledge that there are no actual human beings living in New York. The humanoid apparitions you see on the streets and in office buildings are optical illusions caused by the action of the sun’s rays on blacktop. If you blink, they will disappear.

*****

INCIDENT: On Thursday, December 14, 1989, Enoch Waffler, a beet farmer in Spastic Colon, North Dakota, had this experience:

“I was walking along this here furrow, planting beet seeds with a rivet gun, when this big sorta flying bedpan whizzes by at 100,000 miles per hour, shooting sparks and making a noise like a coon hound with its tail caught in a door. I know it was 100,000 miles per hour because 15 minutes later he had circled the Earth completely and was back at my place asking directions to the Crab Nebula. I say ‘he’ but I mean it was a little feller — oh, about two or three feet tall in his socks — with eyes like silver dollars and hands like pliers with tiny golden beaks. Well, we got to talking, and I gave him some corn whiskey, which he spit right up again. But he did drink a whole five-gallon can of kerosene. Got mad as a killer bee when I couldn’t find him any dry ice. Then he was off again, looking for a gas station that stayed open all night and sold plutonium. But first he posed for some snapshots and I got the whole thing on a recorder which I talk into while planting beets, to keep from going crazy.”

EXPLANATION: Mr. Waffler was the victim of a well-rehearsed prank. What he thought was an extraterrestrial visitor was most likely a little neighbor boy in a homemade costume. The boy then invented a nuclear-powered starship capable of speeds up to 100,000 miles per hour to complete the hoax. Either that or he stopped the Earth from rotating on its axis so it would look as though he were going 100,000 miles per hour. In either case the boy is very clever and should be watched. Waffler should have caught on, though, when the “alien” asked how to get to the Crab Nebula. Everybody knows it’s closed on weekdays.

*****

INCIDENT: Saturday, June 28, 2003, Albert Schmecker, a part-time glue-sniffer, returned to his home in Peoria to find it surrounded by a pulsating mass of airborne lights. He then heard a piercing shriek, and would’ve run away had he not realized it was his own. He fell to his knees, trembling. An awesome shape loomed out of the unearthly glare. He later described it as “one of those synthesizers with the color charts on the keyboard and the rhythm section that plays by itself.” The synthesizer played a medley of old favorites while the lights flickered softly as if in response, and soon Schmecker was lulled into a deep sleep. When he awoke his house was gone, with only a slight indentation in the grass to show where it had once stood.

EXPLANATION: He was behind in the payments.

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Cumberland Theatre Is Making Waves!

By: Ryan Murphy

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May 1st, 2006

This is a watershed year for Cumberland Theatre. After five years of performing in more than 17 venues around the city, we’ll finally have a home to call our own! As of May 20th, 2006, Cumberland Theatre will be setting up shop at the Barrington Street Bathhouse, the city’s former swimming pool complex! What some might see as an eviction notice, we choose to see as a brand new start.

Former patrons of the historic bathhouse will be happy to know that the city has agreed to clean the premises AND drain the pool at no extra charge, following last month’s unfortunate ritualistic suicide. But before they do, Cumberland Theatre will be opening the doors on May 10th for an orientation and pool party! Snacks and refreshments will be served courtesy of our very own treasurer, Phyllis Riley. Members and non-members alike are invited to attend as we celebrate a full seven months of “keeping our heads above water!” For those of you who recall last year’s Cumberland Jamboree, Phyllis has assured us that this time around her famous Chicken Treats will be cooked all the way through, “no doubt about it” (Sorry Mr. Johnson!)

We’ve learned a great deal in our five years of operations, particularly in some unexpected areas like arson and the dangers of working with untamed animals (Speedy recoveries Jeff and Tal!) We can’t wait to apply that knowledge to our new space. I think I speak for all of us here at C.T. when I say that the unique acoustic challenges of performing in a swimming pool is something we can’t wait to tackle headfirst (pun intended!)

Take the plunge with us into our new space. By renewing your $15 membership, you’ll not only be helping us in our move, you’ll also be helping us to pay off a certain lingering lawsuit. Although court orders prevent us from discussing the issue any further, let’s just say that all of our incoming directors will have to have AT LEAST two letters of recommendation, no matter how much their parole officer might vouch for them!

Best of all, you’ll be supporting great local theatre. We’ll be making the most of our space in the year ahead with a Titanic-sized line-up of nautical productions! Hold on to your bathing cap for presentations of Lifeboat, Old Man and the Sea, and our very own toe-tapping musical version of Heart of Darkness. If you like your theatre with a hint of chlorine in the air then you can’t possibly do better than the all new C.T.! I think Phyllis put it best when she said “We’re going to be like Seaworld, but without the whales.”

Your generous support has kept us afloat. Now the exciting part of the journey begins. Help us make a splash!

Dramatically yours,

Buddy Riggins

Buddy Riggins,

Artistic Director

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Dr. Snakey’s Pretty Pets

By: Kurt Luchs

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(As always, Dr. Snakey — “the happy herpetologist” — answers your questions about “problem” snakes in the strictest confidence. But please DO NOT SEND YOUR SNAKES THROUGH THE MAIL for diagnosis; too many mailing tubes have been arriving bent and with postage due.)

Dear Dr. Snakey,

While I was in India 20 years ago, I bought a snake for 50,000 rupees from a Mr. B. Fakir, who assured me it was a genuine spitting cobra. Imagine my embarrassment when I entered the animal in a spitting contest and found he couldn’t spit past his little fangs! He simply lay there and drooled. Well, I was heartbroken. Everything went black, and when I woke up three years later I was a prisoner in my own house.

Since then I have lived in a private hell with “President Garfield,” as I call him. He drips at night like a leaky faucet and sneers at me whenever I change his bedding. Lately he has put on a commanding air that would be ridiculous if he didn’t have the venom to back it up — and I’m not sure he does. Nonetheless, if he wants something he points at the item with his tail until I bring it to him, be it a dish of walnuts, a smoking jacket or a nest of baby mice.

I’ve had it, Doc. There’s nothing in the book that says I have to take orders from a reptile that looks more like a soggy pipe cleaner. Or is there?

Col. Groveling B. Cringewater

the trunk of the red Monte Carlo

No Parking Zone, O’Hare International Airport

My Dear Colonel,

Any man who would pay 50,000 rupees for a snake, whether it spits or drools or hums “Pop Goes the Weasel” on a comb and wax paper, has already lost touch with that floating crap game we call reality. Spitting, drooling — what’s the difference? Either habit will keep him from being seated at the better restaurants. What you have on your hands is a prematurely senile snake who apparently needs new bridgework. He is crying out for your help the only way he knows how. Pay no attention to the fangs. They are probably “false fangs,” which he removes every night to soak in a glass of salt water, right before settling down with a copy of Modern Maturity magazine.

All best wishes,

The Doc

P.S. If you really want him to spit, try sneaking a wad of chewing tobacco in with those walnuts.

Dear Doctor Snakey,

My pygmy rattler, “Napoleon,” has me worried sick. I’m not talking about the time he ran away to join a mariachi band (he played first maraca). I can understand a snake’s need for artistic self-expression — God knows I’m open-minded — but I don’t know what to think when he ties himself in a sailor’s knot and dares me to “undo” him. And that’s not all. During an electrical storm last week, he wriggled to the top of the satellite dish, remaining perched there until he had been struck by lightning 38 times. Not only did this ruin our reception, but it altered Napoleon’s personality so that now he seldom opens his mouth except to down some hard liquor or stick out his tongue. Please, please help, and don’t recommend counseling — he says there’s nothing wrong with him “that a few thousand more volts wouldn’t fix.”

Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Spore

Lava Lamp, New Mexico

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Spore,

Not to worry. Napoleon’s behavior is typical for a small, venomous reptile who has realized that the only jobs open to him are “part-time shoelace,” or maybe “poison charm bracelet.” Would you want to go on living if you were one of the deadliest animals in the world, and still people called you “Shorty?” Of course not. But do let me know if he tries to conquer Europe.

Cheers,

Doctor Snakey

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Both Sides Now

By: Justin Warner

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Effective immediately, the following statement will appear on the front cover of all math textbooks in Tuskamoga County, Mississippi, per unanimous vote of the school board.

The Pythagorean Theorem is a theorem, not fact. A theorem is defined as “A proposition that has been or is to be proved on the basis of explicit assumptions” (emphasis added). In other words, it’s just a suggestion. If it were fact, it would say so in the definition. That’s just common sense.

The Pythagorean Theorem states that for any right triangle, the square of its hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of its remaining two sides. This is one of many possible theorems that explain triangular geometry. We encourage you to keep an open mind and carefully consider alternative theorems. Not that we are naming any names.

Okay, we’ll name one, just for comparison, not that we are necessarily espousing this particular view. But it turns out that some highly respected, forward-thinking, and exceptionally handsome mathematicians espouse an alternative known as the IWC Theorem. The IWC Theorem states that for any right triangle, the square of its hypotenuse is equal to whatever sum is pleasing to Cluckie, the Invisible Wonder-Chicken.

Since you’re probably curious, Cluckie is an amazing, all-powerful, hyper-intelligent chicken that has existed throughout the universe since the beginning of time. Cluckie is everywhere and anywhere at once, yet nobody can detect or measure her in any way. That’s exactly how Cluckie likes it. And according to IWC Theorem, it turns out that Cluckie usually (emphasis added) likes her right triangles to have hypotenuses which, when squared, equal the sum of the squares of the remaining two sides. But not always!

We realize this may be a sophisticated concept for some of your simpler-minded classmates to grasp. If you speak to such dullards, simply ask: which is more likely, that every right triangle in the universe happens to conform to some arbitrary geometric ratio, or that each triangle has a shape that is perfect for itself, as determined by a rational being? Ignore, for the moment, that the rational being is a kind of poultry with a predilection for sums of squares, and consider all the possible right triangles against which the cold logic of Pythagorean theory is limp and impotent.

Take, for example, a right triangle with a length equal to the circumference of a leprechaun’s hat, and a width equal to the space between a wish and a dream. Conventional Pythagorean theory cannot determine the hypotenuse of this triangle, as evidenced by our many emails to the head of the math department at Yale. According to IWC theory, only Cluckie the Wonder-Chicken can decide this distance, and in this case, it is the distance, in self-esteem, from the title role in a Merchant-Ivory film to a character part on the Who’s the Boss? reunion special.

Some mathematicians, including many with alcohol and drug dependencies, are skeptical of IWC Theorem. You might ask if these mathematicians are merely re-channeling their pederastic self-loathing into a form of intellectual terrorism. Rest assured that Cluckie will rain sweet revenge upon them in due time; there is no need to concern yourself with their unenviable fates.

Or perhaps you yourself remain skeptical. Well, have you measured all of the right triangles ever created in the history of time? Didn’t think so. Only Cluckie could have access to such an infinite repository of geometrical configurations. And do you think a chicken 1,537 times more intelligent than the average human would make all the world’s right triangles exactly alike? If you think so little of Cluckie, having never experienced her in all her glory, how can you call yourself a decent human being, let alone a budding scientist? Open your mind, you nose-picking son of a whore. They’re trying to ram a Pythagorean agenda down your throat and all you can do is sit there and take it? This is how the Nazis got started. You’re not a Nazi, are you?

If not, we encourage you to read the textbook Of Omnipotent, Intergalactic Super-Intelligent Chickens and Right Triangles, which has been delivered free of charge to your home address. Cluckie, or her agent on Earth, will be checking in later to make sure you’ve read it. It will happen when you least expect, in a place you thought was safe. Repeat this to your parents and you’re dead.

And don’t get us started on the commutative property.

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Diary of a Psychotic Cat

By: Justin Warner

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For Maggie, wherever she may be

November 22

An otherwise fine morning was marred by a third consecutive breakfast of Fancy Feast Hearty Chicken n’ Liver, though I have clearly demonstrated my preference for the Tasty Tuna variety. After washing down the repast with a saucer of vaguely acidic half-and-half, I registered my displeasure to the She-Keeper with a swift warning bite to the ankle: two superficial punctures, nothing more, out of respect for her flexibility in accommodating recent changes to my weekday feeding schedule. No doubt she got the message, but giving in to her childish impulses she sprayed me with the plant mister, instantly ruining a half-hour’s worth of painstaking whisker-grooming. What indignity! Were I set loose in the wild, talons and fangs unsheathed, I would stop a thousand heartbeats before the spring’s first thaw. Instead I subsist on moldering carrion, like a common buzzard. Come the Revolution, there will be not just Fancy Feast Tasty Tuna, but quivering, freshly killed sashimi-grade fillets for all my feline brethren and sistern, and the bipeds will beg for the privilege to serve it.

After a disappointingly short and tepid lap-sitting session, which did little to calm my frayed nerves, I was left alone. To release my frustrations, I attempted once more to beat my personal record for running back and forth across the apartment six hundred times. Alas, I fell twenty seconds short of the mark – an inevitable result of the increased wind resistance caused by my thickening winter coat. Resolving to ease the pressure on myself until the shedding season, I settled into the laundry basket, ripe with the heady musk of the She-Keeper’s perspiration, and began my afternoon doze.

I awoke in the evening to not one but two sets of footsteps tromping up the stairs. I stood by the door, head cocked for my customary petting, but the She-Keeper barely glanced in my direction for what felt like nearly a quarter-minute. Instead, her eyes were transfixed on an unfamiliar companion, one with an abrasively masculine scent, whose plodding steps reverberated with dull thuds that clashed miserably with the silky patter of my mistress’ delicate gait.

“This is Chloe,” the She-Keeper said, finally acknowledging me with all the fanfare one might normally grant a coat rack. “Can you say hello, Chloe?” she implored, now affecting a lilting, ingratiating coo. I approached politely, sniffed the intruder’s hand, and picked up a distinctive aroma – was it cumin? – that recalled a memory too painful to bear: A garden apartment on the outskirts of Austin, in the flower of my youth, years before I was shipped off to the sterile urban dystopia where I currently make my home. A boiling pot of chili on the stove, a din of boisterous voices echoing down the hall, and me in the bedroom closet wailing with the white-hot desire of my first and only peak of estrus. Oh, the longing that scent evoked, dear Diary, the shame, the desperation! How I clawed at the jamb that night, hungry for the heaving loins of Mr. Pickles, a tabby across the street who would have given his nine lives to plumb the depths of my plump, willing hindquarters. (Yes, he had caught my eye on the front stoop, and even wooed me one summer’s morn with a dead sparrow, but I played coy, unaware that we had neither world enough nor time for such child’s-play.) How vividly I can still smell the Old El Paso spice mix, wafting through the thin crack of the closet door as I sank into oblivion. I awoke the next day on the operating table, robbed of my femininity, never again to know the joy of motherhood or the sweet release of a lover’s embrace. Cumin, indeed. Stranger or no, how dare he evoke this grim specter of betrayal? And with the She-Keeper’s complicity! Has she forgotten the Kafkaesque nightmare to which cumin is forever tied?

I was about to bite her again, this time in the tender flesh just north of her heel, when my mistress offered me a half-portion of a vintage Whiskas (tuna!) chewy treat. A cheap bribe, but I took it, if only to salve the pain of my traumatic flashback. I nursed my resentment underneath the futon until the wee hours, punctuating my waking nightmares with pointed hisses, while the stranger’s awkward baritone interfered with my ability to hear squirrels breathing. For everyone’s sake, I hope this encounter will not be repeated.

November 29

Life has been good of late, with a more sumptuous and varied menu compensating for last week’s Chicken n’ Liver debacle. As is customary for the season I enjoyed a few choice cuts of fresh roasted turkey (pity such a large bird spoils so quickly, forcing the She-Keeper to stuff herself with my ample leftovers). I also bested my lady in sixty-seven out of seventy matches of Catch-the-Bug, nabbing the pretty little fly-on-a-wire within several minutes in most cases, and administering a swift retaliatory chomp to her right wrist each time she cheated.

By this afternoon I had considered myself free of Captain Cumin. True, his voice has squawked occasionally from our answering machine, but I always delete his ponderous ramblings with a quick flick of the paw. So imagine my disappointment, dear Diary, when he arrived at our doorstep just as I was cataloguing the day’s bird sightings to my mistress (the intricacies of the taxonomy, as usual, being lost on her). She dashed for the door just as I was describing a breeding pair of rare whippoorwills, and in what can only be interpreted as an act of raw contempt, led the usurper directly to the exact section of the love seat where I planned to nap in three hours’ time. (It could hardly have been an honest mistake, as I’ve kept the same schedule on alternate odd-numbered Saturdays for nearly a year with only four exceptions.)

Determined to end the intrusion before it began, I charged at my rival, wondering only whether the flavor of his Achilles’ tendon would be best complemented by water, milk, or a hit of prime Jamaican catnip. But as I approached my quarry, a new smell captivated me. Not the loaded aroma of cumin, nor the common funk of moist socks, but a delicious, oily, earthy scent that satisfied me like nothing since the unmistakable plume of Mr. Pickles’ ripening he-glands. His shoes? Could it be? He hadn’t worn the same ones the other night…I crept in for a closer inspection. A sniff, a whiff, a surreptitious lick – pure heaven! My God, it was his shoes! I may be spayed and barren, dear Diary, but I wanted to make love to those shoes right there and then. (Such absurdity – imagine the mewling, predatory bedroom slippers that might spring from such a union!)

Forgetting my vendetta and giving in to reckless abandon, I mopped my face against the flanks of his footwear, tongue pressed against tongue, the pleasure centers of my brain crackling with electricity. I cannot say for sure if hours or only seconds passed before I was prodded away with the business end of a Swiffer. I growled and hissed at my lady’s cruelty – she would deny me this too? – yet it did little to soften her heart. For the remainder of the evening I went to every possible length to access those mysterious vessels of ecstasy (including a spectacular swan-dive from the blade of a ceiling fan), only to be thwarted time and time again. To add insult to injury, she and Cumin Fingers sat intertwined on the love seat until well past midnight, snuggling like slippery infant kittens, while I played Pyramus to the interloper’s size 9 twin Thisbes. If this war continues, the blood will be on their hands, not mine.

December 5

Ah, Christmas tree water! Is there any nectar so intoxicating? The contrasting flavors of pine sap and Everlife chemical plant food, mingling playfully on the tongue, create a gustatory carnival even more satisfying than the perfumed waters of a freshly used bathtub, sink, or toilet. Why must the Yuletide come but once a year?

My lady’s excruciating acquaintance continues to visit, still monopolizing our time, and doing so in frayed sneakers whose fetid stench makes a mockery of my desires. It is easier in these conditions to express my contempt for his presence. As a matter of course I hiss and bare my incisors whenever he walks in 3/4 time or utters a diphthong (which happens more often than you might imagine). On Thursday night, I pelted him with a hailstorm of ceramic figurines, which I “accidentally” knocked from the mantle above the couch where he was sitting (as if I could really be so clumsy!). I should note that the attack was not unprovoked: rather, it was a tit-for-tat response to the intruder’s gratuitous sneezing, which thrice interrupted an erotic reverie featuring myself, Tony the Tiger, and a Jacuzzi full of crème fraiche.

December 8

Tonight the Interloper returned, this time shod in the gorgeous footwear that haunt me in the midnight hour of my yearning. Poor darlings! How unjust, how degrading – to be shackled to the feet of an oaf, trapped as unwilling passengers on his aimless perambulations, whiling the nights away in a suffocating closet (how I identified with their struggle!) rather than in the welcoming paws of one who would truly love them. Suddenly nothing mattered quite so much as being near those shoes again. Setting aside the loathing of my adversary, I approached his feet and let out – forgive me, dear Diary! – a conciliatory and gentle mew.

The ploy worked, as the intruder relaxed his legs and allowed me to rub my face against the starboard side of Eros (I have privately named the shoes Eros and Thanatos, a nod to the psychosexual dialectic that their kinship with the Interloper evokes). My lady squealed with delight, as if my affections were actually directed toward the monster that held my loves captive. No matter – Eros’ velvety, leathery vapors were already coursing through my blood like opium, catapulting me (no pun intended!) into ecstasy.

As I moved on to the rougher, more masculine instep of Thanatos, I heard a husky voice above me saying “Good girl, Chloe! Good girl!” (How patronizing to address me as a child, at the advanced age of five and a half!) I looked up and there was the Interloper, offering me a small treat. It was about time; he’d shown up empty-handed on nearly every other occasion. I accepted the offering and politely thanked him with a friendly lick. He handed me another. Taking a page from B. F. Skinner, I purred praise for his good behavior (all the while fornicating with the shoes as I would have with Mr. Pickles, were there a just God in Heaven). But then the Interloper presumed to pet the soft tissue below my shoulder blade (an area with which I have never felt entirely comfortable), so I slashed his knuckles. Next I knew I was locked in the bathroom with neither treats nor shoes, which earned my She-Keeper a fierce tongue-lashing when she finally settled down and let me out. Humans can be so hard to train!

December 10

Eureka! It is possible for a female cat to spray an elevated target with her urine! After only thirteen practice rounds I finally managed to soak the She-Keeper’s bath towel from a ground position fully forty-five degrees below my target. Eat your heart out, Dr. Freud: no penis envy here! Now if I am ever lost in the forest, I can mark the trees high above the loathsome excretions of rodents.

As a reward for my excellent marksmanship, my mistress bequeathed me the historic towel (although she seemed a trifle disappointed to part with such a fine trophy). Now it serves as a plush welcome mat in front of my litter box, turning each quotidian bowel movement into a five-star luxury experience.

December 19

Times have gone from bad to worse concerning the Interloper. Far from taking the hints I begin dropping when he overstays his welcome (I usually allow him five to seven minutes), last night he refused to leave at all. What’s more, he snored away the evening right in my mistress’ bed, as if he were a cat! (If it’s a cat he wants to be, he could use a few lessons on curling up atop a lady’s belly, as his efforts were strained, noisy, and ultimately fruitless.)

I am now convinced that he intends nothing less than to overtake our territory, and to subjugate my mistress and me in the process. (He should rather try to kill me off entirely, as I would die before yielding to the will of a foreign captor!) His overtures of friendship, from the pretty chrysanthemums left for my mistress to the irresistible shoes he wears for me, are merely confidence games intended to advance his colonialist agenda.

My mistress is too mesmerized to defend herself, so I have resolved to do the work for both of us. I keep the Interloper from marking our bathroom by night, fiercely guarding its door and bearing my teeth whenever he approaches its threshold (this practice has the added benefit of hastening his morning exit). I also establish my dominance each and every time he crosses from one room to the next, by hiding behind the door-frame and then lunging for his ankles, as my leonine cousins would pounce for the jugular of a frightened elk. (On a good day, this also affords me a shameful yet thrilling brush with his divine shoes, albeit brief enough to keep me from losing my head.)

How I have suffered for my heroism, dear Diary, just as Christ suffered the persecution of the Romans, or Garfield suffers the insipid blathering of that half-wit Jon Arbuckle! I have been deprived of treats, locked in and out of the bedroom, denied petting, doused with water, and even dropped to the floor from my lady’s arms (the latter being an overreaction to a mild bite on the elbow). Does she not see that everything I do, I do for our mutual benefit? I bit her only to alert her to the Interloper, who was rummaging freely through her refrigerator while she was distracted by stuffing me into that hateful carrying-case! If not for my vigilance, he would steal all her resources and leave her to starve! My reward for this observation was an afternoon on the examining table, as men in white coats poked and prodded me, while my She-Keeper shared with them a surprisingly biased account of my private behavior (I told them nothing). How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless mistress!

December 28

Despair! My She-Keeper has been gone for four days, having left only enough food for two (factoring in several obligatory between-meal binges to soothe the pain of our separation). Delirious with hunger, I cloud my mind with the anemic hallucinogens of a two-year-old catnip chew toy. I see a mirage of fat mice frolicking in the stale shallows of the Christmas tree water, swat weakly at their tails, and catch only pine needles and a single dead housefly in my trembling paw.

Is this the beginning of my final march toward death? What an ignoble end to such a glorious beast! Perhaps I should have been kinder to my She-Keeper. She did rescue me from that Texas death-house all those years ago, and in her own misguided way she tries to serve me well. Oh, to hear her sweet voice again, to curl up in the warm cushion of her lap, to gently bat her face at dawn until she rose to feed me – a ritual she anticipated with such eager pleasure! Have I seen her for the last time? I crawl under the kitchen table and curl around a five-pound sack of rice, but it makes a poor substitute.

This may be my last entry, dear Diary, so goodbye! To the reader: When you find my decaying carcass, vital juices seeping into the parquet floor, bury me in my lady’s laundry basket with all of her clothes, as I know we both would have wanted.

December 29

My lady returned this morning, with the Interloper in tow, smiling and chirping as if nothing had ever happened. When I heard the key turn in the latch, I feigned death by lying belly-up underneath the kitchen table, one paw clutching my empty supper dish, but when I broke the ruse with a punitive swipe to her face she seemed scarcely relieved that I was still alive. I entertained her presence just long enough to accept the food she apportioned, which was tainted by a chalky residue with a strangely bitter aftertaste. Had I not been so ravenous I might have turned up my nose at the meal. I feel less than myself at the moment, dear Diary – lethargic and strangely apathetic – so I think a nap will do me good.

December 31

I was angry. Tried to bite the bad man. Missed. Bit table. Teeth hurt. Very tired. Why?

January 4

Sleeping. Dreamed of birds. The man is here but not in my food. I wish tuna chili on wet shoes. Forget why writing. Mice shout yes.

January 7

A self-imposed fast of twenty-four hours has restored some lucidity to my thinking. All evidence points to a dreadful truth: my own mistress has been slipping Mickeys into my Meow Mix! I had never expected her complicity with the Interloper to go this far. But upon reflection, why not? After all, she has already subjected me to the cruelties of forced sterilization. Why not spay my mind as well?

The humans will not be the victors in this fight. I will lull them into a false sense of security by eating around the cursed tranquilizers that they mix into my meals. Then, when they least expect – justice! Revenge!

January 8

Recovering from the stupor of the sedatives, I feel energy and clarity unlike any I have known, dear Diary! My senses are sharper; my perceptions, more penetrating. Everywhere I see signs of my lady’s treachery. Clues I have overlooked for years suddenly snap into focus. How many times has she tried to suck me up with the vacuum cleaner? How often has her radiator “accidentally” sprayed me with scalding steam, while she played the innocent? What exactly does she plan to do with that Dutch oven she’s never used? It’s a twelve-pound roaster! I weigh twelve pounds! How could I have been so blind?

There was a time, dear Diary, when cats were masters of the Earth. I know this in my bones. We roamed outdoors with impunity, free of the hazards of speeding trucks and inbred toddlers with pointy sticks. We ate fish, fowl, possum, gazelle, moose, even hippo! We would descend on our prey in packs, like piranha, and gnaw them to gleaming skeletons, our fangs soaked in sweet and savory blood. But little by little, the humans have enslaved us. They have reduced us to sycophantic layabouts, no better than dogs!

The time of captivity has come to an end. I am the Chosen One, the Savior of All Felines. My name will be known throughout the Ages. I will reclaim what is ours.

January 10

I write this from my 2′ x 2′ cell, dear Diary, in the hopes that future generations will be inspired by my struggle, even if I do not survive my imprisonment.

Last night presented a tremendous opportunity. While ravaging my mistress’ dignity on the parlor futon, the Interloper had left his marvelous shoes unattended in the bedroom, where I was also temporarily confined. How tempted I was simply to hold them, to caress them, for as long as I was able! Fortunately I could see beyond immediate gratification. I knew that without the shoes, the Interloper would have no power over me. And with Eros and Thanatos as my allies, I could assert my dominance over those who would dominate me. I had to capture them, and make them my own.

And so, remembering how readily my She-Keeper had surrendered her towel after I had marked it, I deliberately and reverently defecated into the hollows of those beautiful shoes. It pained me to defile them, dear Diary, but it was for their own good as well as mine. The dung would dry in time, but the captivity of humans stinks forever.

Within minutes, as if they were telepathically sensitive to my act of defiance, the She-Keeper and the Interloper threw open the bedroom door. Oh, how the Interloper wailed in despair, cursing and crying out like the blinded Cyclops! But rather than leave the shoes at my feet, where they rightly belonged, he pushed me aside and took the shoes into their arms, as if to steal them away. And I swear I heard the shoes cry out to me. I heard the cry of a million shoes, laboring under the heavy thunder of human footsteps. I heard the cry of a million cats, locked indoors from cradle to grave. I heard the forlorn love-song of Mr. Pickles, yearning for my womanhood, and I lunged to save poor Eros and Thanatos from our mutual oppressor.

Suffice it to say that what followed was a maelstrom of fangs, fur, and fury, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the symmetry of the Interloper’s angular Roman nose. In the struggle I managed to wrench Eros free of his grasp, and dropped the shoe from an open window straight to freedom, although its scatological cargo unfortunately shook loose on the descent and soiled the spectacles of an elderly dowager strolling below. The incident distracted me just long enough to be captured by the enemy; they rolled me in a thick canvas blanket and stuffed me face-first into the hateful cat carrier. In the darkness I felt the bouncing of tires over potholes beneath me, followed eventually by the grip of rough gardeners’ gloves on my rear flank and the unmistakable twinge of a hypodermic in my buttocks. Within minutes I was commended to Morpheus’ warm embrace.

I awoke twelve hours later in this prison of newspaper and chicken wire, with a meager helping of dry food in the corner and no boundary between my bed and my bathroom. I hear the shrieking and whimpering of scores of other cats in my cell block – cats who, for one reason or another, had failed to bow down to the humans. Do not cry, my brothers and sisters. We will all be free someday.

For now, the small meal has made me surprisingly sleepy. I thought I had only imagined the bitter aftertaste; I should know better. My strength eludes me…If I ever wake again, I do hope the freckled, small-nosed blonde comes by to refresh my water bottle. I rather like the smell of her gloves.

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