Atomic Nerds

Ok, you all know the drill. You have open comments, sooner or later you’re gonna get some Weird Shit(TM) in there. Tam has her ghost in the machine poetry, you get the jist (because I’m too lazy to grab other examples). Back when we were still writing more regularly, we got a doozy. I mean, wow. I’ve had this thing sitting in the pending folder for over a year because every time I go to look at it again, I boggle just as hard as the very first time.

It wasn’t even submitted to a post relevant to the crazy. It was on the one about burning more hot dog buns. I mean, dafuq.

With the original well over a year old at this point, I feel it’s safe to share without attracting the attention of yon batshit loon. I mean if he, she, or it does come back, more free entertainment, right? That said, enjoy one of the biggest blocks of crazy I’ve ever read on the internet.

Just as the gods used WWII to justify an influx of new technologies so will they use the impending pestilence which kills over half the world’s population to justify historical medical advances, including the “cure of aging”, initiating the “1000 years with Jesus on Earth”.
We’ve seen this tactic used recently with AIDS, targetted at homosexuals and blacks in Africa.
Then, as promised, The End will come with fire::::Global tectonic subduction.

Anyone the gods role play telepathically or use for positioning in this Situation extensively have a legacy of hurting others. The more they hurt the more eggregious in history their legacy. Considering they tell me my auidence at any one time is nearly half a billion it is not inconceivable Adolph Hitler was reincarnated into the Situation.
Due to the expansive accumulated audience in this Situation these individuals have now qualified for a legacy of hurting billions of people, and as a result own a very exclusive legacy which will qualify them to be used for the pestilence event which kills half the world’s population:::The monsters of tommarrow.

Don’t forget the lessons the ‘ole white preacher taught:::Dancing is a sin, spare the rod spoil the child.
The gods used the liberal tool to ridicule away so many taboos, paving the way for the decay of society and ultimately the End Times::::::
Black behavior was controlled by the KKK. Men’s behavior was controlled by marriage for thousands of years.
When married by 15 men never gained the taste of promiscuity. Once the gods used the budding liberalism tool the men set the tone for the deteriorating enviornment centered around their gross disfavor.
Women’s relinquishing control of pre-arranged marriage will be what costs mankind everything in The End. It’s all their fault. Men are pigs, essentially just primally responsive disfavored beings who if given the freedom will abuse based on the impulses the god’s push them into. Whereas under pre-arranged marriage this behavior was contained now the promiscuous fraternity house epitomizes the pinnicle of what a “real man” should be like. And sadly the women fall into line.

The gods behave monsterously in the course of managing Planet Earth, matching our decay, but they demand people be good if you are to have a chance to ascend as a child in a future life.
Not only is doing the right things important (praying, attoning for your sins, thinking the right way:::accepting humility, modesty, vulnerability), so is avoiding the wrong things important as well:::”Go and sin no more”.
You NEED active parents who share wisdom to have a real chance to ascend into heaven in a future life, and you MUST be a good parent as well to have that opportunity.

As with so many things in this life “less is more”. Sex is one of those things. They used the liberal age to promote casual “free” sex intentionally::Combined with “women’s lib” and their initiation into the “trenches” of the workplace as well as other issues like alcohol consumption the people experienced a mass masculinization of the females.
The gods use sex as temptation. This is why the most disfavored among us are preoccupied with it. While some may feel being well-endowed is a sign of favor the truth is just the opposite. And often the result is misogyny, a belittling of the favored gender, and stagnation of the people as a whole.
Less is more. When young women experience passing thoughts which say you’re doing something wrong instead of fighting or dismissing the thought you should heed the warning. Sadly in today’s world too many experience prolonged periods of promiscuity in their lives, whereas if married by 15 like throughout human history this disfavor was avoided.
Don’t forget:::It is children who ascend into heaven, and the absence of sexual activity is one reason. Their general innocence is another, which should help you see the destructive nature of adult life in today’s society.

…
…..
…….The Aristocrats!

Somewhere on the endless expanse of open space between secret locations:

“Well, yeah. You and I don’t need to spend three grand on a scope yet until we can make full use of something from Leupold that costs half as much. It’s kinda different spending your own money, y’know? I mean he just goes in and the whole thing goes down like “Hi, I’m OldNFO* and I’m awesome.” “Holy shit, you are! Have this amazing rifle!”

*It sounded even funnier with his real name in, and I don’t know why. If you know the guy, you understand.

Ahh, Blogorado. The traditional time of year when LabRat and I gather up a few necessary supplies and hie off for the middle of nowhere, that being a vastly preferable alternative to civilization, the latter having cell phones galore, powerpoint, and a general excess of assholes, the former having good friends, good conversation, and, most relevant to our story, a joint with a really good breakfast menu.

Last year, day after day a mass of hungry, rambunctious, and very visibly armed bloggers descended daily on The Obligatory Cow Reference* for breakfast. While we represented a non-trivial increase in their daily turn-over for the run of the visit, they were a bit unprepared for a regularly scheduled mob scene. This year, with a bit of forewarning and a bit** of foresight, they had sense to stuff the lot of us off into a separate room, safely sequestered from the regulars. All was good, and many arteries were filled with delicious gravy.

Now in some parts of the world, the job of waiter or waitress is given as much cachet as being a full blown chef. Culinary schools in France, for example, require all students to spend time working the front of the house as well as the line, and being a good waiter is taken as seriously as any other part of the restaurant world. Unfortunately, our waitress on Sunday did not get this memo.

Now, I like to give people a break when the situation warrants it. A party of 20 or so, with roughly 25 different conversations running in parallel can be a bit daunting to jump in the middle of to find who wants biscuits and gravy and who wants their eggs scrambled and who wants tomato juice and so on. I would have had more sympathy had I not recognized this same girl from last year, but still, this situation was a bit outside normal operating parameters. No, the main problem with this situation was not her inability to juggle the juice, but in her signboard.

Sitting next to Matt, and his father JPG, shortly after our coffee was refilled, The Comment came from Matt.

“It’s driving me nuts. I’ve gotta fix it.”

No discussion was necessary. Everybody in the immediate circle nodded solemnly in agreement.

She was wearing a sign around her neck, proclaiming “Its my last day! Please tip generously!”

“Does anybody have a marker?”
“I’ve got a sharpie in my range bag, but that’s back at the hotel. I could be back before she gets the hash browns out, I bet.”
Breakfast conversations at Blogorado being highly fluid, Vine had picked up on the discussion and joined in.
“Marker? I’ve got one in the truck, and I can get to that a damn sight faster than you can get to the hotel and back.”

We all considered this for a moment.

“Do it.”

Vine nipped out, and returned within moments carrying a large, black, chisel-tip sharpie of unnecessary proportions.

“Who’s going to do it?”
“JPG and I are closer, but we’d be at an angle. Straight on may be the way to go.”
“You’ve got reach. We can distract her when she brings the oatmeal.”
“All right. Hand it here.”

We waited for our plates. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. We even got bored and tried to snag her as she brought out a fresh carafe of coffee, since the consumption of same was measured in gallons per minute, but our collective cries of “Miss?” “Waitress?” “Hey, airhead!” and so forth bounced off her like raisins off a canoe.

Finally we got her attention. She slid into an open space to stand between JPG and myself, directly across from Matt. Almost like we’d set up such a position in advance. JPG started in, nice and friendly. Well, he started that way.

“Tell me, miss, what are you going to do since today is your last here?”
“Oh! I’m going to college!”
If you’re familiar with the late 90s TV series “Daria“, just imagine Brittney’s voice here. Suffice to say her response raised more than one eyebrow. JPG, being possessed of age and cunning, kept his poker face.
“Well that’s excellent. Where are you going?”
“WTU!”
“And where is that?”
“Um, west Texas?”
“I mean what is the name of the school.”
“WTU!”
“Miss, I don’t think they’re going to let you in if you can’t say the full name of the institution.”

Our prey was growing wary at this point, and beginning to shy away from the table full of people demanding such unreasonable precision. Matt, using keen hunting instincts, realized that our opportunity was dwindling and sprang.

“Miss,” he inquired, causing her to turn a few degrees towards him, presenting the sign straight on. He continued, “Miss, just one thing,” and began unfolding himself across the table. Now to put this in proper reference, our waitress was maybe four foot ten in her good heels. Matt is roughly eleven foot thirty when he slouches. Suddenly, this poor, beleaguered blonde bimbo found a creature best known for shouting “Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum” rising in the direction of her chest.

Strangely, this caused alarm.

She began to back away. “Miss, I just need to fix this.” JPG put a hand up behind her shoulder to block her retreat. Still unconvinced she moved towards me, whereupon I did the same. She was trapped.

Matt struck, and deftly drew an apostrophe. A relieved sigh went up from the conspirators, and Matt sat back down as we released her.

“Thank you, miss. I just needed to correct your sign.”
“Huh?” The deer-in-the-headlights effect remained in place.
“Your sign was incorrect. It had the possessive form of ‘it’ instead of the contraction. I don’t think they’d appreciate it if you showed up at college and didn’t know the difference.”
“Oh, um, the kitchen staff… they made… can I go now?”

We finished breakfast, studiously not looking too closely at our food, just in case, and tipped reasonably generously, considering.

Amazingly, we were not banned from The Obligatory Cow Reference for forcibly spell-checking their waitress, but the staff for the next few days did keep a bit of extra distance unless strictly necessary.

*I’d give the proper name, but I’d really like Secret Location, CO to remain secret. Otherwise it’d just become civilization and Blogorado would fill up with assholes, and if I have to put up with assholes on my vacation, the scene will Not Be Pretty. Suffice it to say it’s like every other small western agricultural town, and local establishments sport various names like “The Jersey Heffer” or “Hoofs n’ Horns” or “The Golden Spur.”
**A bit, but not enough. We ran them out of quite a bit of food before their resupply.

Kang is in heat. For those of you who have not experienced the special joy and wonder epic pain in the ass that is a bitch in heat, especially if they are younger dogs that have never been bred, they get very swollen external genitalia, and they leak- blood and other fluids. Kang in full peak has had certain key bits compared to a rotting peach. We don’t want bitchgoo all over our carpet, so Kang has what we refer to as “bitch britches”, which is basically a diaper for dogs that can be used with sanitary pads marketed for humans. A visual illustration- click for big:

Last time we established a fairly good routine; britches on when she’s inside to prevent getting bitchgoo everywhere, britches come off when she’s out so she can clean herself up, and also because she will pee in them if she’s out. Or, at least she did once and I’m not eager to find out if that was enough to teach her not to.

Unfortunately, SOMEthing that we are both allergic to is blooming with extreme vigor right now, and I have a choice between being slow-witted and and out of it from the allergy attack or slow-witted and out of it from the pills that stave off the allergy attack. This morning I was operating on autopilot and unthinkingly turned her out in the yard to eat her breakfast while still wearing her britches. It only took me a few minutes to realize “OH GOD, Kang in heat, in yard, alone, still in her pants!” and I got to her as she was licking up the last of her food, completely unmolested. I asked her to come inside. She complied happily enough and soaked up the warm praise and petting- and promptly shot back outside as soon as I stepped aside a bit to let Kodos out to do his own business. She tossed me a big, smug, victory grin.

The one game that Kang enjoys above all else is being chased. She has come up with seemingly endless variations on ways to get us to want to chase her, from stealing tools to teasing the neighbor dogs; in the case of having stolen something, ignoring her does not work, as she will simply bury the item and the next time we’ll see, say, the hammer again is when she tries to tempt us with it at a random moment of yardwork. It’s just charming, in the sense that I have never been more tempted to turn her into a jacket lining than when she is forcing us into one of these little sessions. On our end, we’ve done all we can to convince her that under no circumstances are we willing to chase her, and her only chance at any sort of reward is to come to us, and if she has something, trade for it. This has been an uphill battle, but one we’ve mostly been winning lately.

I tried calling her as though nothing were unusual. The desperation in my voice not to have her soak her pants must have bled through, because she smirked at me and took off at that maddening trot calculated to be just ten percent faster than whatever pace I’m trying for. I tried again in what I hoped was my very best hey-let’s-party voice and wound up half-shouting:

“Oh come on sweetheart, please, please, baby girl, c’mon, I just want to take off your pants!”

She laughed at me and took off with a happy bounce in her step. Naturally. She did let me catch her a few minutes later- if you let your human get too frustrated too early on you won’t be able to reward desired behavior, after all.

So after several months she finally got one of us to play chase on her terms again, and now my neighbors may well think I’m a child molestor, but… at least her pants are dry.

I’m not going to beat around the bush. I hated high school. Sure, it had its moments, as does just about anything, but the introduction to the wonderful world of pointless bureaucracy, arbitrary regulations, and whim-driven policies, combined with five gallons of hormones per person didn’t exactly make it the shining pinnacle of my existence that it apparently was for some. And on a side note, I believed then and still do that if high school represents the best years of your life, you should probably do everyone else a favor and remove yourself from the gene pool as quickly as possible, and for preference in some hilarious manner suitable for a Darwin award. I didn’t struggle with my classes or any of that, but there were very few people around that I actually liked and found interesting. Combine that with the fact that I was already branded as slightly weird from grades K-8, had plenty of marksmanship medals on my ROTC uniform, and the most frequent phrase used in my English classes was “Go back to sleep, Stingray” after turning the correct answer to whatever was posed to me into a smart-ass remark*, none of my classmates were exactly gung-ho about boarding the ol’ Stingray’s Friend Train.

Needless to say, I did not miss my classmates after graduation. Of course there were one or two people I genuinely did like, blah blah blah, friends 4-eva, etc. I stayed in touch with them on my own. I didn’t get an invitation to the last reunion, and I’m rather pleased with that state of events.

So a week or two ago I was getting breakfast at the local hot-spot. While waiting on the crew to finish assembling my breakfast burrito, someone I went to school with walked through the door. There was really no question who she was, even though the last time I’d seen her was *coughgrumble* years ago. I also remembered just as quickly what a blithering idiot she was, and that she was more than a little vain at the time too. She looked at me for a few seconds while the gerbil tried to engage the wheel in her head.

“Say, aren’t you Stingray?”
I looked around to make sure she wasn’t talking to someone else. “Me? No, sorry miss. My name is Alan.”
“Are you sure? You look exactly like someone I went to school with!”
“Sorry, I went to school in Texas. I guess I can at least thank you for telling me I’ve got a long lost twin running around somewhere.”
“That’s weird, you really look like him.”
“Sorry to disappoint. Have a good one.” Fortunately, my burrito was ready at this point, and I was able to escape.

I should probably work up a better cover story in case they find me for the next reunion. Maybe I’ll call myself Michael Westen.

*That I could do so so reliably and answer so correctly at the same time unnerved one teacher so much that by the end of the year she had resumed smoking after being clear of the habit for five years. I found this out shortly after graduation from the teacher in the room next door.

In the comments on yesterday’s post about idiots who don’t leash their dogs, a few folks noted that it might be helpful to leash kids, too. Now let me just put forth that I have nothing against this notion in and of itself, at least not now that I’m an adult. Kids are often about as predictable as gas molecules, frequently move at around the same velocity, and require constant supervision. If your kids don’t heel off lead as well as they should, another training tool to help out would certainly be welcome, I imagine.

That said, it still helps to pay attention. When I was in the right age range to be a horrible little snot, running off and getting into trouble while my folks had me in public, my mom turned at one point to the use of a harness. Bouncing around in that excited state that only superheated gasses and small children can manage, I’d run up against the end of my tether, and mom would reel me back in. Other folks in the store were spared my attentions, and she didn’t have to stop what she was doing every five seconds to keep me out of trouble. Great system, right? Only, as it turns out, if I don’t have cover.

At one point in the local department store, mom was sorting through the patterns in the sewing section. Nearby were the usual clothes racks, circular affairs that when full of clothes had a hollow core that just screamed “Cool Fort Here!” to obnoxious little brats like myself. Since the rack was within leash range, I set about entertaining myself with all sorts of pretend battles and so forth. Just regular brat-in-a-fort stuff. Since all of this was right at the end of my leash, I was keeping reasonably steady pressure on the line, and this convinced my mom that everything was fine. Having noticed this pattern as she used the slack to keep track of me while distracted, I somehow formed a plan: I climbed around a little and wrapped my leash on the clothes rack to keep the line taut, and slipped out. Mom was still absorbed with the sewing patterns, so I set off on a unfettered romp around the store.

Some time later, the store owner (a gentleman my family had known for quite some time) noticed me bouncing around like a superball and led me back to mom. I wish I was old enough to either appreciate everything going on, or remember the expression on her face, or get a camera, or something, but I’m told she looked at me, looked at the leash, looked down the leash to where I had tied it off, and said something very unladylike that must be responsible for why I’m as warped today as I am.

There’s still a trace of shell-shock in her expression when she tells the story today, especially when she observes “I realized I was screwed when I was outsmarted by a two and a half year old.”

I consider myself lucky in my upbringing. Today, people consider it necessary to go to fancy places like BlackWater or Thunder Ranch to learn various ways to improve home security. Me, I learned everything I need to know by the time I was 12, and since LabRat is still shaking off her cold, y’all get to hear how it came about. Don’t worry, she’ll be healthy again sooner or later, it shouldn’t be more than a day or two more of my drivel.

When I was around eight or nine years old, the family’s pet tarantula was released back into the wild from which it came. I don’t remember the exact motivation for this, since no one in the house was afraid of spiders, and feeding it was a family entertainment event, but such is the storage capacity of a young mind. Fang was gone, and there was a gaping hole in the terrarium he/she/it had lived in. A few months later, our next door neighbor came by in a state of some concern.

“Hey, could one of you guys come take a look at this? There’s a snake cornered in my back yard, and I think it’s a rattler. I wanted to get some extra eyes on it before I kill it just in case it gets me or one of the dogs or something.” I recall even at the time thinking the expression betrayed a greater apprehension at the existence of snakes in general than the possibility of one being poisonous. Snakes were not his strong suit. I was told to simply stay put in our own back yard while Mom and Dad went to investigate. A few minutes later I heard their voices over the fence.

“Aww, it’s just a baby bull snake!” Mom exclaimed. “Don’t kill it! These are good!”
“The hell it is. It’s a snake, and it’s leaving here one way or the other.”
“Oh, fine. Chicken. Hey Stingray!” she called over the fence “Throw that little toy picnic basket over the fence, I’m gonna catch it!”

Moments later I saw our neighbor’s head appear above the fence line. He had climbed onto one of his junk cars so as to, ah, “not interfere.” Yeah, that’s why he was up there…

Anyway, a few minutes later we had a tiny bull snake not even a foot long in a plastic picnic basket. A brief discussion ensued, involving exclamations of “Oh cool!” and “Can we keep it?!” and without much arm twisting, my Mom and I convinced Dad that this hissing bundle of scaly cuteness should be the new pet in the terrarium. Me being of the age where Disney was still the preferred entertainment, the name “Little Sir Hiss,” was chosen after the snake in the animated version of “Robin Hood.” The snake didn’t respond when we called the name, and we didn’t expect the snake to play fetch, so everybody was happy with the arrangement.

Fast forward a few years. Little Sir Hiss was by no means little anymore. With a steady diet of mice (feeding was once again family entertainment, as well as a test of nerves for guests - “Go on, just hold it in by the tail, the snake will take care of the rest!”), Hiss had grown to well over three feet and a very respectable girth for a bull snake. His tank had been upgraded a time or two, and to keep his heat lamp at a good distance, my dad built a custom lid for it. Unfortunately, Hiss was apparently one of those quirks of nature who find the temperature their environment is supposed to be at on the cold side, and made a habit of climbing up into the lid to get closer to the bulb.

One day as feeding time was drawing near, I peeked into the cage to see how frisky the snake was. Not seeing scale nor tail, I leaned down and looked into his favorite hidey hole in the tank lid. Curiously, this was empty as well. I took this as generally Not A Good Sign.

Reporting in to my parents, we made a fair effort in searching the house. Under the sofa by the trombe wall, in the greenhouse, various places one might expect a heat-seeking pet to head for. Alas, nothing turned up. As we were reasonably sure the snake was still in the house, we simply sealed up any doors and windows he might be able to escape through, and figured he’d turn up. We were cautious about getting through doors quickly, and when folks came to the front door selling girl scout cookies or handing out fliers for the religion of the week or whatnot, we would step quickly through and shut the screen door behind us to conduct business on the porch.

Remember how I said this was all about home security? Well, as it turns out the only thing you need to do to make sure your house is never broken into is to casually mention “Let’s talk out here, the snake escaped and is loose in there somewhere” to a few people. In the week that snake was loose, I saw more faces go ashen, more knees begin to knock, and in one notable case, the pizza guy looked about half a second shy of actually wetting his pants.

“That’ll be $12.75.”
“Sure, let me just step out and get the door shut. Our snake is loose in there somewhere.”
“Snake?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a pet bull snake.”
“Pet?”
“Well he doesn’t do tricks or anything, but sometimes he’ll ride around on a neck or something.”
“Keep the snake inside. Definitely keep the snake inside. It didn’t get out just now did it?” He was backing up with every comment. If this didn’t wrap up soon, we might have been picking our pizza out of the grill of whatever hit him.
“No, he’s been missing a few days. We check when we go in or out to make sure he’s not — ”
“$12.75!”
“Um, ok. Here’s $15, keep the- ”
There was a twanging noise as his internal panic-spring finally let go and he ran back to his car. Shrugging, I went back inside. As I went through the entry way, I glanced over at where Mom habitually set her purse and keys when she came in. Perched atop her handbag, happy as I’ve ever seen a snake look, was Little Sir Hiss. He flicked his tongue at me in greeting, and I let him wrap around my arm before I took the pizza into the dining room.

We lived in a good neighborhood at the time, and LabRat and I still do (coincidentally the house where all this happened is two minutes walk from here), but I know now that if I ever need to beef up home security, you don’t need any fancy electronics, big guns, or vicious dogs. Just tape a simple handwritten sign to the doors:

“Remember to keep this shut so the snake doesn’t get out!”

I wish I could give you folks an mp3 of this, but thanks to the timing involved that just wasn’t possible. You’ll have to take my word that this is really how it went down.

Some months ago, due to reasons that I would love to bitch about but probably shouldn’t, I had to set up a laptop for one of my bosses with some business plan software on it. The easiest plan to get this done involved my name going into the software company’s computers instead of hers. Since then, I’ve gotten a little spam from them about their other products and services, but nothing major. Today, this changed. Today, they started trying to pimp their Business Plan Coaching service by phone. What is business plan coaching, you ask? Beats the hell out of me, but apparently it’s

“…to help you pursue your goals of business financing, show you how to develop a business plan that includes cash flow, pursue business growth by applying best practices to your plan, help you develop strategies for implementing your plan, hold you accountable to follow through and complete vital tasks, and to provide the experience and needed motivation to help you succeed!”

Among other things. Now I’ll be the last to begrudge anyone the chance to make a buck, but everything about this from the get go has seemed about half a step away from a headset and making sure the camera guy was following this. Today’s calls served only to reinforce this impression.

“Hello?”
“Hi! May I speak to Stingray?”
“Speaking.”
“My name is Heidi*, and I’m with {Personal Business Coaching}, do you have a few moments to talk about our services?”

After a bit of futher conversation, it was arranged that one of their Personal Coaches would call me back in half an hour to see if I was in need of Personal Coaching. If they had actually waited a full half hour instead of jumping the gun and calling ten minutes later, the rest of this might be a lot funnier, and accompanied by mp3. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

“Hi, may I speak to Stingray?”
“Speaking!”
“I’m Sarah**, a personal coach with {Personal Business Coaching}, and I’ve got a message that you may be interested in our service! May I ask how you heard of us? Did you download {software title}, or get our publication?”
“The software. Yeah, I needed a new business plan.”
“That’s great! A good business plan is always a good path forward. Is your company an existing business, or are you new to all this?”
“We’re existing, we’ve been around a couple years.”
“That’s great, and how are you doing? Are things going well? The economy has really been hammering small business owners.”
“Actually, we’re running a pretty good profit. Even with the economy, people still need porn*** when they’re bored and feeling down. It’s really a pretty stable vehicle, but you know how it is, there are always little gotchas and problems.”
“Um.. ok. So are you having any trouble with your business that we could help with?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I am having some trouble with staffing.”
“Oh? What kind of trouble?”
“Mostly in finding competent staff. I mean, the population of albinos already isn’t huge, and to find one willing to work on top of that… well, do you know what kind of time and effort that head hunting takes?”
“Well, no… what sort of…”
“And even if you do find an albino who’s willing to act, there are certain physical aspects to consider, and keeping track of them is a pretty big timesink.”
“Um..”
“I mean, have you seen the shape of the fists on some midgets? Let’s just say it’s tricky. There can be complications.”
“*click*”
“Hello? Miss?”

I guess I don’t need personal coaching after all.

*Really.
**Heidi sounded much more gullible fun.
***I tried to muffle/distort that a little for good measure.

First, a little bit of background biological trivia. There will not be a quiz later, but I promise it is relevant to the story.

Cats, unlike dogs, need to learn how to properly kill prey from another cat, which will almost certainly be their mother. While you can see puppies descended from generations of show-ring ancestors practicing their killing bite-and-shake on a soft toy just as a matter of natural play, cats need to learn this behavior specifically- the stalk, chase, and pounce are built-in instinct, but the mechanics of the actual kill are not. Cats are one of the few predators that makes any special effort to kill large prey before it settles down to a meal rather than merely hoping to impede or immobilize it; most of us are familiar with near-surgical bite to the back of the neck to sever the spinal cord, but fewer have watched and understood footage of a lion or leopard firmly clamped on a large ungulate’s throat; the cat is not trying to “go for the jugular”, which is actually quite difficult to do properly, but to cut off its trachea and suffocate it. Useful tactics for a short-winded but powerful ambush predator but less so for a high-stamina chase-and-slasher, these techniques are apparently sufficiently advanced that they require enough education of young that the more rudimentary final-kill skills have faded from the library of instinctual behavior. Suffice to say, a domestic cat born to non-hunting indoor parents will not know how to kill prey. Our Siamese, Zydeco, is one such cat- fantastic enthusiasm and stalk-and-pounce instincts, but no practical knowledge.

So it came to be last night that at some point well past a decent hour, Zydeco started up with his I-have-a-problem howl. Stingray and I were full of immediate dread- Zydeco’s range of potential problems is limited, and most often his problem turns out to be that he feels sick and is about to create a spectacular new carpet pattern. However, this time, he sounded oddly… muffled. We were still trying to figure out what in the seven hells was going on when it became apparent what his problem was: he had bolted into our bedroom carrying a mouse, which he didn’t know what to do with. Being a sociable and fairly clever cat, he’d brought his problem to us. Being very excited and very inexperienced, he promptly dropped and lost control of the mouse, which was now firmly OUR problem. A confused session of upending and shaking everything in the bedroom eventually failed to turn up a mouse, and we were thus forced to give up and go back to bed for some very uneasy rest. (The dogs, who were of the opinion that it was WAY past their bedtimes and certainly too late for this nonsense, refused to stir themselves for any of it.)

Fast forward to early this afternoon, and Stingray noticed that Zydeco seemed oddly interested in the fireplace. He loves the fireplace with all his heart and soul, but he’s not usually excited about it unless he sees someone loading wood in. Stingray correctly drew the conclusion that the mouse had found refuge somewhere inside the fireplace, and summoned me to get an appropriate capture device. After handing him a cardboard box (far too large) and a jug normally used for iced tea (opening far too narrow), Stingray settled on having me empty the ash bucket so he could use that. Eventually he applied his Leatherman to the task of disassembling the appropriate part of the fireplace insert, and the mouse made an immediate break for it. Zydeco, who had been ready for just this moment for the last ten minutes and possibly his entire life, immediately caught it and attempted to race off with it. Stingray, figuring he was clearly just going to drop it unharmed again, lunged for the cat and mouse and succeeded in dumping the rest of the ashes over the cat’s head while the mouse escaped behind the entertainment center. Zydeco’s mews of excitement turned into furious yowls of outrage. We, and the newly interested Kang, regrouped in front of the TV, bringing the pack up to four actively involved members with three species represented.

Eventually, we succeeded in harrying the mouse out from behind the TV and shelving, where it made a bold strike for the dining room with Kang in hot pursuit and the rest of us in slightly cooler pursuit. She probably would have caught it then and there if the entryway in between hadn’t been tile- she nearly spun out making the turn, and had to get her hind legs back under control. As it was, she succeeded in pinning it by the bookshelves in the dining room… and, because it was small enough to completely disappear beneath her big snowshoe paw, she became confused about where it had gone and managed to let it go in the process of figuring that out. The mouse found itself a new refuge under another set of shelves in the office, which fortunately for us has enough space underneath it to look under- and, with the help of tools, reach under. Kang and Zydeco covered each end while Stingray covered the middle. Some sorting-out followed while we determined where the mouse was and Zydeco established that no, Kang was NOT to muscle in on his position. (She apologized with lowered ears and a noselick, which he seemed to accept.) I prevented Kang from solving the problem by upending the bookshelf while we pondered how to proceed.

After a period that consisted mostly of cursing and furred members of the family circling like sharks, and also involved the amputation of the mouse’s tail at one point when Stingray was a fraction of a second too slow with the bucket, it was concluded that the dedicated household predators had failed and human tool use was necessary. After a fruitless search for Stingray’s air pistol, which we apparently have the box for but not the device itself, a certain amount of overkill was applied in the form of his air rifle. (It was less overkill than using the crossbow would have been, mind you.) While Kang and Zydeco enthusiastically covered for Stingray’s absence while he fetched the pellets, they were less enthusiastic about his return to the proceedings - alpha pack mate or not. Eventually he was able to get the muzzle threaded between wildly dancing paws of various sizes and line up a shot. Confirming a hit, he raked the mostly-dead mouse out from under the shelf with a fireplace poker, and stood triumphant, rifle and poker in hand while I put a plastic bucket over it to keep the animals off.

“HAH! BROKE INTO THE WRONG GOD DAMN REC ROOM DIDN’T YA?!*”

“Is it dead?”

“It was breathing.”

“What do we do with it?”

“Plastic bag?”

“It sounds like it’s gotten up again. We’ll need to figure out more than that.”

“What if we AAAAHHH NOOOOO ZYDECO NOT THE BUCKET GAH DAMMIT”

Zydeco, not to be denied his prize by mere humans at this late stage in the game, had used his paw to flip the bucket back over, grab the mouse, and bolt. Naturally, he dropped it again, where it attempted a very aborted scurry until Kang swooped in to intercept the dropped pass. At that point the question of the mouse’s final dispatch became moot; Kang definitely is not confused about how to kill prey. Since she surrendered it reasonably willingly, she was given several of the most prized sorts of dog cookies all at once while the plastic-bag plan was put into action. Zydeco was given a bit of cheese to mollify him while cleanup wrapped up.

If you’re wondering where Kodos was in all this, he was waiting by the back door for someone to notice him and let him out so he could go lie down in the cool breeze- he was almost completely distinterested in the whole affair, once he figured out what we were doing. While Akitas are supposed to be a hunting-and-guarding breed, our two have apparently split the tasks between them.

Matt and Steve have achieved cooperative three-species hunting parties in the form of raptors and dogs. While we may now technically claim the same honor, I somehow doubt that dog-and-Siamese hunting is going to catch on.

*Stingray has been waiting for ages to get a chance to use this line. Geek points for you if you recognize the source.

Rumors of our slipped sanity leading to experiments with laser guided radioactive mutant monkeys are slightly exaggerated.

As LabRat mentioned in comments for yesterday, nothing particularly traumatic in and of itself happened, save one thing. Our tattoo artist went batshit and skipped the state. I don’t know all the details, and I don’t want to repeat things that may not be accurate, but what is known is that he walked off with a good size chunk of customer deposit money and left for what he apparently considers greener pastures. We were fortunate in that our long relationship with the shop meant that we didn’t have a deposit down, and Manny, the owner of Custom Tattoo was stand-up about the whole situation, preferring to break the news in person. After spending three or four years with Mark as our artist, with at least 60 hours of work between LabRat and I, this needless to say came as a bit of a shock. As Manny put it, it’s a kick in the dick. We suddenly feel like a neurotic person must when trying to pick out a new therapist. Again, we’re fortunate in that we already know both Manny and the other artist, Jason, to be highly skilled artists, so we didn’t have to look far to find someone to finish LabRat’s leg. Really, the worst part (to us) is just simply that he won’t be there anymore. Any time someone’s sense of humor and misanthropic outlook line up so neatly with our own, it sucks to have something like this happen, especially something this odd and out of character.

Moving on before this turns into a total drama laden tear fest, there is good news from the day as well. I mentioned that it looks like at least three more people are joining the pre-Obamaban gun rush, and three more armed citizens is always worth celebrating.

Some time back, a friend of mine started asking a few questions about firearms since he knew I was interested in the subject. His office wasn’t located in the most sterling part of Albuquerque (and his new office still isn’t exactly in a crime-free zone). We bantered back and forth a bit on the subject, and I answered his questions as they came up, and in general it was a pretty soft sell. He was one of those folks who support gun rights, but just wasn’t particularly interested in joining as a vested party. Yesterday, he and his wife joined us for a trip through a very well pecked over gun shop. We were along (aside from not turning away excuses to go to the gun store) to serve as someone with a bit of a clue to help out - sort of a walking bullshit detector and sounding board. The staff at Ron Peterson’s aren’t normally of the type to pull the oft-spotted “Whatchoo need h’yar is this Thunderblast 9000! Now don’t you mind that your hand cramped just from picking it up, you’ll only need to wave it around a’fore any bad guys crap themselves runnin!” schtick, and this visit was no exception, so we spent more time in the good info-dump capacity than in the bad.

The surprising part though was the unexpected third person tagging along. I’ve mentioned in the past that one of (well, more than one honestly) of my bosses have what I will euphemistically refer to as “leftward leanings.” Y’know. Of the Prius driving sort. I had a laptop for her for some work related stuff. She teased me by suggesting we meet at the Apple Store for the hand-off, so I countered back with an offer of the gun store since my day was full anyway, and promised that the bitter clingers wouldn’t give her any trouble. I figured we’d wind up with some neutral territory, but straight out of left field came her reply that not only would the gun store be fine, but by the way at some point maybe you could give me some advice on buying a gun.

LabRat swears my expression was priceless. I wouldn’t know, since I was too busy trying to keep dust bunnies from rolling into my mouth off the floor from where my jaw dropped.

So, lather, rinse, repeat. She amazingly wasn’t aware of Obama’s record on liberty restriction (or at least this aspect of it), but took it in stride, asked intelligent questions, and had two specific purposes (home defense, as she lives alone quite a way out in the boondocks, and the possibility of having to put a sheep, horse, or goat down in an emergency) in mind to make sorting through everything easier.

My friend and his wife, I know are going to buy something. I know this because his wife told me “Oh, I know how he gets. It was like this with his cigars and camera stuff. Pretty soon the house will be filled with every laser, light, holster, and other gadget and we’ll have two or three dozen guns and he’ll be asking you about a full-size safe.” I think that’s a good sign. As for my boss, I wouldn’t say she’s absolutely a sure thing, but I’ll note she certainly did like the Springfield XD she was checking out…

Oh, and whatever assholes on the road were responsible for the drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe taking two fucking hours can choke on rancid whale blubber and water ski at Seal Island. Albuquerque to Santa Fe is normally about a half hour to 45 minutes, and those pricks kept me from getting to the homebrew store!