A Two-Hole Cat Litter Box

My wife had just finished cleaning the cat litter box when Fuzzie, the older of our two cats came in to make a deposit. This is typical behavior for him. It is as if he has a clean litter box alarm that alerts him. No matter where he is in house, when the litter box has been cleaned he moves in.

It is understandable that he might want to make the first drop on the fresh litter with the litter habits of Fat Boy, our other cat. As a matter of fact, there is a possibility that Fuzzy is waiting for Fat Boy’s deposits to be removed so he can enter and exit the litter box and without soiling his toes. Of the two cats, Fat Boy gets the most use of the litter surface

Fat Boy will keep us busy with cleaning the litter box 2-3 times per day. I remember one day, when I was occupying the throne, Fat Boy came into the bathroom to take care of his own elimination. I knew that he could use up some litter but actually witnessing it is quite an experience.

I was amazed by what that cat did. It could be more aptly called a flash flood than urinating. Had he been over an ant hill there would have been no survivors in the colony.

It was one thing to clean double fist-sized clumps of urine saturated litter from the box. It was quite another to hear a seemingly endless flow while the cat hovered in the litter box. It seems certain that he has a bladder the size of a grapefruit.

When Fat Boy was a kitten we took him to the vet out of concern for his excess water consumption. The vet did tests but could find no health issues. No one will ever believe it when I tell them that the cat consumes at least one quart of water per day.

It is a fact, though. I have isolated him and his water source from the other pets in order to get an accurate read.  At the beginning of the day he had a one quart dish filled to the brim with water. By the end of day the dish is empty and Fat Boy jumped onto the sink in search of more water when the faucet was turned on.

We don’t have an ordinary cat litter box. Those commercially made litter boxes are simply not enough. Our litter box is actually a 36” by 24” by 10” deep storage tub in which we keep no less than a five-inch level of litter to avoid urine-soaked mud on the bottom of the box.

You don’t have to worry about Fat Boy covering up his leavings, either. He could never do it alone anyway. He would have to have a motorized Tonka pay loader standing nearby to move some clay. It would be like operating a kitty landfill.

Even with this over-sized litter box, we need to clean it 2-3 times per day. I have found urine puddles on the litter and had to throw fresh litter over it before cleaning the box.

This morning, when the Fuzzy’s clean litter sensor guided him to take a dump, he got a surprise. While in the serious process of pinching off a Toostie Roll, Fat Boy came in alongside. Fuzzy wasted no time in finishing his task and getting out of the litter box. I can’t say that I blame him.

Sharing a litter box with Fat Boy would be like John Boy Walton doing his morning duty when Grandpa Walton came into the two-holer privy to do Metamucil blow. I would get out of there too. 

Can WeeBee More Gullible?

After about the um-teenth ridiculous hoax posted on Facebook by my Friends I had an idea to start a new organization of blind believers. The only qualification is that all members would have to be senselessly naive. They would have to believe whatever somebody posted on their Facebook and blindly share it with all of their Friends.

If the group really takes off then these people might even organize. They could get together from time-to-time for rallies around the country where they might jump up and down in an auditorium together and manifest their naivete in a chant. “Wee Beeleeve! We are the Weebees! Wee beeleeve everything that hoaxers and Weebees post on Facebook. Wee forward all such stupidity without hesitation because if it’s on Facebook. Wee beeleeve. Yay, Weebees!”

If you think that I’m way off of the mark then consider this post allegedly from the Houston Herald. A modern day, and unnamed, Calamity Jane put six rounds into the back of fleeing thief late at a night because he stole her purse while she waited for a bus in Texas. The next morning, the unnamed vigilante was “acquitted” at her “arraignment” by an unnamed judge. The reason that she shot the guy six times was because the gun only clicked on the seventh trigger pull. You can research this yourself or read my spin in another article.

Did you fall for the Facebook privacy notice? Don’t feel too bad. It was very legal looking for the average layperson. Sorry, though, that one was a hoax too. The gist of the notice was that you could declare all of your Facebook information private and protected if you simply posted the provided legal looking notice on your timeline. It included an invitation to all of your Friends to do the same. That one was as harmless as it was ineffective. That is not always the case.

Another post warns that gangs have started using children with a note containing a false home address to lure women into gang rape situation. This one had my attention. Thanks to a friend of mine, I have an extra-heightened awareness of misogyny and RAPE. However, before blindly sharing the post, I searched Google for the actual cases.

There are none. This hoax has clearly been debunked by websites like Snopes and Hoax Slayer that do nothing but research such things. Unfortunately, some hoaxes aren't always harmless.

A Houston local news station listed out several reasons not to buy into the gang RAPE hoax. Most alarming among them was a suggestion that such an emotional message might be a Trojan horse to spread a computer virus. That put me into Google again. You never know what to believe.

Right away I found a couple of links to sites set up for the purpose of generating fake Facebook postings. I didn't open them because I’m not about try them out. Second, I considered that such sites might be a lure to hook the unsuspecting new user for information or make them a mule to carry viruses to their Friends.

I also found out in this search that phishers are into Facebook. That was inevitable. Phishing is a term used to describe crooks who copy the presentation of trusted sites in order dupe weebees into giving up their sensitive information.

Phishing has been going on for years in other media. It was bound to hit Facebook. My first exposure was on eBay over ten years ago. A very official looking email came from eBay asking me for sensitive information that I knew that eBay already had.

The whole thing smelled foul. The URL didn't look right either. A check with eBay on the official site confirmed that I was being phished.  Around that time eBay began putting out warnings to their users to help them avoid being duped.

These hoaxes play on the emotions of people by using emotional issues. RAPE is flat out frightening to anyone who isn't a psychopath. RAPE is so ugly that it’s natural to want to join in a warning. Anything to do with guns puts people at opposite poles and pro-gun people love to show what the good guys can do with a gun. Greed is the biggest emotion that phishers play on to reel in weebees.

It only takes a minute to switch to another browser, though. Copy and paste some key words or a phrase from the Facebook posting to the Google search field. You should find the results enlightening. 

Posting fake information is tantamount to pissing on a toilet seat in a public restroom. Who, but a twisted coward, would do such a thing? That doesn't mean, though, that you have to ride the Weebee wagon.  Think rather than beelive. Don’t be a weebee.

Funny as Crap

When my sons were boys we were driving along a main artery street in the neighborhood where we lived. A summer torrential rain had recently stopped and there were puddles of water in low areas of the streets that did not properly grade to the storm sewer system. One such mini-lake was in my path and unavoidable with my right wheels.

I slowed from 35 MPH to about 20 MPH to avoid being pulled toward the curb too hard when the car hit the water. At the very moment that the car was entering the huge puddle, a dog was in the grass near the curb. With his back to the street, he was hunched into the fecal expulsion position in performance of his daily duties of fertilizing the grass with a non-hardening brownstone.

Also at that very moment, every pair of eyes in our car was focused on what was about to happen to that poor dog. As the car broke a path through the puddle an eight-foot-tall wall of water was launched over the unsuspecting canine. There was a turd about half discharged from his anus when the water hit this four-legged fellow.

I can’t swear exactly to every detail of that happened next. However, from the way that the dog bolted I have to believe that this was probably one of the only times in his life that he had the crap scared INTO him. I have no doubt that when the shock of the wall of cold water hit, the dog’s colon caused a reverse direction on that soft brownstone and made a distinct little sucking noise just before the anus slammed shut on the re-entry.

I am going to go so far as to suggest that when that back door closed, it closed so tight that a pinworm couldn't have passed the sphincter in either direction. That dog could not have farted for several days of carrying a belly full of gas induced of cabbage, beer and pickled eggs. So traumatized the dog must have been that, if he was prone to alternative sex acts, there would be no amount of pheromone exchange that could entice a parting of pink under his tail.

My sons are grown with families of their own now but they never tire of hearing or telling this story. For us the incident was funnier than a fart in a spacesuit. For the poor hapless dog it had to be just wrong!

Girls and Gun Battles - Let's Keep It Real

Recently a good friend of mine posted on Facebook what was supposed to be an article from the Houston Herald. I’ll not quote the whole article in interest of brevity. Here is my short version.

A Calamity Jane wannabee, in Houston, Texas, was standing on street corner, late at night, waiting for the bus to take her home. She had her purse strap over her left shoulder and gripped it tightly with her left hand. Her night of restaurant server earnings and a handgun were in the purse. Her right hand was gripping the gun inside the purse when a street punk grabbed her it from behind her and ran.

Having a tight grip on the handgun brought it out of the purse as the punk grabbed. She took aim and fired six shots into the back of the punk as he ran away. She was arrested and jailed.

The next morning an arraignment judge asked for her story and she told it. Next, the judged asked why she fired six shots into the man.

“Cuz when I pulled the trigger the seventh time the gun only went click.”

The woman was acquitted and set free.

I have to admit that I laughed the first time that I read this story. There are a lot of elements to the story that would strike somebody as funny. The article was titled Gun Control Texas Style.

First, we always love a story when the average citizen gets over on a punk. My favorite story is Sarah McKinley, the young mother in rural Oklahoma, who shot and killed one of two intruders, to protect her and her infant son. The punks broke down her door armed with knives and found out that they had stepped into a gun battle with a she-bear protecting her cub.

The second punk ran and was later charged for the murder of his collusive partner. Justice doesn’t get any better than that. Ms. McKinley was on the phone with 911 in hope of avoiding a confrontation on her own but she didn't hesitate to do what she had to do when the threat was in her face.

The first thing that struck me odd about the Calamity Jane story is that she shot the punk in the back and suffered no more that a night in jail to wait for a supposed arraignment. While I’m not a lawyer, I’m pretty certain that you don’t get acquitted at an arraignment. I believe that an arraignment is simply an inquiry where it is decided whether or not to indict someone on charges for a trial. An acquittal comes by finding of innocence of the indicted charges in a trial.

I was also bothered that there was no mention of the woman shooter’s name, the name of the judge or the date of the incident. A reputable newspaper is going to put those facts into the story. I looked up the Houston Herald for the actual story.

The only Houston Herald newspaper that I could find was in Texas County, Missouri. I didn’t look for the story there as I think that it’s a pretty safe bet that they won’t report on Houston, Texas news even for scoop like Calamity Jane gunning down a punk as he ran for safety. There are some other sites on the internet that did their own investigation of this and reported more findings that support the story was a hoax.

What bothers me about fiction like this that there are too many goobers that are going to have it read to them by somebody that is just a little bit smarter than they are. Then the story is repeated exponentially from goober to goober with embellishments added by each story teller and it sounds real. It sounds real enough that goobers with concealed carry permits or guns in their home have a distorted vision of what they can get away with when faced with a perpetrator.

Take the Sarah McKinley story, for a true reality example. Ms. McKinley did absolutely everything right. As the punks were trying to break down her door, which is how they eventually entered, she secured her baby in another room, readied her weapons, (yes, plural) called 911 and took her stand. The only thing that could have saved the punk’s life or made Sarah a criminal is if the punk would have turned to run for the exit before she fired.

If Sarah had shot the man in the back as he attempted to flee the battle, that he was woefully unprepared for, then she could have faced charges and a possible conviction. Emphasis should be on the phrase could have faced because as long as the punk only had one or two shots in him it is likely that an Oklahoma judge or grand jury would have given her favor for the way that she was terrorized by the two punks.

For the most part, whether speaking in terms of the Castle Doctrine for defending your home or in self defense situation on the street, a deadly threat must exist in order to justify deadly force. If the punk is running away from you on the street or toward an exit of your home you had best let him run whether he is carrying your property or not. To shoot your weapon could make you a criminal.

From time-to-time, I search Google with phrases such as “citizen thwarts crime” or “gun owner defends self” in order to see what is happening and learn from the mistakes of others. Good honest citizens make many mistakes when in the heat of an armed confrontation. Usually it has to do with the question of whether or not a threat exists to justify deadly force. Other times, the citizen didn't recognize a threat or recognized the threat too late to defend himself.

The thing to take away from this is that if you ever intend to use firearms for weapons against another human being then you had better know your responsibilities both in terms of the laws of the jurisdiction and the basic laws of humanity. Some criminals become criminals simply out of desperation for their given situation. We don’t have much empathy for them because our own lives are in order.

At the point of a face-to-face situation one doesn't have time for empathy. Let’s say you come home from work to find your “watchdog” playing outside and a couple of punks are ransacking your house. You probably won’t invite them to dinner to learn of their troubled past and how that you might rescue them for a better life.

At same time, and depending on the distance between you and them, if they don’t move to harm you then you won’t want to automatically make a rug cleaning necessary. If they decide that running out of another exit is better than facing an armed homeowner then it would be prudent to let them run. Who knows? Having gotten away from such a close call safely, the incident might even be enough to motivate them to give up crime and take the job they were offered at Papa John’s on the day before.

For those of you who like to say, “If ya’ gotta’ shoot somebody jes’ make sure they ain’t gonna’ be no witness aginst ya’.” To you I suggest, why don’t check to see how that’s working out for George Zimmerman? That story isn’t over yet but I’m convinced that no one needed to die, however nebulous the information is at this time.

Last and most important, you must know and understand the laws of your jurisdiction. The disclaimer for this article is that it speaks in generalities or, at best, of specifics different from your jurisdiction. While you might be a hero in one state for taking down a perpetrator, in another state you might do jail time simply for brandishing a weapon. 

For Love of Family

Holiday gatherings are usually at the home of our son and his wife. It seems to work out well that way as the children are on their own turf and have plenty to occupy them with the swimming pool,  a large yard, computers with games and so forth. Most interesting, though, is the family that gathers.

There is, of course, our son and his wife with her children and his children. Our daughter-in-law’s mother, stepfather and brother never miss an event. On most of the occasions, our daughter-in-law’s father is there with his other two daughters and granddaughter.

There might be a great grandparent from any extension of the family. There might be extended family members who are blood relatives to any of the core regulars. No one cares what the actual connection is. It’s just all about family togetherness and everyone enjoys each other’s company.

There is often a friend or two of the children there. If a birthday is being celebrated then there are dozens of other children and many of their families. Kids are running about in the yard or splashing in the pool. Hugs between the children and the adults are always in abundance and initiated from both directions.

We even have family members who don’t easily burn bridges. An aunt and uncle of our son’s children, from his ex-wife’s family, seldom miss a birthday event for his children and stepchildren alike. Occasionally, their daughter and grandson are in tow.

We tried to impart the value of family to our three sons as they were growing up. Unfortunately, our other two sons live to far away to see as often as we’d like. However, from what I know of their lifestyles, they picked up that value, too.

Family isn't always blood. Family is who you care about and cares about you. Family is who you always enjoy being with whenever there is an opportunity. Family is the love that you see glowing in everyone. Family is the love that you see growing in the children. Family is the love that tells parents that they’re doing it right. Family is the love that never stops and it ties the generations.

Teaching Somebody to Ride a Bicycle Over the Phone

My wife called her mother to wish her a happy birthday on Saturday night. We have grandchildren ourselves who are grown adults so you can imagine how many birthdays that my mother-in-law has stacked up. My wife handed the phone to me after a few minutes.

“Mom wants to talk to you.”

Mom and I get on well enough but it’s unusual that she wants to talk to me over the phone. However, she stayed a few months with us during the past winter to get away from the northern winter. During that time she got a few samples of my writing and especially liked the humor stories.

Having misplaced the copies of my stories that she took home with her she was asking me to snail mail duplicates to her.

“Mom, you can pull them off of the internet yourself,” I told her, “and have them a lot faster.”

“Oh, okay, but how do I do that?”

I started to tell her how to find searchwarp.com/Sungloblu where the stories were posted. It wasn’t working. In addition, I realized that she would struggle to find the five or six stories that she wanted out of the dozens that I had posted.

“I’ll tell you what, Mom. It might be easier if you just search my name in Google.” I did so myself as I spoke. When I saw all of the things popped up I decided that might be bad idea, too. Mom could have found my name attached to Search Warp but she would still struggle to find what she wanted to read.

I had another idea that we could just friend-up on Facebook. I have an author page on there and she is familiar enough with Facebook. Unfortunately, Mom has a fairly common name and that made searching for her, to do friend request, a difficult task.

“Do you have an email address?” I knew the answer as I asked.

“Okay, does Nicole have an email address?” Nicole was the daughter that she lived with.

There was another voice for a time and I wasn't sure who was talking to whom. Finally, Mom asked if I just couldn't snail mail the stories to her.

“If that’s the only way,” I promised her, “but you could have them instantly via the internet.”

I left her with the promise that I’d get her Facebook identification from my wife and hook her up that way. As it turned out my wife also had her sister’s email address and I sent all of the six URLs via email. I also made the Facebook connection so that she could find, at least, some of the articles linked on my author page or the news feed.

Later I looked at my wife and said, “You know, that was quite like trying to teach somebody how to ride a bicycle over the phone.”

“That’s just wrong,” was her response.

I Was A Human Remote Control

"Somebody change the channel," my father directed from vantage of his kick-back chair. There were no Lazy Boys in those days. Dad was slouched back into an overstuffed arm chair with his feet on the footstool in front of him.

'Somebody' means any kid within earshot and do it quick. If the lion's first growl doesn't get results then he doesn't growl twice. The next time he will ROAR!

If the ROAR doesn't get instant results then the cubs are going to get cuffed by either The King of the pride or the she-lion. Either way, it isn't pleasant. Being the eldest, and in interest of self preservation, I was usually first to launch myself toward the TV to twist the channel knob.

There were thirteen numbers and a UHF position on the knob but only three channels were broadcast. Figure that one out. Neither cable TV nor electronic remote controls ever existed in my father's lifetime.

The danger for the human remote was going too slow or too fast when changing the channel for The King. Let's say you had channels 2, 5 and 9 that received crystal clear into the old Motorola. Then you had channels 7 and 13 that would receive from distant stations but not clear enough for viewing.

With the channels that had no reception at all, you could twist on through them without much pause. With the strong-reception channels the human remote was required to pause until commanded to "change it again." Weak-reception channels also required The King's command before turning to the next channel on the first time around all of the channels. On the second pass the human remote understood not to tarry on the weak-reception channels lest he wants to suffer a ROAR.

The problem came in with the commercials. When a channel change was desired by The King, it was often also the time when all of the stations were running commercials. Hence, after about the third or fourth time through a full rotation of channels it was natural, on the part of the human remote, to increase the tempo between station switches. Then the inevitable ROAR would come.

 “DO YOU NEED A CRANK ON THAT THING?”

Eventually, the commercials were over and The King would settle on one channel that had an old movie running. Within a few minutes, however, there was a good chance that The King was going to growl anyway.

“I’ve seen this one before. Change it again.”

By this time the commercials were on again and you have to get through three of four cycles of the “CALL

FOR PHILLIP MORRRRIIIIISSSSS” or the ever suave Aqua Velva man. Then there was “Brylcreem, a little dab do ya’ but watch out! The gals will all pursue ya’….They’ll love to get their fingers in your hair.”

 “ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU DON’T WANT ME TO GET YOU A CRANK FOR THAT THING?”