This Scotch Tastes Like Shit

Let's say I just returned from the liqour store with an obscenely expensive bottle of scotch to toast my victory over my lousy cat. And then, let's say it's evening, the apartment's dark and I haven't turned on the switch yet because my hands are full with liqour and a new giant box of litter sand--the latter an item that I haven't purchased in nearly a year.

As I enter the apartment and set down the box, I cross through the moonlit kitchen to grab my chilled glass from the freezer (yes, I chilled my glass since that morning because I planned this very intimate "wrap" party where I was the genius guest of honor and Lucky was... well, just the cat). I smile to myself as I unscrew the bottle of scotch, remembering how minutes earlier I was at the drugstore skipping down the pet aisle with a box of litter, swinging in my hand like a picnic basket. The aroma of sweet victory tickles my nose hair as the amber waves pour out of the bottle and splash into my glass. I look around me. 'What a beautifully-lit room,' I think to myself, and I decide to stand in the center of the room--a room free of any harmful dumplings that used to litter this very kitchen floor--to have my toast in the moonbeams.

As I'm standing there, a free woman, I think of the words that I would like to say before I say "Salud!" Suddenly, a movement comes from the darkest shadows of the apartment, a very calculated movement that is heading straight for me. In this split second, I feel a moment of sheer terror mixed with certain doubt--but then...

A WARM, SOFT, FURRY FAT BODY RUBS AGAINST MY ANKLES.

And my terror and doubt immediately transform into a nice, warm fuzzy feeling, a feeling that I remember from long ago... a feeling of--dare I say it... love? Love for my cat. I love Lucky. I begin to remember how much I loved my fat pissing/pooping cat. How, when I was in college and he just a lil' kitty, I would tuck him in my coat in those autumn months, and ride my skateboard to my friends on campus to show him off. He would meow this teensy lil' kitty-witty meow from my coat, and dig his teeny-eeny claws into me as I raced my skateboard off curbs, weaving in and out of pedestrians. Or how, when my first love dumped me because he "wanted to get drunk a lot," (I was 21, and still into assholes) the Luckster snuggled next to me as I screamed into my pillow all night long. Or those years, when my mom was really ill, how good a listener the Lucky was and still is during those moments where I need to talk so that the world doesn't feel so lonely...

(I don't know how long I was standing there in the moonlight, saying those three words in my mind "I. Love. Lucky," when something had crept into the air... a very familiar scent... and it began to grow strong and overtake the smell of my unsipped, untoasted amber glass of glory... the memories of my cat and me and the words "I Love Lucky" began to dissolve and swirl like a kaleidoscope in my mind...)

SOMETHING'S AMISS.

I snap out my love-trance for the Lucky. I am overtaken with anxiety and must turn on the kitchen light. I turn it on.

THE FAT LUCK IS NOT IN THE ROOM. BUT SOMETHING ELSE IS. HIS SHIT. ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR. oh--and what's this? oh, it's just HIS SHIT ON MY SHOE. Oh, scratch that--his shit on BOTH MY SHOES.

Apparently, I stood in his shit the entire time I reminisced about how much I love him. Like, I stood right in it, dead center. I rush to the window where the moon had shown through, leaving shit-prints all over my black and white checkered kitchen floor. I want to scream at the moon! I want to curse Lucky's name into the night! But what's this? There is NO moon out! It's my neighbor's new flourescent fly-killing light hanging outside his window that just so happens to shine through my window.

I stand here in shock. It was all so perfect. So strategic. Somehow, Fat Luck made the kitchen look gorgeous when I walked into the apartment. Somehow, he made me feel an urge to walk to the center of the room to raise my glass of glory, but then get distracted by my sudden adoration for him because his rubbing against my shins blasted me into memory lane!!!! Did he have some sort of drug sprinkled in his fur that then got absorbed by my legs, got into my bloodstream, and attacked my brain?! Is it his dander?! Is his dander bewitched with some sort of dark sorcery?! Or is it his mind... does he control my thoughts?! Oh my God--he rubbed against my legs as I stood in his shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a rage, I take the glass of scotch, throw my head back and swig a monstrous gulp. It's halfway down my throat when I spit it out all over the kitchen. I have never tasted scotch in my life before.

It tastes like shit.

Treasure Chest

Thought I put him to sleep, didn't you. If I didn't envision the victory over Lucky to taste like the best scotch EVER--I'm talking scotch that God kept all to himself--I may have had a 3-second moment where I considered Euthanasia. Not for Lucky. Other way around--I would have asked him to assist me in my suicide.

But I put my trust (and complete adoration for this Vet who only speaks the truth) into Fat Luck's prescribed kitty prozac. And we're just past the 2-month mark of Elavil Emancipation from Emperor Lucky's Poop Nation. Guess what I discovered this morning?

POOP IN A BOX.

It was just another morning for me. Sleepy-eyed stumble to the bathroom (but also alert... remember the Lucky lays out land mines in hopes to destroy all socks I own... and my pride), pass by the litter box on my right (as it mocks me and laughs as a vacant litterbox would), I open the bathroom door to my left, switch on the light, which casts its beams onto the litterbox just outside the bathroom, and just as I turn my head to grab the door knob and close the door behind me... I see them.

5 LITTLE DARLINGS. NESTLED IN SAND.

'My mind is playing tricks on me,' I thought with a stupid smile on my face. I lazily closed the door, but didn't shut it all the way because Lucky has a "thing" about me shut in the bathroom (he belts out really annoying deep throat meows and scratches the door). And the Luck squeezed his fat ass through the slightly ajar door. The door slowly creaks open... and the light shines down upon the litterbox again (say "again" like "agayn").

WAS IT LUCKY TRYING TO SHOW ME HIS LITTERBOX? OR WAS IT GOD COMING THROUGH LUCKY TO SHOW ME THE LITTERBOX?

And yes, there they were. 5 jewels, 5 gems, 5 precious stones in the litterbox. As I peed and stared at the box from the toilet, I thought it was strange how my mind was referring to them as expensive jewelry pieces. Then I thought about how funny it would be if the poopies were glittering like that gigantic mound of treasure in Goonies. Then I thought that rather than glittery poop, it would be so much better if those "stinky lines" would appear above the poopies, you know like how the comic books show us something is stinky? For a moment I saw them, the stinky lines, and with the bathroom light (how poetically ironic!) beaming down upon this miracle, I decided to refer to this former vacant litterbox as a treasure chest.

Now I must purchase a bottle of scotch and see what it tastes like.