Thursday, April 10, 2008

Family Feud

One of the great things about unemployment is getting to talk to my cats more. I spend most of my time studying and doing homework, and they try to help out as much as possible. Gonk's idea of helping includes crawling onto my lap and covering up the list of solubility constants I have to look up ever 15 seconds.

Domino has taken much more interest in helping. She's really just like family: I didn't choose to live with her and I can't get rid of her. An average scenario begins with her getting my attention by knocking the mechanical pencil out of my hand. With her face. A lot.
"WHAT!?"
"Ur doin' it wrong."
"Pardon me?"
"The Henderson-Hasselbach equation. Ur doin' it wrong. You add the log of the ratio of the concentrations of the conjugate base to the acid. You don't subtract it unless you take the reciprocal of the ratio."
"That might explain a few things. Thanks."
"Were you born this stupid or have you been practicing at it? Hey, look at this! Ai'm in ur livin room, fuckin up ur stuff!"
This is when she tries to shred the Hell out of my brother's Turkish rug. Oh no, clawing the crappy cheap carpet isn't an option, she has to remind me why we can't have nice things. Then I throw stuff at her. Gonk tries to intervene.
"I will stop you, mommy! You can't treat my girlfriend like that!"
"Your girlfriend rips out chunks of your fur when she's bored. You really want to get into this?"
"I love her!"
"Don't bat my arm. It throws off my aim."
"I'll call child protective services!"
"Look, if CPS thinks I'm an unfit mother, they're going to put her in the shelter, where she will eventually be put to sleep because no one wants to adopt the feline equivalent of Joan Crawford."
"I'll call the FBI!"
"Good luck with that. This is why we keep the phone book out of your reach. Look! String!"
...."What were we talking about?"