EL Gato Meurto Del Auto
Every once in a while we are confronted in our lives by a stupefying and senseless situation that requires the mental “stop-drop-and-roll”. You just take a couple deep breathes, clear your mind, and proceed to initiate the proper sequence of events that will remedy whatever the crisis is. If you’re lucky (unlucky, actually) and the situation is dire enough, the autopilot will kick in and you will act without any “thinking”. Yay Reptilian Brain!!! It not only keeps your lungs active and the blood flowing, but also channels super-human strength or pin-point concentration should you need it. There are other times when your life is not threatened, no one is in physical jeopardy, but you are, none-the-less, confronted with a task of a completely repulsive nature without the benefits of these instinctive buffers. You are totally aware of yourself in your circumstances and about to do something really yucky. Really, yucky, right.
I’m at home on the phone with my mom, it’s early, and Melissa is grabbing some breakfast from the village bakery before she heads off for her last day of teaching summer class. After a while, she drives back up to the house and I can see her hand over her mouth through the windshield in a silent “Oh My God” pose that I’ve only seen a couple times and is never good (really, it’s the eyes above the hand-over-mouth that give away how not good it is). She, for no good reason, unlocks the passenger side door, which is facing me, and gets out on the driver’s side and says:
“GET OFF THE PHONE THERE’S A DEAD CAT IN MY MUFFLER!!”
(As she’s saying this I’m mentally noting that it’s said while she’s holding our breakfast.)
I don’t look under the car; I look at her, and try to piece together the part of the sentence that goes “dead cat in my muffler” because I’m not really sure what it means. I’m hoping hard that it doesn’t mean there is a dead cat in her muffler. If there was, in fact, a dead cat in her muffler I would have to come into contact with it because that’s really the underlying meaning to “dead cat in my muffler” that my logic is stepping around.
DEAD CAT IN MY MUFFLER = MATT TOUCHES DEAD CAT
(Word math is so very peculiar!)
Luckily, this is where the Brain kicks in and says, “It’s cool guy. This one’s on me”. The Brain proceeds towards the garage after getting a garbage bag from under the kitchen sink. The Brain is in the garage looking for the pinnacle of primate technology, the right tool for every job . . . some sort of Stick. The Brain selects a nice piece of long lumber that could realistically be perceived as a Stick. Brain and Stick have a plan. Brain and Stick are in control.
Somewhere between the garage and the car I pipe up, “Maybe we should look at it and figure out what we’re going to do”. I immediately realize I’ve over-stepped important boundaries. Brain and Stick are no dummies. They understand that if I’m a big enough boy to check out the carnage, then this situation doesn’t call for their emergency-only status. Next thing I know, Brain is gone and I’m standing there with Stick (who is just the muscle . . . he doesn’t know anything about Brain’s plan to eradicate my girlfriend’s car of the Dead Cat in the Muffler).
At this point Melissa sees Stick and I standing there, not advancing, no Brain in sight, like a toy without a battery, staring, for the first time, at the Cat in the Muffler. Part of the cat anyway, hanging out of the underside of her car. No question at all, from a hundred yards you’d know it was a Dead Cat in the Muffler.
Here’s the solution me and Stick come up with:
DRIVE AROUND, OVER SOME BUMPS, AND SHAKE IT LOOSE.
If that doesn’t work, make your students remove it. That’s how big an asshole I am. I leave it for an end-of-summer-school-teacher’s-pet-task. She drives off, Dead Cat in the Muffler dangling behind her. Bobbing up and down actually, smoke colored and dim.
I eat my breakfast sandwich. You know that dead cat is still going to be in the muffler when she gets home.
I’m going to have to touch it.
Just can’t beat the math.
-Math Puzzle
I’m at home on the phone with my mom, it’s early, and Melissa is grabbing some breakfast from the village bakery before she heads off for her last day of teaching summer class. After a while, she drives back up to the house and I can see her hand over her mouth through the windshield in a silent “Oh My God” pose that I’ve only seen a couple times and is never good (really, it’s the eyes above the hand-over-mouth that give away how not good it is). She, for no good reason, unlocks the passenger side door, which is facing me, and gets out on the driver’s side and says:
“GET OFF THE PHONE THERE’S A DEAD CAT IN MY MUFFLER!!”
(As she’s saying this I’m mentally noting that it’s said while she’s holding our breakfast.)
I don’t look under the car; I look at her, and try to piece together the part of the sentence that goes “dead cat in my muffler” because I’m not really sure what it means. I’m hoping hard that it doesn’t mean there is a dead cat in her muffler. If there was, in fact, a dead cat in her muffler I would have to come into contact with it because that’s really the underlying meaning to “dead cat in my muffler” that my logic is stepping around.
DEAD CAT IN MY MUFFLER = MATT TOUCHES DEAD CAT
(Word math is so very peculiar!)
Luckily, this is where the Brain kicks in and says, “It’s cool guy. This one’s on me”. The Brain proceeds towards the garage after getting a garbage bag from under the kitchen sink. The Brain is in the garage looking for the pinnacle of primate technology, the right tool for every job . . . some sort of Stick. The Brain selects a nice piece of long lumber that could realistically be perceived as a Stick. Brain and Stick have a plan. Brain and Stick are in control.
Somewhere between the garage and the car I pipe up, “Maybe we should look at it and figure out what we’re going to do”. I immediately realize I’ve over-stepped important boundaries. Brain and Stick are no dummies. They understand that if I’m a big enough boy to check out the carnage, then this situation doesn’t call for their emergency-only status. Next thing I know, Brain is gone and I’m standing there with Stick (who is just the muscle . . . he doesn’t know anything about Brain’s plan to eradicate my girlfriend’s car of the Dead Cat in the Muffler).
At this point Melissa sees Stick and I standing there, not advancing, no Brain in sight, like a toy without a battery, staring, for the first time, at the Cat in the Muffler. Part of the cat anyway, hanging out of the underside of her car. No question at all, from a hundred yards you’d know it was a Dead Cat in the Muffler.
Here’s the solution me and Stick come up with:
DRIVE AROUND, OVER SOME BUMPS, AND SHAKE IT LOOSE.
If that doesn’t work, make your students remove it. That’s how big an asshole I am. I leave it for an end-of-summer-school-teacher’s-pet-task. She drives off, Dead Cat in the Muffler dangling behind her. Bobbing up and down actually, smoke colored and dim.
I eat my breakfast sandwich. You know that dead cat is still going to be in the muffler when she gets home.
I’m going to have to touch it.
Just can’t beat the math.
-Math Puzzle
posted by Matthew Pazzol at 6:46 AM
9 Comments:
nameless cat.
I'm glad my completely bogus morning experience can be amusing (really!!).
SO,
check this out:
Missy coaxes one of her students into retrieving the cat. Turns out it wasn't a cat at all, but the lining of fiber glass from inside the tail-pipeless muffler. Yeah, I know what you're thinking . . . but I'm telling you, it looked like a fucking cat.
I feel somewhat embarressed. Wanna hear a long, well written essay on that . . . ?
mmm.... pussy
(someone had to)
this whole story should inspire an equally amusing piece of art, possibly called uncle wuss-bag (and done before your birthday).
along with Stick and Brain, i think the team of involuntary superheroes should have included Antique Gasmask, and Great Gazoo Helmet...all waiting for action...and waiting...
i thought for some reason something happened to your new baby kitten. sarcasm aside, i'm really glad it all turned out ok.
...and for the record i'd love to read that humble essay on how embarASSed you feel, but it doesn't have to be well written.
I'm not that embarassed. I like to peel the ripe vigor of life off the fruit of experience as much as the next guy, but potential violence on cats; nature-induced, imaginary or super-natural is not my cup of coffee. I'm down with chats and have done things to prolong the feline species that would make other men vomit, quiver and have horrible night-mares.
Oh, yeah. . . I've got pictures to prove that last bit if you tough guys think you got the stomach for it.
no need to prove yourself princess, we all know you're down with the fruit of experience-nature induced, imaginary and supernatural.
AWW, MAN!!! I kinda wanted to get all Roman-lettuce-macho-solo up in here and throw down with some gnarly, rotten Cat Leg photos. Then you'd've been really sari.
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