The thought of Shoes the cat popped up this weekend as I realized, again, that I have years and that no one, no fur lives forever. Yes, I already knew this of course, we all know this, but when it confronts you on a Thursday (man for only a Wednesday) stares you in the face with a time’s mock you take notice, again, again. Did I say again?

As I wonder that one of the constants, in the back of my head, distant, is no longer here (have always missed you Jackson, you and the Brades) I couldn’t help but think back to another.

My Shoes (Shoey).

A Boy And His Cat In A Cone Plastic Hat 

There was a boy and his cat in a cone plastic hat

Who found themselves walking this way and way that

In circles round home on a night by night trip

He talkin’ cat list’nin’
At a calm peaceful clip

You see

The boy’s cat in this cone plastic hat was not well

And the boy he had many long stories to tell

To his dearest of friends of 11 grand years

But trying to do so without shedding his tears

So they walked and he talked on these perfect (s) of nights
Allowing this cat in the cone plastic hat
Some flights
Footed outside
For the first time in his life
A gift from the boy to this cat’s great delight

And the cat in the cone plastic hat listened just right
Though now minus one ear from a Doctor’s try stop
The other had might
Enough to catch stories spun high in the air
By his boy who he followed with great love and great care

Along their way they passed people and pets
Both large and both small
To the cat in the cone plastic hat though
They were all tall
But he came to grow big as they petted and gushed
With attention he loved
As they marveled his gifts to walk with no rush
With his boy who just smiled some big hearty hugs

This cat in the cone plastic hat waited by day
For the sound of boy’s car
To home come from what seemed so
So far
Far away
To make
Way
Stairs
Down,
No dilly
No dally
As time for him now was no longer an ally

You see

The cat in the cone plastic hat knew he hadn’t this time
He wanted their friendship to grow and to shine
But for this shortest of moments
In the grandness of things
They would stride steady together with the greatness of kings

It was stories of boy that were of utmost import
In walks round their round he would offer support
While cat sniffing cat checking
Getting caught in the brush
His cone plastic hat it was flush
Filled with tales flung way far
That dearly so meant
So,
So so much

There was even a day
This cat in the cone plastic hat
Got chance just to play
And to lead while, of course, always knowing the way
Minus his hat
Oh glorious day
Then bringing boy back to that place they called home
Where all with the boy it was always the known

But there were things this cat in the cone plastic hat knew needed be said
Of what would become in his absence of stead
Of what boy would do after the gone
Where time it would shorten but still feel so
Long

The cat in the cone plastic hat knew just what
What knew of just such
What knew sure of be that too long
A day
To help him stay strong
To make it not much
He’d say

Goodbye
He thought
In life’s wonder of walks
This cat who was now at in his cone plastic hat
But remembering time where this wasn’t just that
When play was a shoelace tossed long and just right
For wondrous of times and of silly fun fights
Of a mouse down to chase
Or a titter hand tat
And all while wearing no such special hat

But paw forward he would
This way and way that
His best boy in the world as well as he could
To friends who he knew he should
Surely point true
To others in fur and some so in skin
But still remind them that his name was Shoes

Always Shoes

You see

He resides now in heart held so very so strong
Of a nightstand’s still perch
Sensing short winded nightmares long
So sudden jerks
To come down and so sweetly lay to boy’s left
To calm him to know that all was still well
That there would still be so many more stories to tell
That there will always be some more to be said

Now sleep just go back
“We’re hittin’ the rack”
As you always would say
Ahead of tomorrow’s a brand new grand day
Rest your boy head
The begin has its end but ends beg begin … always
Get some sleep for right now
At least
My dearest of friends

I saw a facebook post a few days ago from Maria, my always will be friend, no matter, an ex from a time that seems almost so far past that you wonder of the reality of it even though you know it was, asking that folks send a little bit of love Jackson’s way, Jackson the dog, of the wonderful Jackson and Brady dogs at the FrankenGreco Ranch at a time, for his trip to the vet the next morning.

Now I didn’t know that he wasn’t doing well, was in a bad way and then I got a breaking down phone call from her that he had passed, a quick bastard cancer passed, a lung filled passed, a had to say goodbye passed, a shared time break down 12 years later for both of us. Though it’s been eight years since our time I would still often think back to puppy days and growing dog days and the crazy coexistence of all the fur we harbored. An old dog, an old cat and a not so old one and a kitten and two puppies who would eventually turn shit upside down in the best of possible ways.

Jackson was Maria’s guardian, Brady his wingman in the guarding “watch our backs Brades” he would say I thought and he owned her. He would occasionally take a break from this though and marvel at a kitten, a little Bella who joined us about a year in then, following her around, like, well, a puppy dog, doting, fascinating, cleaning her ears while she took little kitten nose swipes, “You know I could eat you right?” Man, he loved that little Bella and she loved him in kind.

But Jackson was a Maria and Maria was a Jackson and the rest of us were just a rest of us, you knew where you stood.

Well time, you fucker, you march and Jackson is gone now, as is that old dog, Shana, and that old cat Benny and that not so old one, Shoes, who would bring me so much heartbreaking joy, but what is left still marches as well, fur footed, Bella and the Brades. Now there’s a band name huh?

You were a good boy Jackson.

The best of boys.

…

(from May of 2010 and how Jackson and Brady came to be)

Spring Sprung Puppies

The last post of mine had me thinking of Mimi the Quirky, my old girl whose company I dearly miss. This is just some silliness from when she was still around doing Mimi type laying things. Miss ya kid.

The Frankenberry Synchronized Cat Laying Team: Bella Joins Forces

Went to the Doc this past week for my yearly physical. It’s something that usually comes with a bit of trepidation, and not just of the open backed hospital gown you’re told to put on by the nurse to make it easier for the “drop your shorts and bend over” rubber glove moment. No, there is always that little bit of trepidation as to the results of the blood test, the piss cup, the listening to the chest and the blood pressure take.

How have I fared in this last year … has shit finally caught up with me?

But this Doc is a good one, comfortable, so friendly and so smart and always seems to genuinely enjoy catching up with me, see how I’ve been doing. I look forward to this part of easing my said trepidation as I’ll eventually find out about how her kids are and how they’re not really “kids” any longer, College days and High School seniors now (damn, I guess I’ve been seeing this doc for quite a while). I’ll hear of her cats today, including the young one with some food allergies who breaks her heart with tap taps on her leg beggings at dinner time. I’ll tell her of mine and how there are just two now as my Memes has passed since the last time we did this hospital gown and conversation thing. I’ll tell her the story of how Mimi the Quirky was my fragile weird old girl who adopted me when she snuck up the stairs and just latched onto and owned me in her last two years, finally a human to call her own in her old with no distractions of too many others as can be the case downstairs.

The numbers start getting rattled off in Doc speak and with each my trepidation lessens, in her confident sounding ease, well with most I should say, some of them need attention but nothing over the top (maybe a light mayo for the cholesterol of my sandwiches moving forward I think, stop mainlining lard and fried things) and of the blood pressure which has been a little high for the last couple of years and now requires me be an old guy at the pharmacy. Whodathunk I might eventually need a blood pressure medication? Twice now. Hopefully this one won’t make my face blow up like the last with Angelina Jolie lips. According to my Endo Doc though, that kind of allergic reaction only happens to 5% of people who are prescribed it. Guess I’m kinda special that way.

But that was certainly something, pretty, but something.     

/////////////////////////////////

Celie notes I’m home early when I get to the house and I tell her of my appointment at the Doc, appointments I try to set for just that reason, to get me home just a little bit earlier, even for just one day, but with a reasonable excuse and of how everything went pretty well and how I’ve somehow been able to fake a semblance of healthy for yet another year (though still looking over my shoulder) minus the blood pressure of course.

She suggests I start going to the gym to which I probably shouldn’t have blurted out so harshly “Oh, Hell No girlfriend! That would require me hanging out in waaaay too close quarters with a bunch of folks that I can tell you right now that I probably don’t like and would like even less with them being all sweaty and stinky and too gym cool” as she was just offering up a kind suggestion.

Well, how about starting to go walking again like you used to she says? When shit got bad.

That I could do (again regretting my knee jerk).

I did like those walks, walks around the big nice house neighborhood up the hill with big nice cars and perfect lawns lined with short standing bricks and sprinkled with small porcelain pagan things it could be said, just with trademarked smiles or funny hats, things up the hill here at the COVID begin. It was a good way to escape from the overriding fear then and feel as if you were being productively healthy in any way you could to help fend off the monster. Plus, if COVID gave us anything else other than anger and loss and loss and anger it at least started when the weather was finally beginning to break, making the walks a little easier to take.

I took in the big nice house big nice car neighborhood in my slow footing then, only wishing I had one of the dogs from the house for company, for the normal, for a view through kitchen windows that said I was Ok, he’s just walking a dog, and I fascinated at such a neighborhood that some might aspire to, that I might have aspired to once, but as I walked my walks I could only think that they still have ghosts, things behind those walls, big nice house big nice car walls that are no different from anyone else’s. They love and hate each other and hide things just like the rest of us only a bit more upscale.

I think it might be time to take some new walks. You’re right Celie, as you always are, and even when you’re not I defer, just minus a dog and the wonderings through kitchen windows of who is this stranger walking alone in our perfect, not so perfect of spots.

///////////////////////////////

I parked BB the car and grabbed a water bottle. It’s been hot lately, been really hot lately, really hot everywhere, really hot in the yeah there is nothing to be concerned of in back pockets paid hot, water bottles the best and only defense you have and decided to get back to walking again damning the looks. I just need one of the dogs to walk with me to make me seem less of a concern in a big nice house big nice car neighborhood with secrets, seem more normal.

C’mon Georgia, let’s find you a collar. I got water. It’s hot girlfriend.

So a few night’s ago I posted at Facebook of listening to The Rainmakers “The Good News and the Bad News” from ’89 in BB the car recently (what? I name things). I pulled it out after month’s long constant listens, as I’ve already told, of the new album from the Rave-Ups, 32 years after the last, and when looking to grab a couple of older Rave-Ups for a revisit it sat right there, just waiting on a tangent (yes, my CD’s are in alphabetical order, roughly, so thus).

On a tangent then took me to The Rainmaker’s second album “Tornado”. Now, I haven’t listened to this one in years, it was ranked #3 for me of their initial three albums that I remember so fondly, not that #3 is bad mind you, but in this new listen I immediately harked back to this tune and sang along waaaay too loudly in early morning traffic windows down with every word suddenly coming back to me like it was yesterday … and also with a few curious commuting looks.

“The Wages of Sin”.

Man the wonderful irreverence.

“I was ignoring the thief who was lashed to the cross
He cried “Help me get this son-of-a-bitch off”
I said “I would if I could, I can’t so I won’t
Well I wouldn’t want you messing your hair up, so don’t”
And I realized then that the wages of sin
Was all the lumber you can carry, all the nails you can bend”

Rock on someone said once.

https://youtu.be/OFt9fFamBYQ

This past Monday I took half a day. I’ve discovered that I like them as I try to extra meter out just three weeks of PTO over the space of a year (the new weeks kicked in in mid May). It would be nice to have a few more days after 7 years but you work with what you got.

In recent years I would plan a Monday a month of a full day off (12 with 3 left to play with) Monday’s being the best of days to take, one, for my Prod boss Randy’s benefit as that is the least impactful day to be left alone in Production land, never a Friday, and two because it gives an odd off three day weekend, a sort of holiday with you being the only one who knows the occasion.  

But I’ve come to like these half day Mondays. I can take them and roll over around when a usual Monday alarm would happen, roll over, tell this usual to fuck off, dream weird vivid dreams, but still know that after that roll over that I can still go in a few hours later and make sure that I can cover what needs to happen on a Tuesday, even if I already did so on Friday, without worry.

I mean, I don’t know if anyone else feels this way but taking days sometimes stresses in a paranoid kind of way. Like when I do show up the next day there will be looks, there will somehow be found things that I may have missed. I don’t miss things I’d like to think, for the most part anyway, but still, looks and questions possibly asked.  

Anyway, this past Monday when Cricket the Blind woke me way too early, my other usual, slightly earlier usual Monday alarm, with her mournful sounding meowling and loud food crunching and water bowling and louder still litter boxing at a too early around 6am as she always does around this time on just Monday’s for some reason it seems (she is quite the unintentional cat comedian this one with her little braille Monday funny cat wristwatch) after another weekend of me being an idiot and staying up too late for some new writing or parody song lyric-ing or the reading of old things for inspiration of new ones like a little kid again finally enjoying a Mom NOT telling you to go to bed for a couple of nights I was able to just roll over and dream. Dream a strange dream.

I was at a movie, with two ex-girlfriends, a horror movie, and I don’t like horror movies (no, nothing to read into there … at least I don’t think/remember anyway, though repressed things can be quite surprising I’ve heard) a one where there was a murderous ventriloquist dummy doing murderous ventriloquist dummy stuff while wishing only to make it big in Nashville, as ventriloquist dummies are wont to do I guess in dreams, it’s new killing field, just with a singular haunting, halting country tune. Something darkly slow steel guitar about pickup trucks and guns and losing your dog and pretty girl vampires in short shorts and baseball hats, and I don’t like vampire movies (no, nothing to read into there … at least I don’t think/remember anyway, though repressed things can be quite surprising I’ve heard) and a string of dead.   

Now, what do you do with that kind of weird shit while rolling over?

You don’t.

Nothing.

You just roll over.

Remind me that I never want my subconscious to tell me of where things come from by the way.

Ever.

You just roll over onto your stomach from a right arm side lay outstretched, on a half day, you change your head on a pillow, new head, the direction, your head facing left now no matter a chiropractor telling you that laying on your belly is not the best of sleep positions, you wait after a pee break at whatever in the morning for the umpteenth time (you’re old now and those pee breaks happen quite often, even when they don’t need to but thoughts to such just in case) wait for a Bella to lay down for a moment, just a moment, as she almost never does, you roll over. You wait for Cricket the Blind’s stand-up act at around an hour and half before you need to get up but knowing that you DON’T need to get up, not just yet, not today.

Is there anything better than a roll over, for a few extra’s amid weird dreams, on a Monday, or any day for that matter, if you’ve planned and are allowed?

I will look for a full day soon, half days have had their moments thus far, but I want a whole Monday where I damn the paranoid possible mistakes that I know I haven’t made and go beyond sleeping in for a few hours to a maybe sleeping day, with multiple roll overs and chiropractic admonishments (easy Doc, I know an evil ventriloquist dummy) and maybe a wake long enough to watch a movie, any movie, even a vampire horror chick flick with two ex-girlfriends and a haunting steel guitar country song.

Subconscious: Hey, we got an update for you.

Me: What?

Subconscious: An update. Been compiling a list of some things from the back of your head and think that maybe we might have an idea where this latest came from.

Me: Didn’t I just say that I don’t wanna know about that stuff?!

Subconscious: But some of this is REALLY interesting. You sure you don’t like horror flicks?

Me: Shut the fuck up.

Subconscious: Ok … but still … it’s quite a list …

Me: What did I just say?!

Subconscious: Sorry … but …

Roll over

A so then Sunday.

I know that this is one I posted here just a little less than a month ago but I’m still feeling it as I should, as anything of this nature should, and well, like some are wont to do in their things, a re-post.

To Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”.

I also worked “ne’er-do-wells” into the mix so there is that.

We Are

We are the hypocrites

We’re pro-life but abandon born kids

Body autonomy’s a right against masks

And vaccines you’ve no right to task

Don’t tread on me, no you can’t even ask

But female autonomy’s a thing of the past

—

We’re disingenuous

We cry at vigils of schoolkids

More lost to our well paid hubris

We thought and prayer and rationalize

Blame our morality‘s claimed decline  

Not in our war chest for power outsized

Our lack of action is your fault it’s not ours

—

We sing la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Pompous self righteous is what we all are

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

La-la

We are

—

We are the Christianists

Women’s rights we won’t allow

Rape incest even under-age now

They’re just a new day’s opportunity

While we strut about in our piety

Making sure you bring about babies

Promptly out of mind once do the light they see

—

Authoritarians

Free speech is what we insist

The right to misinform

The right to prop-a-gan-dize

And you can’t criticize now

Speech is what we decide now

We’ll legislate what you can and can’t say

Or violently bring your free to waste

—

Got our own rigged election plan

100’s GOP’s in on the scam

Break at states the will of them you’ll see

Not of the people but new you and me  

Results just for GOP’s new you and me

Our vision of a Democracy that’s just died

—

We sing la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Minority drunk w majority court

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

La-la

We are

—

We are the activists

From the court we legislate with new twist

It’s not the leftists we warned in past

Boogeymen to scare conservative kids

No it’s a Clarence bloc with a backwards breath

A new Christian way with a brand new breadth

And scope of what rights just might be next

And how we now can control your ways

The ones we know the Devil helps sway

Generations precedent progress gone away

—

A Singin’ la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la

We are

—

We are exceptional

Shoulder above all the ne’er-do-wells

Who think history’s about truth’s to tell

Not our re-write aleviate guilt

With no systemic racism cloud

We were just caretakers of a new world 

On the back’s of lessers who still owe us the price we paid

—

Singin’ La La La La La La La La La

We are

So my Sis got me a few things from Adam’s last week for my birthday. A surprise bit of groceries from a fave place that came with a balloon. Apparently no matter how old you are you can still get balloons.

But it was a homicidal balloon, or murder balloon as Beck has named it, immediately trying to kill me on my way home with my open windows and too loud music (no, the music wasn’t a balloon issue, I’ve just been loud lately) bouncing, wrapping, blocking view, everything it could to make me dead. It even took a look outside like some dog balloon before it got back to its nefarious balloon nefariousness.

When I got home, evil balloon plan seemingly thwarted it proceeded to kill one of my fans instead, wrapping itself around the fans throat.

Stopped at Home Depot for a new fan yesterday, answering the unasked question of how much someone’s gift for your birthday can cost YOU? 50 bucks in this case, but that’s not your bad Beck.

I mean, what are you gonna do with homicidal balloons right?

There was though this. New fans come in boxes. Blind cats find boxes. Blind cats get comfy in found boxes. Fuck you balloon.

(This is a part two to something I wrote a few months back about seeing the “Angel of Death” in the middle of route 9 in Poughkeepsie NY, really just some guy dressed as one at rush hour, but what if maybe it wasn’t just some guy? Part one is the highlighted linked first sentence here to lead this off, read that first if you’re interested … The Conversation, this said part two follows. Do so at your own risk?)

So, are you that guy who saw me on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie a few month’s back?

What?

Are you that guy who saw me standing in between lanes with my hourglass?

(overly dramatic voice over – A dark horizon of damnation looms with hopeless flailing and violent blood lettings and grotesque gouging’s and all nasty similar assorted things and paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and posters of Farah Fawcett and Scott Baio all hang from damnation walls as far as burned out eyes can no longer see and even a child’s finger painted pictures of all the wretched , on multi colored thick grade school paper, hang on refrigerators with little cat magnets)

Ok, well that’s a somewhat unsettling and a bit silly, but I’m a little confused, a lot more than a little confused really, actually a bit freaked out right now as a matter of fact. Where the Hell am I?

Exactly

????

So, are you that guy that wrote about seeing me there in Poughkeepsie?

Well, yeah, I guess

You guess?

Ok, I jokingly wrote about some dude I saw dressed as the Angel of Death in the middle of Route 9 between a couple of mattress stores and across from a T.G.I. Fridays and a specialty soap shop and a convenience store but … but it was just me writing a story!

And that I may have been ordering a burger from that T.G.I. Fridays while I passed the time being all Angel of Death and possibly thinking of doing Angel of Death stuff?

Well, sure, whatever I uh … you’re not gonna “scythe” me by the way, or whatever it is you do, point a death finger or something are you?

Not yet … spot on on the burger by the way, blood rare, locusts, frogs, extra cheese and fries and the apple cobbler dessert special. Who doesn’t love themselves a nice apple cobbler?

Ummmm, alright, with ya on the apple cobbler, grant ya that, some vanilla ice cream for a bonus if the cobbler is warm, who doesn’t, but …

Hey, I can do warm …

Of course you can

… and at the end you asked, as you were worried if I were there in the middle of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie to bring about the end of days, if I could at least have let you grab your dinner, feed your cats and clean a litter box or two before the end?  

But that wasn’t real!!! You were just some nutter in a Grim Reaper robe and hood with an hourglass and …

Careful

Ok, not nutter, maybe just some freak who …

What did I just say about careful?

Fine, fine. You were an actual Angel of Death, not some random guy in a bad costume in the middle of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie but the real deal

Now you’re getting it

But that was the best you could do?

What?

The outfit? The bad costume? It was soooo High School stage production, and the hourglass was soooo small, there wasn’t anything that you could have grabbed tha …

Hey! I grab what I can from the old plays! Hard to come by trustworthy folks around here, people walk off with costumes and props all the time, for Halloween and freaky parades and funeral birthday parties and never return them … I just grabbed the last things left. It served its purpose though right?

Well not really, it was more of a dark thrift store long coat that someone probably died in smelling of alleyways and sweat and what looked like a dead flashlight in hand …

Died smelling of alleyways and sweat … that’s not bad … can I use that?

… with a sweatshirt hoodie

But I got a compliment on it

Probably just being kind … oh wait, that was one chick who’s all goth on the weekends, she sees what she wants to.

You’re a dick

I’ve been told. You need to get your costume and prop people in line and get them to return shit. Halloween and freaky parades and parties as funerals or funerals as parties may have their place but …

Ok whatever, but you know you’re dead right?

(looking around) Jesus dude … is the cleaning lady off today …?

Really?

Oh right, bad exclamation, especially for here

You still know you’re dead right?

What? No, I’m not, I have cats

You’re not Bill?

Bill who?

That guy with the bus this morning, the one who wrote about me?

Oh, I read about that … awful business … we’re all so freakin’ immersed in cell phones … just one bad step when you’re not paying attention and WHAP!! SQUASH!! Bystanders turning in horror and puking on their shoes … and, hey, this Bill fella didn’t try take credit for that did he, say he was the one who wrote my thing about you?!

So, you’re not that guy? That Bill?

Very much NOT thank you and my name is Steve by the way and I am very much alive, with cats … just fed them as a matter of fact

Yeah, you told me about the cats thing … you don’t have a girlfriend do you?

What?

Never mind, I’ll leave you be … a NOT Bill as you say … for now … here’s my card

/////////////////////////////

Dude can you NOT not knock shit over?

(overly dramatic voice over – A dark horizon of damnation looms with hopeless flailing and violent blood lettings and gouging’s and all nasty similar assorted’s and paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and posters of Farah Fawcett and Scott Baio all hanging from from damnation walls as far as burned out eyes can no longer see and even a child’s finger signed damnation pictures, on multi colored thick grade school paper, hang on refrigerators with little cat magnets)

Sorry (after bumping into a mantle and crashing a snow globe onto the floor) so sorry, I can pay for that.

How?

Well, I do have mone …

No, no you don’t, you’re dead, you couldn’t take it with you as all those fucking songs were trying to remind you.

You mean like that one Alan Parsons Project tune from … hold on … love that song … the one from … ummmm …

From Pyramid … from Pyramid? Third album? It’s just one of the litany of endless song drivel about the obvious Bill … and always in an attempted profound kind of way, like that was gonna somehow get you in her pants at that dive pub while you drunkenly jotted things on a napkin hoping to impress her with how “deep” you were …

My name’s not Bill

What?

My name’s not Bill, It’s Steve

What?!!! Seriously?!! You want to quibble about names?!!

Well, it is kind of important it seems, especially since he’s the guy with the bus and the WHAP!! SQUASH!! and shoe puke, not me!!

Do you hear yourself?  … (bending down to try and clean up pieces of the snow globe) Man, where the fuck is a broom and dustpan when you need one …

Probably with the cleaning lady who obviously isn’t here today

… you know this one was one of my favorites?

I really am sorry

It was Pompeii, all of them huddled together in fear while the ashes … oh those ashes … glorious stuff … how it floated death … you could shake it up and … like deadly Christmas … and now you’ve gone and fucked up Christmas

Sorry, I didn’t realize there was a mantle here, whodathunk? I can be a bit clumsy … plus I’m kind of new to this plac …

(overly dramatic voice over – A dark horizon of damnation looms with hopeless flailing and violent blood lettings and gouging’s and all nasty similar assorted’s and paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and posters of Farah Fawcett and Scott Baio all hanging from from damnation walls as far as burned out eyes can no longer see and even a child’s finger signed damnation pictures, on multi colored thick grade school paper, hang on refrigerators with little cat magnets)

Does that ever stop? Or is it like when you’re on hold for that associate that might or might not pick up in like 17 to 22 minutes?

Sorry, pre-recorded thing, usually closer to the 22 or really past that by a good margin, usually eternity … of course there’s a mantle Bill … why wouldn’t there be a mantle, or are you judging me, that I can’t have a nice house with proper house things, like mantles?

Have you looked around here lately?

Sarcasm not appreciated Bill … I mean where the hell are you going to display your proudest of knick knacks and set them up for the holidays?

It’s Steve

What?!!!

It’s Steve, you called me Bill again

You know Phil when I find my broom I’m going to beat you to death with it and …

Well, not much point in that if I’m already dead as you say right?

… well I’m going to beat you death with it twice and then clean up Pompeii (picking up tiny characters) I mean look at this, all spooned together, how cute is that?

It’s not really. It’s kind of sad

Ok ground rules Dave

It’s Steve

Ok ground rules Chris, I don’t care of sad, not caring of sad is pretty much what I do, it’s just a tired human trait that helps them explain how they feel when one of their’s gets dead. And I don’t care how it happens. It can be a bus …

That was awful … WHAP!! SQUASH!! puke …

Shut up Frank … it can be a bus, or a knife or a loss of head … like Highlander, loved that Sean Connery with his Scottish swish, though that whole immortal thing was just funny, so dramatic, so unreal, he’s right down this way if you’d like to meet him, it can be a tall bridge swan song, it can be cancer or a gun shot or shots like in the movies or even in your real world like at traffic stops, don’t be black by the way, even the simplest of cuts that just get ignored and then fester till sepsis sets in, that’s one of my favorites, so slow and so, so preventable … ain’t nothing sexier …

But?

Shut up Steve it’s all abou …

Finally, you got it right

What!?

My name, you got it right

Of course I did Steve, I know everyone’s name

But?

Have you looked at my mantle, the one you just bumped into and blew up my Pompeii snow globe from (with a just “hang in there” cat poster hanging above it with an infinite list of names superimposed)

Wow, that’s a lot of names … wait … hey, I had that poster!!

Everyone had that poster Kirk

It’s Steve

Shut up Sherry

Whoa I’m a woman now?

Does it matter? You’re all dead

Yes, it does …

Yes, I know Terry, Terry was was your mother’s grandmother’s husband’s name blah blah blah blah …

It was?

You just told me that right?

No, I didn’t, though I kinda like Terry by the way

What?

I kinda like Terry

Not Alejandro?

Where the fuck did that come from? No, I don’t speak Spanish though that is kind of sexy … no Terry’s Ok, I mean if you’re going to call me something that isn’t Steve I can be Ok with Terry.

Whoa hold up, this isn’t one of those gender things is it?

What?

It’s just those conservative guys keep gong on and on about gender things like it’s the end of the world … and if anyone knows the end of world, well, it ain’t that. Believe me.

No, I just like Terry, it can go both naming ways and oh, they were Steelers quarterbacks by the way

The whoers?

The Steelers … a football team. I loved my 70’s Steelers.

Ok, whatever old man but we’ll go with Terry, yeah, I’ll remember that now plus Steve sounds a bit of a dullard name

Hey, no it doesn’t!

Shut up Terry

I’m not dead by the way as you seem so intent on believing and I keep trying to tell you

Right, of course you’re not, they all say that

No really, I’m not

You’re not? (giggling to death self) You sure (more giggling)?

Yes, I mean no, I have cats like I said.

????

Yeah, cats, the one’s I fed like 5 minutes ago before this nightmare and you confused me with some dude named Bill who apparently was too much of a moron to not look up from his phone for a second before stepping off the curb and a WHAP!! SQUASH!! shoe puke … I’m so I’m not dead yet, as a matter of fact that one (peering into a swishy looking mirror thing) is meowing right now like she’s at the funeral of a lost cat friend and splashing water around her water bowls like some kiddie pool and annoying the shit out of me and that one, Bella is yawning at belly rubs on a kitchen table in a living room with an “oh you’re all good girlfriend” dinner’s right up … and that’s me, giving the belly rubs.

Well that’s weird.

What?

Me seeing you through this swishy looking mirror thing while you’re right here, that’s kinda new. But it’s more than that.

What is?

You have a kitchen table in the living room?

What?

You have a kitchen table in a living room …. that a cat sleeps on?

Yeah … your point?

You don’t eat there do you? Gross. Oh, never mind (looking around – fucking cats) How are you here then?

I don’t know, you tell me.

Dammit, really? (looking around twice) Son of a bitch I’m going to be in so much trouble.

Well, that’s all you, dinner and litter boxes and water bowls here man, just figure out a way to get me … ummmm, back to “me” I guess, probably through that swishy looking mirror thing. Here’s my card, my still living card.

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I don’t know Ma’am he seemed sooooo dead … if ya don’t mind my asking though, what’s with that swishy looking mirror thing? … Ok, my bad, gotcha, backing out of the room now …

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interminable that one. Bill? You didn’t lose another mirror did you?

What?