Some of the threads here reminded me about the unusual items the cat has caused us to store in our den. I work for the local school district as a substitute teacher. This means I get called in at all hours of the day and night to work at various schools around the county. It also means that I have to have a phone with a working phone line. This should be easy, except that I have cats.

Tanada and Berfert don't play with the phone cord on the wall phone much, but QC is addicted to playing with the wall snake. She jumps up, grabs it, chews on it, pulls it, and has a fine old time killing it. Unfortunately, by the time she's done, its not only figuratively, but literally dead. Replacement phone cords cost between $5 and $10 a piece, and QC was tearing them up at the rate to 2 to 4 a month. She is not a cheap date.

So when Rob and I were shopping at the dollar store, before he left for Korea, and found phone cords at a dollar a piece, we bought every one that was hanging on the wall. We filled up a cart with the cords and a few other goodies and lined up at the check out counter to pay for our purchases. I noticed that we were getting strange looks aimed at our shopping cart, but didn't connect them with the phone cords until we were putting our goods on the counter and the clerk was counting up the amount and said, "Eighteen phone cords? Wow you guys must really be connected."

Rob answered, "Not connected, just kinky." The clerk looked confused, even when I tried to clear up the mess by saying, "We're not kinky, we just have cats." Rob teased my about tying up the cats for days afterwards.

Copyright © Pam Shirk
January 21, 2000