Shmoggleberry
Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky, right? When everything goes wrong? Disaster follows disaster all day long? Something very weird, something almost occult, happened yesterday. I am at a loss to explain it, it defies nature herself. On Friday 13th of November, 1998, something profoundly wrong transpired.The well-known horka-horka-horka sounds wafted gently to my just-previously slumbering ear. A half-closed bleary eye squinted at the clock - and the politely glowing red lights informed me that it was a tad past 4am. It was way too early to deal with the whatever that Shmoggleberry’s stomach was rejecting this time. There was plenty of time to go back to sleep and worry about it later. With the sort of flop used only when the body hasn't yet noticed the brain is awake (even if only vaguely), I returned to the soft warm land of snored dreams. Needless to say, I'd forgotten the whole horka incident by the time the alarm once again nudged me from the land of nod later in the morning.
Things got decidedly strange from that point on. Although ora usual pathetic yelpings for breakfast were just the same as any other day, the inevitable didn't happen. As I trudged to the bathroom in my pre-caffeine haze to deliver my tithes and offering to El Moggo, neither one of my feet went even remotely near the puddle of horka-stuff. In fact, the horka material was not in any commonly used walking track. He had found a nice area in an infrequently used spot in the kitchen and thrown up on the hard, easily cleaned tiles. The spot was easily accessible, and his previous night’s stomach contents were in a nearly circular puddle, rather than the long , broken up trail distributed half way through the house that he usually presents me with. No other oral deposits were found in surprise locations. There was no-dried-to-the-consistency-of-concrete stuff around the edges. Not only did it not have the 6-day-dead-fish-at-the-sewage-works aroma, it did not have any noticeable smell to it at all. It wiped up with just one kitchen towel, which did not drip either on the floor or me when taken to the trash can. Shmoggleberry did not try to get out the used kitchen wipe from the bin and play with it. In fact, it was almost like I dreamed the whole horka incident, and somehow I had willed a puddle of thickish water to appear on the kitchen floor. It must have been a supernatural occurrence because I know it is not humanly possible to be pleasantly surprised about the location and nature of normal cat vomit.
As I said, there is something very strange going on around here.
Addendum: Sunday 15th November.
Everything is back to usual - went to pick up the TV guide from the floor late last tonight and put my hand into something sticky and cold. When trying to get up from the lounge to turn the light on and to see what it was my fingers had encountered, my socked foot found some more of the same stuff further along the room. As a result of the discovery, the weekend newspaper will remain unread, and I will just have to channel surf for the next week. I'm have very mixed feelings about the supernatural events that happened on Friday.Copyright © Vicky Chapman
November 15, 1998
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