“The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions”
I thought I
was being kind, good-hearted and thoughtful.
Now I am paying dearly for my lapse in judgment.
It began
simply enough. I was shopping at
Kroger’s, in aisle 7 to be precise; other customers were scrutinizing detergent
ingredients, squeezing melons and navigating their carts at about the same
skill level as they drive their cars. I
was standing in front of an array of cat food choices, Mixed Grille, 9 Lives
Super Supper, Little Friskies, Ocean Delight, Essence of Secretariat… the
choices went on and on, row after row. I
thought the little guy would enjoy a change, something different to perk up his
meal time. How could he not delight in a
variety of choices?
Now, as it
turns out, it has become a guessing game; which flavor is he boycotting today? Oh I see; it’s the one I just opened. It’s always the one I just opened. Okay, I’ll try to remember he is now off Tuna
Face Surprise. Having no idea what any
of these taste like I can’t really know what level of disgusting I’m dealing
with. Of course I am mentally envisioning
massive vats of fish heads, road kill and Mr. Ed Pate` swirling around as they
make this stuff at the cat food factory; an occasional whisker bobbing up along
with a stench that would peel the paint off an aircraft carrier, but that part
of it he doesn’t seem to mind.
Apparently the part that bothers him, (Him being Woody the Obnoxious) is
when I find it on sale and buy a case load of it. Then, all of a sudden, that’s the stuff on
his naughty list.
None of
this was previously calculated into our retirement budget and having 13 half
open cans festooning the fridge creates a whole other array of problems, whose
only solution, Claudia suggests, is to add more cats.
One
thought, however, did cross my mind. As
I wouldn’t put it past the cat food industry to simply slap different labels on
the same emulsified by-products, why don’t I just mix all these various open
containers into one delightful taste treat?
As I’m dishing it out for his dinner I can really talk it up, you know –
“Yum, boy this looks good. Sure wish I
had some of this. Hey, is this a
scrumptious piece of hoof I see?”
Then I
thought that maybe my behavior was becoming too much like Cliff Claven, the
mailman from Cheers. He would bring odd
vegetables from his garden into the bar and explain to other customers how the
potato he grew looked like Richard Nixon, or how the bumps on the squash seemed
to form a perfect map of New England . So before I fall off the deep end like Cliff and
try using psychology on a cat, I think I’ll just explain to him how millions of
cats in Europe don’t even have television and
have never seen Cheers.
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