A Couple of Complaints

I know the holiday season is the wrong time to complain, but even here, at my home on the range, I am compelled to utter a few discouraging words every now and then.

My first rant is about my cat. Before I go any farther with this, please understand that I like pets. I have had pets all my life. I have owned cats, dogs, gerbils, mice, fish, turtles, iguanas, a chicken, ducks and a ferret. I won’t even include the parrot and snake that my son owned.

I have always taken good care of my pets. I’ve never mistreated them. I was saddened when they passed. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I can’t honestly say that I felt much emotion when the fish and the iguanas died. It’s really hard to form an emotional attachment to reptiles and fish. I think it has to do with the fact that their eyes are beady like the glass eyes of a stuffed animal. I’m convinced that any animal that has beady eyes doesn’t care a rat's ass about you and would just as soon bite you or escape as cuddle up to you. Never trust an animal or a person with beady eyes.

As for my cat, I guess I should have seen it coming. My cat was a little quirky even before I moved here. Maybe that’s an understatement. One indication of our relationship is that even though his official name is Sequoya, he also responds to “fuck you cat” and “get away from me.” Clearly he is not the favorite cat I’ve ever had. Still, it never occurred to me that things could get worse by moving to the country. I had this idea that the great outdoors, with all its mice, chipmunks and other scurrying creatures, would be a wonderful and interesting place for a cat. But not this cat. He took one look through our front door at acres of pasture and woods and said, “Screw that.”

In the 15 months we have been in Georgia, the cat has spent a total of two hours outdoors. Occasionally, he will go outside for a few minutes to eat some grass so that he can throw up on the rug when he gets back in the house.

This cat views the outdoors in the same way I view Uzbekistan―not interested, don’t care, don’t want to go there, don’t even want to think about it. One day last fall, in an effort to show that cat that there was nothing to fear, Mike carried the cat down to a large oak tree in our pasture. The cat huddled under that tree and wouldn’t move until I went down and walked him back. The cat low crawled the entire way, going from grass tuft to grass tuft like a soldier under hostile fire. What a pussy.

If all cats had a fear of the outdoors I might be more understanding. But I see cats in the fields and woods all the time around here. I really don’t understand why our cat is so terrified when it comes to being outside. 

The fact that our cat has this abject fear of the outdoors is not the reason I wish he would go to his just reward. It’s his irritating behavior indoors. When it gets cold outside, this cat clings to you like a fatty tumor. It gets irritating to have cat press up against you every time you sit down. At night, in bed, it lays against me like a ten pound sack of concrete. By the time morning comes I’m teetering on the edge of the mattress because the cat has hogged all the prime territory.

The worst, however, is how the cat gets into bed. It always waits until I’m snuggled in and asleep to hop into bed. Inevitably it feels obliged to stick its asshole near my face before it settles down. Many is the night that I opened my eyes to see this cat’s butthole winking at me. It must be some kind of feline greeting like “Hi. I’m here. Want see my butthole?” Wink, wink.

I could go on and on about the irritating habits of this cat, but what’s the point? Suffice it to say that while I will never intentionally harm the little bastard, my fervent hope is that he will get swooped up by a hawk someday. That way, I will not feel remorse because the predator/prey thing is a part of the natural order. How’s that for a justification?

There’s a lesson in this tirade. If you have pets and are thinking about moving to the country, you should give serious consideration to how your pets will react to the move. Not every creature relishes the country life.

My second complaint is about Walmart. I have nothing against Walmart. When you live in a rural area, Walmart is your go to store. There is almost no need to shop anywhere else. You can buy just about everything you need to survive at Walmart.

And rural Walmarts are so much better than urban Walmarts. The people who shop at rural Walmarts are, by and large, normal people. You’re not going to see a 7-foot drag queen in spandex and a pink tutu, a grossly obese woman wearing a t-back and a sequined bra with her massive cha-cha’s spilling over the top, or a goth kid with pink and purple hair dressed all in black with half the hardware from the nuts and bolts section of Ace Hardware through his or her nose, lips, ears and God knows what other body parts.

Obviously, I’m exaggerating a little, but I bet the photos in those emails that circulate showing the ridiculous and bizarre people who shop at Walmart were taken in urban Walmarts, not rural ones. There are several explanations for this. I’d like to think that country folk have more sense and good taste. I’d also like to believe that people in rural America actually have constructive things to do. It’s awfully hard to accomplish your daily chores dressed like the fairy gueen.

That’s not to say that all the people who shop at country Walmarts are attractive and fit physical specimens. We have our share of fat asses in rural America. This leads to my second complaint. Have you noticed that the carts at Walmart are extra large? That’s because some psychologist figured out that larger grocery carts cause shoppers to buy more stuff. The problem is that it’s difficult to push your extra large cart around the aisles when you keep getting blocked by fat asses. The other day I had a fat ass on the right, a fat ass on the left and a fat ass in front. I know it sounds like “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” but it was a horrible experience. I felt like I was stuck in rush hour traffic in downtown Atlanta surrounded by huge tractor-trailer trucks.

There are a number of possible solutions to this problem. Smaller carts and wider aisles are two of the obvious ones. Or maybe Walmart could take cue from traffic engineers and create “fat ass only” lanes. How about “fat ass only” shopping hours? Whatever the solution, Walmart needs to address this urgent problem.

Boy, I’m glad I got those two beefs off my chest. I feel better already.