Here’s this week’s “day late and dollar short column” (I didn’t want to do anything during Christmas holiday, but now its two days later…so here you go, more adventures in truck driving!
I failed to mention the very beginning of my truck driving adventures. I was very excited to get my CDL at the time; however, I lived alone and I had a cat. So I set up a feeder and a water thing that filled the bowl as my kitty drank.
I left my good friend Stephen Johnson in charge of checking in once a week, changing the kitty litter and filling up the food and water. I offered to pay him $25 a week to do this, which was a lot of money back in the early 90s.
Now a new driver gets kept out on the road for several months at a time, so it was almost 2 1/2 months before I had my first trip home. When I got home there was no kitty to be found. I called up Stephen demanding answers. “What happened to ‘Boots?'” I asked.
“I don’t know, I went there after the first week and I couldn’t find the cat, so I left.” He explained.
“Well, did you fill up the food and water, in case she was just hiding?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, did you look for her?”
“Nope. I figured she was daid.”
“So you just let Boots starve to death…YOU KILLED MY CAT!” I yelled.
“Hey now, there’s a big difference between killing a cat and just letting it die. Besides, we don’t really know what happened, there just no sign of that cat. Hey, you owe me $25 bucks for the one time I stopped by.”
“AAAArrrrrrggggghhhh! Your an asshole!”
“An asshole whom you owe $25 bucks.” He chimmed in.
I hung up and went on a search to find the body, but couldn’t find it. I found a small hole in a window screen. Boots must have gotten hungry and clawed a hole in it and got out. I had left a bedroom window partially open for fresh air, I figured since it was spring it would be all right.
At least kitty would survive as a ferral cat, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought, no thanks to Stephen.
The next time I came home, I bumped into my neighbor Jim. Nice guy, he lived down the hall.
“Hey Bob, you got a minute.” He motioned for me to come on over.
“Sure.”
“Look what I found.” He opens his door, and there’s Boots. “I just found her outside. I kept an eye on her at first, in case she belonged to somebody, but she just seemed to live at the apartment grounds, so I took her in. Nice ain’t she? I named her Bootsy.”
“Bootsy, huh? Nice name.”
“Hey look she likes you!” Bootsy came over and rubbed against my leg and purred.
I never told Jim that Bootsy was my cat. I was too embarrassed, plus she needed a home where someone wasn’t gone all the time. She was better off.
And Now You Know!
Song in my head:
COMING NEXT: “No, still means no” The Final Insult!
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