Was It Something I Said?

So I’m driving home from work minding my own business when out of nowhere a police car pulls up behind me and starts the bells and whistles to get me to pull over. I pull over right away and I’m sort of wondering why I’m being pulled over. Normally I always know why I’m being pulled over mainly because at any given time the chances of me being in violation of some traffic law are pretty good. For some strange reason I really have no idea what I’m being pulled over for this time. The officer approaches my car and I roll down my window. She informs me that I failed to obey a stop sign. I honestly thought that I had stopped but I have a rule about not arguing with somebody with a loaded firearm. Anyway, I hand over my licence and insurance information and the officer makes her way back to her vehicle. As I sit in my car I begin to get upset. I start thinking about how much I hate police officers. Does she have nothing better to do? Isn’t there some old lady being mugged somewhere you should be attending to? Do you have nothing better to do than bilk a tax paying citizen out of my hard earned money? They think they’re so high and mighty with their tickets, their holsters, their tight uniforms and their sirens. As the minutes pass I’m getting more and more annoyed so I come up with a plan of action. I decide that when the officer returns I will turn my music up to an ear-deafening level and see what she says. I figure she’s obviously writing me a ticket so what’ the worst that can happen? Is she going to write me another ticket? Yeah, I dare her. In fact I double dog dare her! I start to get a little excited about my plan which distracts me from the anger I’m feeling over the ticket. Eventually she starts making her way to my car and I see she’s got a ticket in her hand. This is my signal to crank the music. I crank it so loud I worry my ears are going to bleed. As I roll down my window she begins talking. She’s clearly under the impression that I’m going to turn the music down now that she’s arrived. Wrongo! She continues speaking. I think she’s talking about the ticket but for all I know she could be telling me about the price of tea in China. Soon she grows annoyed and says “So you’re just going to turn your radio up?” To which I reply, “You’ve got an amazing grasp for the obvious. Did they teach you that in the academy?” Luckily the music is loud enough that she doesn’t hear the comment. She then hands me my ticket and my licence and storms off.

I will admit this was an extremely immature and silly thing to do and I expected to regret it. The truth is that for some reason it felt really good. I guess it was partly because I never do things like that. On top of that I learned a valuable lesson and that is in certain situations good manners don’t make a bit of difference. By that I mean if I had been polite to her, the result would have been the same. Yeah sure I suppose it’s nice to treat your fellow human being with dignity and respect but she wasn’t exactly extending me any goodwill. So either way I would still have a $100 ticket but at least this way I got a ticket and a little satisfaction.

Procrastination you are not my friend. It all started out pretty innocently which I guess can be said about a lot of things that don’t end that way. I had planned a rather ambitious evening for myself. I had company coming the next day and I needed to prepare a number of items ahead of time. I knew that I had a full evening ahead of me. By about 8PM I was ahead of schedule and just had one item left to prepare. So I’m a little tired at this point and as I survey the kitchen which was full of dirty dishes I decide that in order to get my second wind I need the right music. For me, the right soundtrack is essential when tackling unpleasant tasks. Unfortunately the thirty mix CDs I had previously made were just not quite what I was looking for. I made my way upstairs to create my next masterpiece. As luck would have it my laptop was next to my bed which of course meant I’d have to lie down on my bed to make the CD. So I cue things up and begin burning my CD. I decide that while I’m waiting for it to finish I could just take a power nap. This is where things began to go south since the shortest “power” nap I’ve ever taken was five hours. So as I’m lying there “resting my eyes” my cat jumps up on the bed and makes her way over to me. And so it begins, I think to myself. Of course she curls up next to me just begging to be petted. I’m not a serial killer so of course I can’t resist. I begin rubbing her in all the right spots and instantly wish that people were this easy to please. She begins purring so loudly that I worry the neighbor’s children might be awoken from their slumber. I continue petting her since I figure who am I to deny her this kind of pleasure? Soon she rolls over onto her back with her paws fully outstretched so that I can have full access to her stomach which has been ignored up to this point. In case you’re wondering, my CD finished burning about one hour ago now. Minutes soon turn into hours and eventually when I look over at the clock it is 11:30. How did this happen? I then remember exactly how it happened as I look and see that my cat is curled up in the cat fetal position in my arms sleeping so soundly that I wonder if the sound of a can opener would even wake her. As I stare longingly into her eyes I realize that I don’t think that very many successful people have cats. I bet Bill Gates doesn’t have a cat. If he does it’s definitely not very cute. You know how I know? It’s because he actually gets things done. If he had a cat as charming as mine there’s no way Microsoft would exist today and I can guarantee that.

Eventually my cat woke up and left me and even though it was hard I knew it was for the best. I think she knew that if she didn’t get up I may not be able to. I think in some ways she knew it was in her best interest as well since if she kept things up I was liable to call in sick to work the next day and eventually lose my job which would be bad news for both of us. I appreciated her foresight. She is wise beyond her years. Well maybe not since I think she’s 85 in cat years or does that just apply to dogs? I just want to say for the record that before I had a cat I always thought cat people were slightly dysfunctional. There was always something just a bit off about them. I still stand by that theory I just understand the dysfunction now and embrace it.

A lot of people wonder if you can successfully balance your career and your family. I don’t. The more interesting question in my opinion is whether you can balance accomplishing things and owning a cat. So far I have not been successful, but I’m going to keep working at beating the odds.

In a surprise twist at this year’s Oscars I didn’t feel the urge to get violent with my TV at any point during the broadcast. Sure it had it’s annoying moments like George Clooney winning for best supporting actor. It’s not that I didn’t think he deserves it because in all honesty I’ve been waiting years for somebody from the Facts of Life to finally get their due. (I always hoped it would be Mrs. Garrett.) Plus, there wasn’t anyone in this particular category that I thought was a standout. I don’t know what it is but something about George Clooney just makes me not want him to win anything. It seems like he’s gotten this far just on his charm so what does he need an Oscar for? Somebody else could put it to a lot better use. Aside from that I was a little disappointed that Catherine Keener didn’t win best supporting actress. She is definitely due. However, I couldn’t be too upset since this was a pretty tough category and I would have been happy with either Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand or Rachel Weisz winning.

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