December 7, 2010, My 59th Birthday, In Which I See Jesus

     It’s been a real cold spell here in the Georgia Piedmont, especially for so early in December. I have some pets, as faithful readers may recall, and one of them, Honey, the cutie-pie cat, terrorizes Kirby, the black cat I know to have been born in the U.S.A.

     As a consequence, Kirby stays away days on end, not far—I see him around. I assume he gets some food at neighbors’ houses and kills small game in the Mansfield bush. Sometimes he’ll come and sit in the driveway casing the joint, wondering if he can get inside and eat some chow without being mauled by Honey.

     A few days ago he was sitting in the driveway when I went to take out the garbage, but Ginsberg, the dog, was with me and he chased him away. A little later I looked out the window and saw him sitting in the driveway again.

     I fed the other two cats, then locked them out of the kitchen and went out and fetched Kirby.

     I fed him two and a half cans of Friskies. There’s no telling how much he would eat if I would let him after these sabbaticals, but I fear making him sick if I were to find out.

     I shut the other two cats out of the two warm rooms and let Kirby stay. Ginsberg and he rub up against each other fondly. “Sorry about chasing you away. I can’t help myself. It’s a dog thing.”

     I tried to let him out before I went to bed, but he was quite comfortable where he was, thank you, and I let him stay. In retrospect this was foolish because he’d eaten two and a half cans of chow.

     In the morning there was a pool of soupy cat shit in the kitchen which the poor fellow apparently had deposited on an empty Ingle’s bag on the floor, but when I first saw it Ginsberg had the bag in his mouth and said poop was on the floor in front of the microwave.

     I couldn’t face cleaning up cat shit at 7:00 A.M., so I decided to leave it until later. Unfortunately, as I was going to reheat my coffee before leaving for work, I forgot about it, stepped in it and tracked it around the kitchen.

     I was wearing my new suede saddle oxfords which I soon discovered had indentations in the sole. What were the people at Bass shoes thinking? Certainly not about stepping in cat shit I can tell you.

     As a result I went through the day with an odor of cat shit always near.

     My next move regarding the kitchen problem was to put newspaper on the pool and the places where I’d tracked it. When the next day I tried to remove it, part of the paper was glued to the floor, so I sprayed it with 409 and put paper towels on it. I hoped this would soften it up and kill germs.

     So far you’re thinking this story stinks, but it gets better.

     When I came back to attack the problem again, I looked down at the site of Kirby’s mishap and there on the paper towel looking at me is the image of Jesus, smiling like he has a passel of kids in his lap.

     I was dumbstruck. I knew there had to be a message here, that Jesus was trying to tell me something, but I was having trouble concentrating because of the angel choir’s rising crescendo.

     I closed my eyes and there was the message printed in English on the back of my eyelids. It said, “Wassup dude?”

     I look down at Catshit Jesus and he’s still smiling benignly when it hits me. Jesus is thanking me for the shout out I gave him in the recent Apocalypse/Recycling post.

     No way am I going to clean this up now, but I should have taken a picture while I could. What I did was call the Pope.

     It’s not as hard as you might think to get the Pope on the phone. Just say you’re a twelve year old choirboy  and you have a secret to tell him.

     The Pope gets on the phone. “Habla Espanol?” I ask. “Une poco,” he says “pero hablo Ingles mas mucho.” “Que bien,” I say because I don’t speak much Spanish.

     Then I tell him about Catshit Jesus. I’m figuring he’ll want to send out investigators to confirm the miracle, but what he says is “Someone is full of shit here, but it is not Our Savior. Perhaps you should call your National Enquirer.”

     Then he hangs up before I can call him a Nazi, but I get to thinking about it and realize that maybe that’s it. Jesus wants me to make a little  money for our respective birthdays.

     So I get the National Enquirer on the line, and while they say they’re not coming to my house to look at cat shit, they’ll pay $1,500 for a good photo of this phenomenon. I tell the guy to hang on, that I’ll take the picture right now.

     I go in the kitchen and there's Ginsberg eating Catshit Jesus.

     I consider giving him some wine to go with it, but I don’t want him to start acting all holier than thou, so I get him outside and go back to the phone. “My dog ate the work Jesus did in my home, but it looks like we’ve still got one of Jesus’ legs from the knee down. What’ll you pay for that?”

     The son of a bitch hangs up on me. I'm noticing that this subject tends to make people cranky.

     So what did it all mean? Catshit Jesus doesn’t appear and ask you “Wassup dude” for nothing. On one’s birthday no less.

     I’m toying with the idea that maybe Jesus was telling me that I’m his second coming and I’m to lead my ragged company to the Pearly Gates.

     I’ll need to leave some money for Aunt Ida.

     Kool-Aid, anyone?