Moe was a studly kitty...

We often made reference to how our cat, Moe, was a stud. He weighed a whopping 20 pounds and was as big as one my old dogs, Snoopy, who was a rat terrier/fox terrier mix.

We got Moe and his sister, Murphy, from a farm. My wife wanted a cat bad. She wanted just one because she had always grown up with just one cat. I insisted that we get two because I didn't want her to just have one cat that loved just her. I wanted a cat, too. Besides, I argued, the cats will have each other to play with.

We picked out our two cats from the farm. One was a gray tabby cat and the other was a mostly grayish-black cat with a front of white fur with white paws. We named them Moe and Murphy. We mainly picked those names because we had seen a George Carlin skit in which he had two cats and a dog name Moe, Murphy and Verne. In this skit, Moe (his dog) tries to get it on with the male cat named Verne. We laughed so hard at that skit that we were reminded of it when it was time to choose names.

Moe’s full name was Mulder Moe. The Mulder part came from the popular show, The X-Files. We were big fans, so that’s what we thought would be cool to name our cats, so Moe was Mulder and Murphy was Scully. After a week of that, I was worried that it would sound really dated years later (and it does). Mulder and Scully never did stick.

When we picked up the cats, one thing really surprised me. They were practically the size of a full grown cat. Laura assured me that both cats were 8 weeks old. We assumed that they were going to get a lot bigger. We were right.

From the start, we knew he was going to be quite the character.

As a kitten, Moe was built with the shoulders of a bull dog. He would do a kind of strut waddle when we ran into a room. Before too long, he would get the nickname, Studly, because of the way that he would announce his presence to you. If he wanted affection from you, he’d walk over you, butt his head into your chin and plop all 20 pounds of him on you chest.

Moe quickly established himself as the dominate kitten. He would often chase his sister around the apartment. When we got a mouse toy on an elastic string that’s attached over a door, Moe went to town on it. He was so determined to get the mouse down that he, after many attempts of batting it down, grabbed it with his teeth and started walking slowly towards us. Meanwhile, the elastic was stretching and the door overhand part was bending. Before I could stop him, his grip on the elastic broke and off the mouse flew in the opposite direction. It wasn’t long after that that Moe gave up on it. He may have been an animal, but he wasn’t stupid.

Moe’s demeanor changed when, a year later, we moved to California. We had packed up the moving van with all of our stuff and the last thing to go was Moe and Murphy. They had decided to hide on top of the refrigerator. Moe was drooling, which is what cats do when they are stressed. On the way to California stuck in a truck cab, Moe hid under the seat and wailed. It was only after I reached behind the seat and touched him that he calmed down. From that point on, Moe would be very dog-like in that he seemed to develop separation anxiety.

We would be up all night with Moe wailing and it was only until he had a hand on him, that he’d be happy. Sometimes, my wife Laura, would have to sleep on the couch with her hand on him to keep him quiet. In the end, I would play with him for 30 minutes every night to wear him out.

Laura called a vet about it and she suggested we talk to one of the local colleges because it sounded like Moe was suffering from separation anxiety and she had never heard of a cat having it.

From that point on, Moe became an attack cat, the muscle of the house. If he didn’t know you or knew you didn’t like him even if you knew him, he’d hiss, jump at you or both.

We went on vacation and our friend, Jeff, was to come by and feed our cats periodically. He reported that he was terrified as our cats jumped out at him from corners, chased him downstairs and out the door. He had to bring his girlfriend back to help. “They’re just cats!” she exclaimed at him.

When we were trying to sell our old house, we kept the cats in the garage with the note: “Please don’t open the garage. Cats in here.” Of course, some people wouldn’t listen, so invariably we’d come home to messages that read, “The customer opened the garage door and let the cats out. We tried to finish the tour with them in the house, but the cats chased us from room to room. We cut the tour short and fled the house. Great attack cats!” We even had a realtor open house cancelled because the cats were let out and lunging at realtors. From that point on, Moe and Murphy were locked in a big pet carrier.

When we moved to Omaha, we had to find a baby sitter, so a co-worker of my wife’s offered her daughter. We had her come over to get acquainted with Moe and Murphy while I was there. Thinking it was all right, we left Julia and the baby sitter alone on another night. The next day, it was reported by the mother that the cats on several occasions had chased the babysitter and blocked her in the kitchen and the bathroom. All the while, Julia giggled and laughed while exclaiming, “Moe doesn’t like you! He loves me!”

Another babysitter’s father commented that we could write them off on our taxes “As horses!”

You had to be careful what you left out around Moe. If you had a drink of water on a table, it’d better be in a solid, heavy glass or hidden because usually when you weren’t looking, Moe would walk up to it, sniff it, reach up his paw and pull the glass down. He’d lap up your water that was spilled all over the table while you cursed at him and cleaned it up. He’d fake you out by not doing it for a while and then just when you relaxed, ‘DUNK!’, he’d do it again.

Because of Moe’s protective, bruising nature, we were a little concerned when Laura gave birth to our daughter, Julia. We had read from some people that they would get rid of a cat that would try to jump in a crib with their baby. I knew that wasn’t going to be an option, so we installed a screen door on Julia’s room to keep the cats out.

When we brought Julia home from the hospital, we set her down in her car seat down in front of Moe. Moe froze in his tracks with wide eyes. He then crawled forward and sniffed Julia up and down. He didn’t hiss, but he seemed a little freaked out.

I was a little worried about Moe around Julia, but Laura was sure of him. She said, “I think Moe will be her protector.”

While he never had cause to run protection, he did act like he was guarding her. While Julia crawled or played on a blanket, Moe would sit there like a sphinx in front of her. As Julia got older, she’d grab on to his fur or his ears. Sometimes, she’d climb on him. Moe would always take it without even trying to nip at her. As Julia’s adventures took to the back yard, Moe would be out there with her following her around. Some of her first words were “Moe!” or “Moe Moe!” as she’d call out to him constantly when he’d walk away.

His patience towards Julia was almost never ending. One day, Julia draped a necklace on his neck. He walked around with it all day and ended up wearing it for several days before he snagged it on a table and the beads went everywhere.

To my wife, Moe was her ‘Baby’. He had to have access next to her on the couch. If he didn’t get it, he made noises of displeasure. Then again, he made noises of displeasure for anything: if he didn’t have water, if he didn’t have food, if he wanted to be rubbed.

My wife always made alone time for Moe. At night, he’d curl up beside her and she’d stroke him for a long time. He’d always have his eyes closed with pleasure.

Then he’d get to me. He also had to have alone time with him lying on my chest. Sometimes, I’d be barely lying down and he’d saunter up my torso, nudge me in the chin with his head and plop down. I gave him what would probably be a face massage as I rubbed his chin and face while he purred in contentment…

Last week, Moe jumped up on our breakfast bar and laid there for hours. When it came time for bed time, my wife noticed that he hadn’t come up for his alone time. I went downstairs and found him eating. I grabbed him and brought upstairs to bed. He didn’t stay long. He ran out and went back to the breakfast bar. He didn’t come back.

The next night, he sat again on the breakfast bar. He wasn’t sleeping and he looked a little irritated. My wife mentioned that he didn’t look good and that we should make an appointment for him.

By Wednesday, Moe was still heading for the kitchen counter, a place he never spent time at. He sat with his paws curled in towards his body. He also was starting to smell a little as if he hadn’t been cleaning himself. I just assumed that he had a virus. I made the vet appointment for Friday morning.

Thursday night, I came home and Moe was not on the kitchen counter. He was in our guest bedroom. He was drooling. His arm was crusted with it, which led me to assume that he’d been doing this for a long time. I rushed him to the emergency vet and they noticed right away that he was extremely dehydrated.

We got the call later that night that Moe’s blood work indicated that he had chronic kidney failure. Their suggestion was to run IV on him for a full day to flush him out and see if the levels come down. Most cats don’t recover from this. I had to break the news to my wife that her favorite cat was dying.

The next morning, I had to go pick him up. Moe didn’t look happy. He looked weak and unhealthy. I had to take him home for about 30 minutes while I waited for the vet to open. He managed to jump up on the kitchen counter again and curled up in the same place he had been most of the week.

Laura went to see him at the vet. She called in tears. She said, “He doesn’t look good at all. He looks horrible.”

The next morning, we talked to the vet. He informed us that the new blood work was back and his levels were still off the charts. He wasn’t recovering. The vet did note that they had to put him in a kitty bag to get him out of his cage because he was really mad at having been there all night! We laughed at that because even in his poor health he was feisty.

We made the decision to end his life because he wasn’t going to recover, and we didn’t want his final days to be ones of discomfort. I grabbed his head and looked him in the eyes. I rubbed his cheeks another time and gave him a hug. Our daughter also said goodbye.

My wife stayed in with him when it was over. The vet came out of the room and gave me a thumbs up (which I thought was odd). We did manage to laugh at that later. I wondered aloud what sort of signal would you give that an animal had passed away? The slash to the throat?

The day before we talked with our daughter that Moe would not be coming back. I don’t think she truly understands. As far as she knows, Moe is at the vet and isn’t coming back.

When my wife talked to her about it, Julia said, “I want to keep a picture of Moe, because I don’t want to forget him.”

When I talked with her about it, Julia said, “I’m going to miss him, because he’s a stud.”

I said through tears, “I know he is Sweetie. I know he is.”

I give a man five minutes of my time and spend the next 40 minutes regretting it...

Last Saturday, I mowed the lawn, took a shower, and came back outside to finish putting things away before I had to get ready for lunch and then leave with my family.

I see some guys getting stuff out of an SUV in the middle of the street. I probably should have headed inside then, but I didn't know what was coming.

A guy comes running up to me and asks me a question: "If you could pick between these two fragrances, which would it be?"

I shrug, but play along. Both are well-known brands and both are some sort of fruit scent. I spray and sniff both and tell him, "Neither, because I don't like fruity smells."

The guy chuckles a little and says, "Well, we'll get you a different scent. It's our little gift to you for a few minutes of your time."

He tells me he's part of a marketing group that spreads the word about a particular product. "If someone knew of a great product, wouldn't you want someone to tell you about it?"

"I guess," I shrug.

"Well, we want to give you a quick demonstration that should only take five minutes of your time."

He then asks me if I've ever heard of a brand of vacuum, let's just call it The Vacuum Company.

I tell them I had, but added, "Let me stop you right there. I've just bought a brand new Dyson vacuum. I'm not interested in getting a new vacuum."

The guys eyes pop wide and he goes, "That's just perfect!" and proceeds to call another guy over to give me a demonstration. He assures me again that it's not going to take a long time, so I reluctantly let the guy in my house.

Within the first few minutes, I start to realize that this isn't going to take five minutes.

The other guy that just came in, let me just refer to him as Guy, drags along two boxes with him and when I say "drags", I'm being literal. He has a heavy limp like he's suffered with a hip malfunction for most of his life.

I guess I'm just good-hearted because I start feeling a little sorry for the guy, so I sit there patiently as he pulls out of a box, a vacuum head, some hoses, a big bag and an attachment that I've never seen before. After five grueling minutes, Guy gets the vacuum all snapped and pieced together. Guy then goes into a pitch about how The Vacuum Company doesn't do any advertising. They apparently rely on people like me to buy their vacuums door-to-door.

He plugs in the vacuum and snaps some circular filter pieces into his side attachment and starts to vacuum away. He unsnaps the circle filter and says, "Look at that." It indeed is filled with dirt fibers.

Guy goes into his pitch about how The Vacuum Company is one of the only companies whose vacuums are listed as actual "vacuum cleaners". Whereas my new Dyson, is a "vacuum sweeper."

He asks me to get my vacuum out. Vacuums a little with it (I had to show him how to turn it on) and then vacuums over the same carpet space with his vacuum. He shows me the result: more dirt. He does a demonstration in which he vacuums over the same space 52 times to simulate a years worth of vacuuming. Guy then vacuums over that same space again with his vacuum and shows me the result: more dirt.

It's at this point that I'm starting to get a little impatient. It's taking way longer than 5 minutes. The demonstration seems to have no end and it's starting to cut into lunch time for my daughter. My wife starts to make Julia her lunch while I'm stuck there, starving myself, waiting for this non-ending demonstration to end.

I then also start realizing that there seems to be a never-ending stream of dirt coming from my carpet. I think he could have gone over the same spots all day long and still managed to pull up bits of dirt. Also, he has a side attachment that is not even the bag, it's a place to put his filters, but it's also a way to increase the suction. I can only imagine what it would do with the actual bag intact.

It was during this period of helplessness that I started to realize that Guy sounded and talked just like Uncle Rico, the scheming uncle from Napoleon Dynamite who tries selling everything from breast enhancements to cheap tupperware.



Guy then says in an Uncle Rico way, "What I asked you, 'where would you say your dirtiest part of you house is?' What would you say?"

I started to try and think, but then I just said, "I would say... I don't know. Could you just tell me?"

Guy asks to go to the nearest bedroom. In the guess bedroom, he pulls up the sheets and starts vacuuming on the mattress. He shows me the result: lots of dirt and very fine dust. Apparently, dust mites feed on us and dispose of 5 times their body weight on our mattresses. Thanks Guy, I'm now paranoid that I might actually need this vacuum, but I resist the urge.

He also tries to sell me out of my Dyson by explaining that his vacuum has HEPA filter bags. I counter that not only does my Dyson have HEPA, but they are lifetime filters. He doesn't seem fazed and counters with how the HEPA rating is displayed on his vacuum but not on others. I look and can't find it (but I'm sure it's somewhere in my manual). He tells me how the vacuum will also clear the air. I counter with the fact that a British allergy association recommends my vacuum for allergy sufferers. He counters with someone else. I counter that the Dyson produces air 1.5 times cleaner than the air outside the vacuum. He counters with something else. I realize this is never going to end.

I ask if we can wrap this up, so he gives me the lowdown. $2000 for the vacuum!!!

I tell him rather bluntly, "Look, I told the first guy that I had just bought this Dyson and I'm NOT going to just throw it away to buy yours."

Guy/Uncle Rico says, "Okay, but I need to call my boss and let him know that I tried, but you're not interested."

He pulls out of his pocket the oldest, most beaten-up looking Nokia cell phone that I've seen since 1999, dials and starts to talk, in what can only be described as the biggest sack of horse crap that anyone's tried to feed me.

Guy asks, "What's your name?"

I tell him. He nods.

"I'm hear with Mr. At Large. I showed him the vacuum and he's very impressed with it (gives me a nod), but he says that he can't afford to buy another one because he's just bought a new Dyson. Can we do anything for him on the price?"

He nods and starts jotting down numbers. Now it doesn't sound so horrible while I'm typing this, but it sounded like he had just pretended to dial and was talking to no one. I was very tempted to ask Guy for the phone, but refrained.

He then knocked off $800 on the price and told me I could have it for 50 bucks a month. I again reiterated that I made it perfectly clear up front that I had a new vacuum and wasn't interested in buying a new one.

Guy nodded, thanked me for my time and then proceeded to take five minutes picking up all of his equipment and putting it back in the bags and then into the boxes.

I muttered, "Boy. You think they would give you a nice carrying case to haul those vacuums around."

Guy finally leaves and Laura goes, "How do you get yourself sucked into these things?"

I guess I got sucked in by the assurance that it would be only a short demonstration. I'll know better next time someone like that comes along. I then realized not only did I lose 40 minutes of my life that I'll never get back, I also didn't even get my spray fragrance.

I hope no one saw that...

So I was telling my Mom about the last story. The one in which my 4-year-old daughter snapped the cat's collar on her and took off running to show how far she can run. The one that ended with the rope snapping taught and my daughter getting pulled back. That one.

It was a little scary, but also a little funny after the fact.

When I told my Mom the story, her response was, "I hope no one saw that!"

I laughed, "Why?"

"Because someone might have gotten the wrong idea and called the police."

I started to get a little mad.

"Who would call the police on that?"

"You never know," she said.

I understood what she was getting at, but I was still mad at the paranoia.

"Hey, if anyone ever tried to take Julia away for something that stupid, I would make their lives a living hell."

It got me thinking about today. People are sooo protective of the children. Sometimes, we go a little far in some areas and not far enough in other areas.

Think about it, when I grew up, it was common practice that mothers would go into the store and leave their kids in the parking lot. I ought to know, I was left out in the parking lot in my Mom's van with my other siblings. Rather, we were victims that were left out in the hot sun with no air conditioning and no water, with only each other to cling to for comfort. Just kidding Mom!

Actually, if one was to come across the scene, it would look us kids were having a great time!

Sometimes, we would come up with activities to amuse ourselves. A popular activity was steering wheel rides. One of us would sit on the bottom part of the steering wheel and hold on with our hands. A sibling or two would spin the steering wheel back and forth to give a nice ride. It was great... I mean, it was a great way to misbehave, and now completely impossible what with the locking steering wheels that cars have today.

Another activity while left in a hot van while your Mom shopped was to honk the horn. Oh sure, it doesn't sound too fun, but it became a game by seeing how many times you could honk the horn before our Mom came out pissed off. You could play this with a defiant sibling honking or daring someone to honk. Invariably, my Mom would be checking out when someone at the checkout would comment, "Your kids have been honking the horn." She'd come to window and glare out at us. We'd stop right away. We pushed buttons, but we weren't stupid.

Nowadays, you're just asking to get reported for child neglect if you leave your kid out in the car for just a second.

I was witness to this taken to extremes. When I worked at Pizza Hut, our shift manager at the time called the police on a customer, whose kids were waiting in the car outside some 10 feet away while their Mom sat inside waiting for the pizza. It's a good thing he came too because what with people coming and going the Mom that far away, they might have been without aid for 30 whole seconds.

It's amazing how far we've come. We've come from kids being left out in cars, kids in no car seats and kids not even buckled in to every type of safety device holding our kids into something. Don't get me wrong. It's probably a good idea, but as the attention Britney Spears is getting for her hair-brained child seat techniques shows, people are just a tad sensitive.

I joked to my Mom that today, she'd be put in jail many times over for her actions in the past, but that's just the way it was back then. Leaving your kids in the car was convenience. Now it's abuse.

Same with the leash story. Back then, it was always funny because kids do silly things. Now it's your fault for not anticipating their silly actions.

How far? Far enough...

Our new house has a relatively small back yard with no fence. Because of this, we were initially concerned that our cat, Moe, would want to go outside, roam around and generally be a pain in the ass to get back in the house.

For a day or two, that's what happened. We'd let Moe outside, he'd venture way past our property into the dirt beds of the opposite side of the street where they're starting to build new homes behind us.

Fed up, I got a yellow nylon rope that we used the last time we moved to tie stuff down, tied one end to our deck, tied the other end to Moe's collar and put the collar on Moe.

Moe resisted at first, but then gradually accepted his fate to be tethered to our deck. It's worked out pretty well save for the one night when he walked around part of the deck's base three times and then could only make it up the deck stairs halfway before running out of rope. He was out there for hours before I remembered he was out there.

One thing Julia likes doing with the collar and rope is that she'll snap it on herself and crawl around on the deck like she's the cat. She thinks it's funny and it is generally.

The other day we had some friend over. Julia, like any other kid her age, was trying to get their attention, so she snapped on the collar and started acting like a cat. Our friends laughed at it, so Julia kept it up.

My friend, Jeff, asked Julia about the rope.

"How far can that rope go?" he asked innocently.

She said with an air of confidence, "Far enough."

I had just turned my head to check the grill when I heard Jeff exclaim, "No! Wait! Stop!"

I turn my head in time to see Julia running. She had run down the steps of the deck and made a beeline straight out from the deck into the yard. This while the rope was trailing behind her with the slack getting shorter and shorter.

She heard Jeff's cries to stop and had stopped with about 5 feet of rope behind her. Now all of us were yelling to come back, stop and don't run.

Those messages must have sounded like, "Don't stop. Keep running!" because Julia took off again, only to have the rope's slack to tighten. Thankfully, Julia wasn't going that fast as the rope snapped because while she did indeed get pull backwards by the rope's tightening. She pull herself off the ground with no harm.

We lightly scolded her while we took off the cat collar she had snapped on herself and told her not to do that again.

It's funny now, but it could have been a worse ending.