Drinking from the Fire Hydrant

Preserving our precious nature resources

I woke up in the morning, and the first thing that came to mind was that I was in hell. In hell, my task is to write a novel about a journalist who is trapped in a world where the only adjective available is “handsome.” The hellish part of the dream was, “handsome” was also the only adjective I was allowed to use to write the novel.

I decided that this was a result of my guilty conscience, because I went to bed without removing the dead bird on the back deck. I suspect the bird either crashed into the sliding door, or it was brought there by some feral tomcat that is trying to woo our bulimic cat Megan through the glass doors of the kitchen.

As I wrote that now, it occurred to me that the adjective “feral” is redundant when applied to cats. I’ve never seen a cat that didn’t behave in a manner that is best described as feral. Even kittens. Cats are smart; they know how to make you think they are domesticated, but in reality, they’re just using you.

Anyway, I checked the bird, and it either has rapidly decayed, or its corpse has been set upon by scavenger rodents. That’s a disturbing thought in and of itself. If I were, heaven forbid, to pass on while taking a stroll about the grounds, I hate to think that my mortal remains would be set upon by ravenous chipmunks and squirrels as part of their winter preparations. Now there’s a handsome thought.