Messy Cat

Listening. I have been thinking a lot about listening lately. Jim came home from his annual physical. He triumphantly exclaimed that his “hearing is perfect, above average even.” I replied that I was not surprised at all. He then said that he was telling me this because I always accuse him of “not hearing me.” Really? Because that’s not how I remember it. I distinctly remember telling him “you never listen.” Is there a difference? Oh yeah. Now, that was two weeks ago. We have laughed about it several times. Ha Ha …hmmmm. I have had several, what I assume are “conversations” with Jim that have actually turned out to be one-sided monologues on my part. Hey Jim, I’m gonna run the kids to school, swing past the grocery store, make cookies, go to the library and meet a friend for lunch. The kids have a doctor’s appointment at 4 and we are having chicken for dinner. Are you feeling mashed or baked? Jim replied with “Uh..huh.” Alrighty than, see ya later, love ya. As soon as Jim gets to work, he calls me. What are you doing today? Seriously? I will admit I have a tendency to start a conversation in the middle and/or talk to him while he is still asleep. In this case he may or may not have been asleep. Not really the point I’m making here. In this next incident I know for a fact my sister was awake. I called my sister at work. Now I realize she is at work so I won’t be too hard on her. I start the conversation with, Jim wants to shoot messy cat. Not actually shoot him but rather scare him with the BB gun. He’s been getting in our trashcans again. I drove up and he jumped out of the trashcan. I don’t think it is necessary to harm him, he runs whenever you go near him. I don’t really think Jim would hurt him….my sister joins in. What does he look like? He’s rather hideous looking. I feel sorry for him. He’s orange and the kids and I named him messy cat because his hair is all funky. He has patches of smoothe regular hair and patches of rough-looking-all sticky-uppy hair. He has one big eye like he’s always surprised , and one squinty half closed eye. And the best part…he only has one ear. And it’s not like he has hair where the other ear was, he just has a hole. I don’t know if he was born with the ear and lost it in a fight or if he can hear out of the good ear….can you hear out of a hole in your head?…..my sister says, where does he live? I think the lady up the street feeds him and he stays in her shed. Now comes the part where I realize she is not listening. Is he married? Who? Messy cat. Is messy cat married? You’re asking me if a cat is married? Cat? It’s a cat? Are you kidding me, you think I have just told you that I have caught an orange haired, multi-sized-eyes, one eared man eating out of my trashcan, and I just shooed him away to go live in my neighbor’s shed? And that my husband wants to shoot him with a BB gun to scare him away. And the whole time I’m telling you this, you think it’s a man and although I talk to you every day, I never mentioned a man eats our trash? Now I realize once again that she is working so I won’t go into that his name is messy CAT!!! Is it me?

**no messy cats were harmed in the writing of this blog