Scooter Thomas Writes For eHow

We poked a little fun at some of the advice being offered on eHow.com earlier this week, but little did we know that someone in the Vore household has already been publishing his work there. He’s got some advice to offer here, here and here. He has also apparently devised a strategy for finally conquering that fiendish red pen light here. No word yet on how exactly he’s being compensated for this (apparently eHow pays by the number of hits), but we guess he’s saving up for a new Kitty Hooch toy or something.

UPDATE: In his first 20 hours as an eHow member, Scooter Thomas has somehow managed to accumulate 41 friends. We’re not sure how many of them know he is a cat.

Scooter Thomas Reviews Dewey

Our cat and occasional guest blogger Scooter Thomas asked for the opportunity to review the new book Dewey, which has appeared on numerous bestseller lists and currently sits at #10 on Amazon’s Top 100.

 

Ahem. Thank you, owners.

What names come to mind when one thinks of the true modern day saints? Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi, certainly. Pope John Paul and Martin Luther King Jr., for sure. It would not be too great a stretch to add others like Bono or, say, Don Rickles to that list. Yet there is one name that has sadly lacked the recognition it deserves. That is, until now.

That name is Dewey Readmore Books.

For those of you who are not cats and/or live in a cave, Dewey is the subject of the bestseller Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. His story begins tragically. On one of the coldest nights of the year, some cruel, unconscionable monster stuffed Dewey — just weeks old — into the returned book slot of the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa. The next day librarian Vicky Myron, blessed be her name, found Dewey and adopted him as the library cat. In those early days Dewey’s paws were so frostbitten that he could only hobble on them (and here I’m quoting directly from the dust jacket) “to nudge each of [the staff] in a gesture of thanks and love.” 

Pardon me a moment. [dabs at eyes] I’m sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t cry.

There. Okay. For the next nineteen years, Dewey became the plucky mascot of Spencer, teaching the town folk lessons about courage, generosity and the power of relationships, as well as the resilience and humanity of good people like those in our nation’s heartland. Dewey is a true feline Hall of Famer, and he will rekindle your belief that one person (together with one cat) can change lives. 

In the interests of full disclosure, I should add that Dewey and I were acquaintances, and that we served on the boards of numerous non-profits together. We also volunteered at the same soup kitchen, did mission work deworming orphans in Somalia, and won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Muhammad Yunus for our groundbreaking work on micro-loans. We go way back, Dewey and I. Oh the stories I could tell…

Well, I’ll tell one. Not to shed our great hero in an unflattering light, but many nights after closing time at Spencer Public Library, Dewey just wanted to kick back and shotgun some beers in the Astronomy section (520-529). Lest one mistake this location for some intention on Dewey’s part to actively educate himself about the heavens, however, he chose this spot mainly so he could deface the night sky books by drawing lines from star to star in order to shape crude renderings of male genitalia. I made the mistake of criticizing this endeavor one evening when Dewey was quite sauced, and he responded by smashing off the top of his beer bottle and holding the shattered handle to my neck. I still recall the fetid stench of his breath as he spun me a sad tale of woe, relating how he became an orphan and what he would do to his first owner should they ever meet in a dark alley. Then he passed out in my lap, at which point an overpowering smell filled my nostrils and I was visited with the realization that Dewey had in fact lost control of his bowels. (This happened nearly every time he drank.)

I never visited Dewey after closing hours again.

I want to reiterate that Dewey truly was a saint, a cat whom I hold in only the highest regard. Except for the time we went cruising in Spencer and he thought it would be a good idea to smash some mailboxes with a baseball bat. We were hanging with our friends Gus and Maggie, and since they were a little high I felt compelled to speak up again and question whether this activity was truly an edifying one for the greater good of our close-knit community. This small objection was met with such an onslaught of blistering profanity from Dewey himself that sailors everywhere covered their ears in shame. He veered off the road, caromed into a cornfield, accelerated toward a defenseless deer stunned by our headlights and swerved only at the last moment, careening recklessly about in a whirlwind fury of corn and mud until we slammed into a tree and Gus went straight through the windshield. (Not to fear. He landed on all four feet.) I thought our ordeal was over, but Dewey promptly exited the car and capped the deer with a sawed-off shotgun before arching his head back and howling to the dark sky above. “I am Children of the Corn!” he yelled inscrutably, a reference to the movie he subjected me to no less than three dozen times. Still a shudder goes down my spine when I think of that night.

Again, I don’t mean to detract from the great cat that he was. It’s just that he could wig out at times is all. 

There was a falling out after that, and I skipped town with the one life I had left. The other eight were strewn about Spencer, in cornfields and seedy nightclubs and open stretches of highway where Dewey would drag race, me cowering in the backseat. We never kept in touch after that, though when I read his obituary I felt a pang of loss, quickly replaced by the enormous relief that I got out while I still could.

So, to sum up, there’s quite a lot of Dewey’s story that the authors fail to include in their bestselling tome, omissions I ascribe solely to considerations of length and in no way regard as a distortion of the great feline that Mr. Books was. You could do much, much worse than putting Dewey under the Christmas tree this year for your loved ones. You could do better too, but I have yet to finish my memoirs.

Scooter Thomas Writes Barack Obama

We found this letter stashed beside Scooter Thomas’s litterbox yesterday. The penmanship was rather crude and it was written in crayon. We are publishing it here in its original, unedited form.

Dear President-Elect Obama,

You have publicly stated that you and your lovely wife are rewarding your beautiful daughters with an abominable creature a puppy once you move into the White House. I am writing this letter in the hope you wise up reconsider selecting an animal of such an inferior species questionable pedigree. (I mean no ill will toward my basset hound friend, Winnie Sweeney. She is decidedly less inferior than all most canines.) Specifically I am writing to suggest that you drop this futile search for a not totally imbecilic worthy dog and choose a kick-ass truly superior specimen. I am thinking here of myself.

Let me tell you a little bit about me. I’m eighteen pounds but quite limber. I think of myself as an intellectual like you. While I won’t pretend we share the same political views (I voted for the vastly better candidate Mr. Bob Barr), I am an open-minded, occasionally progressive feline tolerant of people who are simply wrong a great many viewpoints. I like red wine and Prokofiev and naps and the Bravo channel. 

You have stressed that the First Pet must be hypoallergenic given your daughter Malia’s allergies. I must confess that I may not be a prime candidate in this regard though your daughter is clearly a wuss. I landed with my current owners, neanderthals in taste and culture a good-natured but feckless couple, because my original owner had to take allergy shots just to coexist with me. Rest assured that I could stop shedding at a moment’s notice, however, if I freakin’ have to in a true spirit of bipartisanship. For the time being, I continue to shed prolifically only to embarrass my owners by sending them into public with heavily shedded-upon shirts and jackets. (They need to be taken down a notch or twelve two.)

Perhaps you are also concerned about my mammoth purported barfing spells. I cannot emphasize just how true false these are. You know how the braindead MSM chattering classes are once they wrap their bejeweled claws hands around a juicy morsel of gossip. You’re a Muslim! I’m a vomiting menace! How absurd.

You and I are both alike in this way, sir, in that we both smoke have suffered the slings and arrows of our rivals yet emerged unscathed, even stronger as a result. Of course, I would be happy to retch in the general direction of any media barnacles nettlesome journalists such as, say, David Gregory or Helen Thomas. Just say the word.

Finally, you signified your allegiance to a shelter animal because it would be “a mutt like me.” Sir, I am the muttiest cat to ever walk saunter the earth. My father was an alley cat Scandinavian and my mother loose Inuit. I am part rabid Cherokee and one-eighth Australian. You and I are going to take over the world truly global children. Polyglot blood courses through our veins. (FYI, I speak cat French, Spanish, German, pidgin Portugese, Japanese and Sanskrit.) 

Please consider me in the coming days and weeks as you slack around until January transition into your new role and amass a bunch of wonkish dweebs “team of rivals” to complement your presidency. Also, I can give some nasty scratch marks fantastic economic advice and I used to be not-neutered a foreign policy scholar at the Cato Institute. So it’s like win-win!

Give Michelle a smooch squeeze hug for me.

Respectfully,

Scooter Thomas

 

P.S. I’m a great alarm clock. I am willing to sit on your head and purr like a bulldozer nudge you gently for that three a.m. phone call.

Scooter Thomas Weighs In on the 2008 Election

Our cat, Scooter Thomas, guest blogs for us from time to time. Today is one of those times.

Being the staunch Libertarian that I am, I will be casting my vote tomorrow for none other than Bob Barr. Then, like my owners, I’ll settle in on the couch for an endless night of perspiring, prognosticating, and poll-watching, with heavy doses of sauvignon blanc to help the blathering of Chris Matthews go down smooth.

While I am loathe to join the ranks of talking head punditry, I am just as loathe to withhold my insights from an audience clamoring for substance in the midst of so much vapid political commentary. Allow me to toss just a few predictions out into the fray:

Bob Barr will win the presidency. The moment when the Ohio returns come in for Barr, marking the greatest upset in electoral history, will also be the singular, simultaneous moment when Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity, Charlie Gibson, Chuck Todd, Katie Couric and Campbell Brown all have perfectly-synced heart attacks. It promises to be the most-Youtubed video of all time. To fully enjoy this moment, go out and buy yourself a television that has six-frame split-screen capability.

I will maul any campaign worker who gets within twenty feet of me at the polling station. Seriously, I will rip their face off. I’m just there to vote in peace. You step to me, I will claw the living daylights out of your internal organs.

My owners will get loaded regardless of the outcome. If the returns come in according to their tastes, the wine will flow freely. If the returns are not favorable, they will drown their sorrows. Either way, twenty bucks says the male passes out in his boxers on the porch.

On the local front, Ohio Issue 6 — which would pave the way for Ohio’s first casino — will fail, to every Ohioan’s eternal shame. What’s wrong with wanting to unwind after a long day by shooting some craps? Or partaking in a little baccarat? Or bringing down the house with one’s sweet card-counting skills at blackjack? Nothing. Nothing at all … unless you’re a puritanical, self-righteous, buttoned-down goody two-shoes who fails to appreciate how life-enhancing, how necessary a casino would be. Seriously, I’m tired of racking up miles driving to Argosy and back six times a week. And no, I am not an addict. I can stop anytime. But it’d be so much easier to stop if the casino was right here in our backyard. Then the sweet, illicit thrill of the gambler’s high would be so prosaic. Nothing would help lower crime and prevent gambling better than building more casinos. Sadly, I do not think my fellow Ohioans are far-sighted enough to appreciate the foolproof logic of my argument.

Finally, as a postscript to this election season, I must say how deeply saddened I am that no major party — not even Mr. Barr and the Libertarians — addressed what I consider to be the greatest menace to our national security over the next four years: the Infernal Red Pen Light. It has been my personal nemesis for years, yet what I truly fear is this unconscionable monster getting its hands on some loose nukes. Can you imagine? Furthermore, I have seen nothing from our military that appears remotely capable of dealing with this threat. It can disappear and reappear at any moment. It can scale walls. And even when I am certain I have pinned it down under my paws, it eludes my grasp yet again, off to wreak more havoc and destruction. Our next president’s top priority should be locking down this tyrant and obliterating it. One cat can only do so much. It’s time to bring in the entire military-industrial complex.

That is all. Now go, do your patriotic duty.

Scooter Thomas Answers His Critics

Our cat and occasional guest blogger, Scooter Thomas, has been on the receiving end of pointed criticism of late. He asked for the opportunity to respond.

Thank you, dear owners.

Ahem.

First, Scott Guldin let the cat out of the bag, as it were, with this slanderous bit of fabrication which painted me in a less-than-wholesome light. Then Matthew Leathers unleashed this polemic on his Mindless Comfort blog in a post that was demeaning not just to myself or my (occasionally) good owners but also felines everywhere. I’m sure Mr. Leathers loves Top Banana Galore dearly, and perhaps Banana has other virtues — tricks and whatnot — which do not necessarily translate onto the page. But Banana — and I don’t mean to put too fine a point on it — is a dithering idiot. He is clearly illiterate. That Mr. Leathers forced him to type twelve lines of inscrutable drivel before putting him out of his misery is unforgivable. Someone needs to rescue Banana from what are certainly squalid living conditions and nurse him back to good health so that he might one day reenter polite society as something other than a drooling, catatonic feline version of Sling Blade.

Now, let me address some of the specific accusations against me.

Scott Guldin claims (after resorting to crass name-calling that obscures any point he is attempting to make) that I

• slapped a glass of juice out of his son David’s hand;
• tripped him in a crude attempt to obtain a piece of delicious chicken;
• cursed like a sailor;
• and “wreaked havoc in the hearts of small children.”

Where to begin refuting these despicable charges? How about I simply start with the truth.

David Guldin, while a cute and curious little fellow, possesses the motor skills of a blindfolded moose. He is not fit to be drinking things without lids on them. It is as simple as that. Young David also seemed to derive quite a bit of pleasure by dumping his food (tirelessly grilled to perfection by my male owner) on the floor. My owners were polite to a fault, withholding criticism of such rudimentary social graces. This is not meant as an insult of young David — only, perhaps, a concerned inquiry into the efficacy of Mr. Guldin’s parenting abilities. But I will not trade tit for tat.

Mr. Guldin’s accusations against me, while fallacious, are no match for the sheer bluster of Mr. Leathers’s cynical tirade. He seems scarred by some deep inadequacy to care for Banana in his poor vegetative state. His Photoshop skills are primitive at best. (“Scooter Vanilli’s” paw is protruding from the vicinity of his right ear.) And his deep disdain for cat bloggers everywhere is not at all surprising, coming as it does from the poster child for the Condescending Media Elite. Mr. Leathers calls me a “fraud” and asserts, when evidence clearly contradicts him, that my owners are somehow guilty of faux journalism shenanigans. He has not witnessed firsthand my owners’ pathetic attempts to bathe and dress themselves, much less their loathsome eating habits or the effrontery with which they daily assault common standards of simple decency.

I regret that Mr. Leathers has diminished in stature following his recent antics. I was once a fan of Mindless Comfort and its gleeful skewering of 311 fans or the editorial practices of Spin magazine. Now it brings me nothing but deep shame when I dwell upon it. 

So dwell upon it I will not. I asked my owners what proof we could offer that would buttress the authenticity of my posts against the universal standard of truth. We considered photographic evidence but realized that our critics would simply assert that we were nothing but Photoshop wizards (seeing as they are obviously well-versed in those dark arts). 

It will have to come down to this: Mr. Leathers, I request that you should visit our house this coming Saturday — say around seven thirty — at which time we shall finally meet and look one another square in the eye. If you should look deep into my soul and see anything but what I have spilled out on these pages, well … then we shall go our separate ways clinging to our separate truths. But should you realize the falsity of your deeply hurtful accusations, then I trust you will set the record straight publicly, call off your Voreblog boycott, and cease this witch hunt. You have turned this good home into a modern day Salem.

In the meantime, might I challenge you, Mr. Leathers, to spend a little more time with Top Banana Galore and overcome your deep-seated kitty bigotry of low expectations? And also to be the first to share your worst concert experience in the third Voreblog Readers Forum here? Surely you have a story to tell.

We’ve Been Scooped.

Displaying the speed and ferocity with which he crashes the boards and dives for loose balls on the basketball court, Scott Guldin at scottguldin.com has scooped us by posting (at least to our knowledge) the first pictures of Scooter Thomas on the Internet here. But be forewarned. He also engages in a bit of slander and character assassination that one might expect from someone who can abruptly grow large neck moles.

His dig on the Queen City and the “slate gray severity of southern Ohio” doesn’t sit well with us either, but it’s good to see him blogging again after a brief hiatus.

Scooter Thomas is reeling from the accusations and promises to tell his side of the story soon.

In the meantime we are on the lookout for the feared chupacabra, which has reportedly been spotted in the greater Cincinnati area.

Scooter Thomas Addresses The Federal Bailout

Our cat Scooter Thomas occasionally guest blogs for us. He requested time and space to address the financial crisis facing our country.

I fear I must once again dispel another vicious, slanderous feline stereotype that has reared its ugly head in the past two weeks. I refer specifically to that malicious slur one hears associated with Wall Street CEOs: “fat cat.”

 

A rough approximation of Scooter Thomas.

 

When exactly did “fat cat” become a pejorative term? Why must we be forever joined at the hip with the likes of this guy?

 

“I’m wearing gold underwear.”

 

That’s a money-grubbing Wall Street tycoon who wants to be unjustly compensated for dishonest behavior and reckless management. That is something wholly separate from an obese feline, a noble creature who should not be saddled with such crude, bigoted caricatures.

Who says our lives are spent in idle luxury, alternating between sleeping, eating and guest-blogging? I’ll tell you who: Nattering nabobs of negativism. Walk a mile in my shoes, you nabobs. Actually, I’d never really consider walking a mile myself. But everyone knows that’s just an expression anyway.

And why “fat cat”? Why not, say, “portly badger”? Or “roly-poly wallaby”? Maybe “rotund gibbon” or “corpulent marmot.” There are so many wonderfully husky creatures in the animal kingdom! Who exactly saddled us with this burden?

Such is our cross to bear. But I think it blows.

Incidentally, many people have been calling me for advice on managing their portfolio during this crisis. My advice: Stay calm. This is not the time to be doing anything drastic. Sit tight and weather this out. If I could offer a few words to the elected officials hashing things out in Washington right now, I would say: Equity participation is crucial here. If Treasury buys assets, it gets warrants that can be converted into equity if the price of the purchased assets falls. This both guarantees against a pure bailout of the financial firms, and opens the door to a real infusion of capital, if that becomes necessary — and I think it will.

This is, in fact, exactly what Paul Krugman put in his blog this week. But it’s not copying if he called me for my take and then printed it verbatim without giving me credit. Right back at you, Paul.

Scooter Thomas Not Quite Live Blogging the Great Cincinnati Blackout of Aught Eight

Our cat Scooter Thomas is an occasional guest blogger and was the only one home when power came back on in the Vore house early this morning. He filed this report.

Monday, September 15. 9:14 p.m.  My pansy owners have fled north where pockets of electricity have returned to select neighborhoods. They are staying with family tonight, and are fortunate enough to enjoy a hot meal. But am I not family? Do I not deserve something fresh out of the oven? Not that I eat anything but my IAMS Weight & Hairball Control dry food, but I take umbrage at the implication I am sub-family, someone to be abandoned in trying times, left to fend for himself. Woe to us felines! Woe!

10:31 p.m. Someone is shooting off firecrackers in the street. Trees are still down in our neighborhood. Power lines remain slack. I sense we are a razor’s edge away from martial law. I should probably apply face paint and round up some firearms.

11:10 p.m. I am camoed out. I have a bandana on my head and black streaks below both eyes. Some of it got in my whiskers though and I’m a bit pissy about that. I keep my paw on the sawed-off shotgun I found in the basement. The safety is off. To borrow a phrase from my favorite military thriller writer W.E.B. Griffin: Retreat, Hell!

Artist’s rendition of Scooter Thomas in Commando mode. Cat pictured is 1/20 of scale.

11:13 p.m. I am extremely tired. The Apocalypse is wearing me out. I’m just going to close my eyes for a second. No harm there.

Tuesday, September 16. 2:02 a.m.  I bolt awake at the sound of the house humming to life. Lights pop on everywhere. The fridge whirs. Central air vents click awake. I am sweating profusely, clutching my shotgun close in a death grip. I saunter upstairs to the bathroom and get a look at myself in the mirror. Getting all this paint off is not going to tickle.

9:01 a.m. Seven painful hours later I am scrubbed clean. But my tongue feels like sandpaper. I will never lick again.

9:08 a.m. The male walks through the door, eager to see me. He has no idea. The contempt I feel for this coward defies description. Last night I stared into the abyss and it stared back. He probably watched the Cowboys/Eagles game on cable and had a fresh cup of coffee when he woke up.

     I head upstairs to reapply the face paint.

Scooter Thomas Goes To The Vet

Our cat Scooter Thomas, occasional guest blogger, had his first vet appointment in two years yesterday. Here are excerpts from his diary.

Monday, August 25. My owners are behaving strangely. I plodded into the kitchen today just as I heard the female saying, “Well, I suppose we can cram him into anything if it’s just for ten miles.” Upon seeing me, they clammed up. I did one of those little belly rolls that excites them so, and they lavished me with forced affection. Nevertheless, I am on alert.

Tuesday, August 26. My owners arrived home tonight with a Fat Cat Tail Chaser toy packed with Zoom Around The Room* catnip. Given my stated preference for Kitty Hootch products (the good people there have even kindly linked to my post recommending them), I was rather perturbed. Not only were my owners 1) attempting to buy my affection, they were 2) doing so with an inferior product. Like our national government issuing Terror Alerts, any time my owners produce a new toy I know something fishy is afoot. My contempt for them is just towering.

Wednesday, August 27. One of the worst days of my life.

Everything was proceeding just fine — morning tea, Twitter with friends, some Wodehouse, a good poop — when the brute male hijacked me using one of my favorite boxes (forever tainted now with nightmarish memories) and threw me in the car. Despite his best efforts to hold me down as we drove, I scampered out and got a good look at our route so as to give the authorities as many details as possible after my rescue.

We pulled up to a rundown establishment called the Loveland Animal Hospital, which strongly evoked the architectural style of Soviet barracks. As I was carried in my box I thought of making a run for it, but by then the female had shown up and I was outnumbered. The awful sensation as we stepped inside that oppressive hut was horrific. Pictures of my tormented kin adorned the walls, wearing expressions of anguished captivity mockingly contrasted with bright, cheery fonts that screamed hackneyed proverbs like FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS THERE TO LEND A HELPING HAND as one poor slave kitten batted another with his paw.

At this point it is safe to say I snapped. Moving on from the relatively anodyne meowing and hissing I had previously indulged in, I resorted to my full-throated death growl, spicing it up with occasional swipes at the male’s chubby little digits. This finally seemed to put everyone on alert that I meant business.

And then things get blurry. A towel was draped over me and I was transported into a dark room abuzz with the distressed sounds of other poor animals in captivity. When it came off I got a good look at a young woman in soft blue scrubs, and her face was just close enough that I nearly landed a direct blow. This outburst resulted in me being turned upside down so that my box caged me to the floor. My senses thus unbalanced, I was no match for the fiendish man who removed the box and swooped in with a terrifyingly long needle which he then jabbed into me.

Fearing that I had just minutes, possibly seconds, before this toxic cocktail worked its cruel magic and snuffed out my little life, I gathered to myself every happy memory I could recall. But it is worth noting what I did not remember, given what I did recall. I did not remember my first litterbox. Or a patch of sunlight on hardwood floor. I didn’t recall that really great nap the year I was two. My former feline roommate Maggie, whose dithering companionship nevertheless brought me some comfort, did not pop into my head. Not the many catnip binges. The semester abroad in Paris. The non-profit work I did with Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. Hiking in the Himalayas. None of these.

This is what I remembered. Dark. Chamberlin Park. The baseball field. The whir of insects. The night sky laid out above me in full splendor. My newfound friend Winnie the Basset Hound was lying beside me on her back, both of us staring up at the stars. We were fresh off a bender up and down every bar on Blue Ash Road in Deer Park: Car Rock Cafe, Stagge’s Saloon, Archie’s Place, Logo’s, the Johnny Knuckles Blue Bell Tavern. But I was in that moment of post-boozing clarity when I felt a heightened awareness of everything around me. Winnie was scatting made-up words to some Cheap Trick song when I interrupted her.

“Winnie, old chap, do you ever look up at the stars and think about how tiny we are? And ask yourself, Why us? Why here? Why now?”

Winnie glanced over at me. “I say, old sport, gotten a bit pensive, have we? Thinking about one’s place in the universe and all that?”

“Yeah, excessive amounts of hard liquor do that to me,” I said. “Sometimes I just wish I knew the answers to the big questions, you know?”

We were silent for a while. Then Winnie said, “Well, dear friend, I’ll tell you what I know for sure on nights like this, looking up at a view like that.”

“And what’s that?” I said.

Winnie waited a beat before answering. “From here, I’ve got a spectacular view of Uranus.”

It was not a split second later that Winnie unleashed the most rancid fart I have ever been witness to in my entire life. We erupted in laughter, rolling and guffawing and crying. “Oh my basset hound ribs,” Winnie said between gasps of air. “They hurt! They hurt!” I was not sure whether my tears were from joy or anguish at the odor.

So lost was I in this reverie, so warmed by this memory as I was certain death was upon me, that I barely realized the fiendish man was presently poking a metal instrument up my ass. I was about to unleash the fury of hell upon him just as he pulled away and the box clamped down on me again. Whether I was there for seconds or days, I cannot recall. But when the box was lifted, I again found myself assaulted by a crew of blue-scrubbed enemy operatives who laced a red leash around my neck, for what reason I don’t know other than total and complete humiliation.

I was carried in my box to another room where my owners were waiting, looking rather alarmed. And I must say: While I continued to put up a holy fuss, growling and hissing and swiping for my dear life, never have I been so happy to see those two faces than that moment after I had, Lazarus-like, risen from the dead. The fiendish man who had administered the shot said something about a “scrape,” and the words “spirited little devil” and “could stand to lose some weight” register somewhere in my memory now like distant echoes across a wide canyon. He used a coat hanger to remove the leash, and it’s a good thing too. I would’ve clawed that hand down to the bone given the chance.

This is not to say I will not exact revenge upon my owners. They will get theirs. But tonight, at least, now that I have put pen to paper and begun to set this cataclysmic trauma behind me, I think I might find a comfy spot on the end of the bed and extend an olive branch of peace. When the alarm goes off tomorrow morning, I suspect I will find it in my heart to saunter up to the pillows and sit on someone’s head, purring and harkening the arrival of — thank God — a new day.

 

* Zoom Around The Room is copywrited by Fat Cat Inc. Giving your cat a Fat Cat product is a nice gesture, but thinking it will satisfy our craving for catnip once we have experienced Kitty Hooch is like showing up to a knife fight with a spork.

——————–

Scooter Thomas shared in the Readers Forum that Starship Troopers made him cry, but not for reasons the filmmakers might have hoped. What movies were so soulless that you cried out of sheer emotional stupor? (Don’t let the fact the cops showed up to the forum scare you. Post here.)

Special Scooter Thomas Edition of Friday Recommends: Kitty Hooch

Our cat, Scooter Thomas, occasionally guest blogs for us. Today he will use our Friday Recommends space to sing the praises of his favorite new cat toy: Kitty Hooch.

A Kitty Hooch t-shirt.

 

While I find it insufferable to be forced by my owners to write even one more word for this dismal blog, there is nothing insufferable about my enthusiasm for what I can say, without hyperbole, is the greatest cat toy ever invented: Kitty Hooch.

There are a number of testimonials from cat owners on the Kitty Hooch website that document just how life-changing it has been to many of my brethren, cats like Rocket, Matches, Nacho, Cosmo, and Moon Pie. Sadly, the good people who invented Kitty Hooch have not allowed a cat to speak for himself on the testimonial page. This being the case, I will attempt to do the Hooch justice here.

I’ve tried all the other cat toys from big boxes like PetSmart, Healthy Pet and the like. Let’s be honest: they were crap. Every last one. Oh sure, I put on a good show for my owners, stamping and rolling, chewing and gnawing and the like, but my heart was never in it. Like virtually everything in my life, I was doing it for them, trying to add some tiny measure of joy to what must otherwise be a truly pointless existence. All that time not sleeping, refusing to enjoy the finer pleasures in life. Quite sad.

But I digress. My owners introduced me to this revolutionary toy when they returned home from Portland, Oregon, earlier this summer. Portland must be a magical place where kitty treats hang from catnip trees and scratching posts dot the horizon like skyscrapers while the diabolical red pen light turns not its infernal gaze anywhere across the land. Better would be one day in Portland than a thousand elsewhere!

I knew the minute they stepped through the door that there was something nuclear in their suitcase. The air was charged. My instincts were ramped up to fever pitch. I would’ve clawed through that bag had they not immediately removed the item pictured here:

Oh, sweet joy! My ears heard the Hallelujah chorus playing as if from afar, the sounds of heavenly angels descending upon every one of my senses as I gazed upon this miraculous sight. I could not drink in the rich, dizzying scent fast enough. (Catnip, to the uninitiated, is in the mint family.) When they call this stuff the “white lightning” of catnip, they are not kidding. This is premium, high grade stuff. Definitely not for amateurs.

So what is it like living on Cloud Nine, where I’ve been luxuriously perched for the past two months straight? It is a dream, my friends. I have gazed into the eye of the sublime. Divinity, thy name is Kitty Hooch.

As the owners of Kitty Hooch state on their website, their products are made for those felines with truly discriminating tastes:

Each of our products is designed from conception with our criteria for excellence and attractiveness to cats. Pardon the pun, but there are no dogs in our product line. What we have found is the abysmal state of commercial catnip toys is not an exception in the pet care industry, but it is endemic … It is the rule.

I will not only pardon the pun, I will second it: No dog could possibly appreciate these extraordinary products (no dog except for my newfound friend Winnie Sweeney, that is). And the state of commercial catnip toys truly is abysmal. I tried all the rest, then I tried the best.

Please, if you are a cat owner and happen to be reading this (though, again, I can’t fathom why you’d waste valuable non-nap time at this blog), do your feline a solid and travel to Portland to get these remarkable products. Or, given the exorbitant price of gas these days, just order online. As the website states (in bold type, no less), “Kitty Hooch is not a commodity, it is a lifestyle statement.” It’s time your favorite feline really started living.