Paradigm

During our Labor Day cookout, I thought I had a stroke of genius. But as it turns out, my brilliance will not be lauded through song for a thousand years.

Our neighbors have a litter of five kittens. So with children in attendance I decided it would be a great idea to introduce small mammals into the mix. You know, shake things up. Little did I know that placing the paws of the smallest, cutest, orange ball of fur on my rug broke the seventh seal and signaled the beginning of Armageddon.

The beginning of the end started with a siren like wail emanating from Maggie. She was so excited to see the kitten that she thought that the best thing she could do to express herself was run at break-neck speeds directly at it, point a tiny chubby little finger in its face, and scream "KITTY" over and over as loud and at as high a frequency as she could reach. Elisha's reaction (as typical of little boys) was to quietly approach and touch. And by touch I mean go for the throat.

So the violent scramble of children, was met with an equally quick rush of adults to restrain the children before I had to walk next door and politely explain "Um... we broke your kitten." Once the children realized they would not get to beat the kitten senseless to express their heart-felt love and excitement, the floods came and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. In order to put out the fire, I decided gasoline was the best solution. So I got another kitten so each child could sit with their own kitten closely supervised. This prison visitation style of kitten love, was not well received. Maggie was inconsolable and refused to use an inside-voice while Elisha had to be restrained while he shouted at his mother "Don't taze me bro!"

The whole situation ended with Maggie going home, Elisha being distracted by something shiny, and the adults falling in love with the gray kitten while Nick traumatized the orange one by putting it inside his child's hollow bat. Once it realized the bat cave was a refuge, it stayed in the bat and took a nap, or fell into a stress related coma... I'm not sure.

I just marveled that at one point in my own early life, in response to the question "What should I do?" my decion making paradigm probably encluded such options as: cry, run at it and scream, pick it up by the neck, make as much noise as possible, crap in my pants, put it in my mouth, and sit on it. If only I still responded in the same way.

Click here to see what happened to Nick.