The Glass Cat-astrophe

To be honest, I don't really know what to say. Today I had perhaps one of the most interesting experiences that I have had in a while. I had the privilege oh helping one of SGC’s finest and most beloved Faculty Members surprise her husband. We’ll just call her “Candie Cayne.” Some of you may be familiar with Mrs. Cayne, others not so much…this is her.



So yeah, I was sitting up in the Journalism room, minding my own business when Mrs. Cayne came by to inquire whether or not I would help her surprise her husband. I told her that I was going to Valdosta and that I would be leaving at 4:30. So at 4:31 she came bouncing back in and said, “You’re not gone! I am begging you to come and help me. Please!” I tried to pawn the job off on Kyle, but he wasn’t having it. He did, however, concede to coming along; big mistake!

First of all, the big surprise she kept referring to was replacing the cat proof cardboard on her new dining room table with a handy piece of glass that she had cut without her husband knowing and that she wanted to have in place once he got home. WTF? These are very interesting people, in case you haven’t picked that up by now.

We left to get the glass, but not before almost running into the side of a truck. Damn car-front blind spots. Gotta watch out! You never hear about the dangers they create, but believe me…they’ll get you killed. Or maybe it is the maniac driver that will kill you…I forget. Anyway…we got to the glass place after driving like 15mph all the way there, and there wasn’t enough room in the car for the both of us, Kyle and I, so I had to ride in the back of the station wagon, lying down on top of fucking kitty litter, trying to distribute my weight evenly so as not to crack the glass.

When Mrs. Cayne asked if I was comfortable, Kyle assured her that I was fine since I slept on a glass bed at home. Yeah, a glass bed! I’m not kidding…and she believed it. I told her that it was all part of an Eastern religion and just like the people who lay on beds of nails, it was all mind over matter. She asked, “And the glass doesn’t break?” I explained that one has to balance his or her Chi before being able to sleep on glass. I assured her I knew what I what was doing and she said to me, “If you can do that, more power to you!” This woman actually believed us!

Then I happened to spot a YARDSTICK in her backseat. I asked her about it and she said, “Well first of all, my husband (a science professor at the college) would tell you that it is, in fact, a meter stick.” I told her that I would then tell him that I was in fact “…not European!” She explained to me that a yardstick only has 36 inches and no centimeter marks and that a meter stick has 39 inches and centimeter marks. I told her that the piece of wood to which I was referring had 36 inches and she said, “I stand corrected.”

We get to her house and after she went in and cleared off the table and wrangled up all 400 of her cats, all the size of freaking Grizzly Bears I might add, Kyle and I took the piece of glass inside and put it on the table. I promise, I almost dropped the glass and ran when I got inside and smelled what I thought to be cat shit, piss, and human remains all mixed together. It was horrible. We tried to leave quickly, but it was then that ‘Candie’ discovered that the people hadn’t cut the glass to the appropriate size. We finally coxed her out of the house and then we left for the school.

On the way back to school I asked Kyle who Mary Louise Parker was. I knew who she was, but I was trying to make conversation in order to take my mind off of the smell of old people and rotten potatoes that filled her car. He told me that she was an actress. I asked if she starred in the Passion of the Christ as Mary. He assured me that she hadn’t. Then I asked whether or not it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who had played Jesus. Kyle told me no and I asked if Arnold was Puerto Rican. He said no, that he was Austrian. Then I asked whether Austria was in South America or not.

Candie, being the smarty pants that she is, laughed condescendingly. Kyle told me that it was not, and that it was actually in Europe. I then told him that I was fairly certain that it was in South America because I remembered talking about it in Spanish II. I suppose that was the straw that broke the ‘camel’s back’, both literally and figuratively. Candie interrupted and said that Austria was in Europe and that I was weird. I got angry and told her that she better not call me weird because I helped carry her glass inside. She looked at me in the rearview mirror as if to say, “I will run this car off the road and kill you and blame it on the horrible car-front blind spots and no one will ever know!” I became quiet.

We got back to the school and she put us out and we both looked at each other and laughed. Then she drove off in her little car that matched her tangerine tooth. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End!