Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (30 page)

Our kitchen table’s stacked with brochures and promotional DVDs and we’ve got a whole cost-benefit analysis charted out. By now we’re probably both qualified to
sell
generators. Personally, I favor the Generac 1.6L Engine, naturally cooled, gas aspirated model… mostly because their Web site is interactive and you can
click on different parts of the graphic to see stuff ignite. [
I very much enjoy clicking the electric stove button to see the oven get all fiery.
] Fletch is still undecided and I have to keep an eye on his research because he keeps meandering into survivalist message boards. I fear
Herd_Thinner666
and
Profit O’ Doom
are not the best influences.

Point is I’ve gotten Fletch on board with the idea and our goal’s to have one installed before the weather turns. Granted, we’re buying a generator in lieu of taking a vacation, but when it’s zero degrees and the snow’s up to the garage roof and I’m not, you know, freezing to death à la
The Shining
, I’ll be glad I didn’t get to go to the Hamptons this year. [
At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
]

Anyway, confident that a long-term solution’s in the works, I go back to sleep.

When I wake up an hour later, the sun’s already out and I’m covered in a blanket of cats. For a second I wonder if I dreamed the whole thing but then I see the blank display on the digital clock and confirm it really happened.

I have a number of boring tasks on my to-do list today, but since they all require electricity, I’ve given myself a get-out-of-jail-free pass. Hot-weather snow day at my house, yay! I have a leisurely breakfast while listening to the radio, where I learn that more than one hundred thousand Chicago residents are in the dark. Whoa! For a storm that lasted maybe fifteen minutes start to finish? Really? I can pee harder than it was raining. I don’t understand what went wrong.

After the last outage, I’m super-meticulous about putting my electronics on the charger, so I’ve plenty of battery life and I’m not going to be disconnected from the real world. I send out a quick
status update to my friends and about half of them are in the dark, too. I invite everyone up for an impromptu pool party, but they’re all busy with “meetings” and “day jobs” and “children.” More sun for me then!

I kick back in a lawn chair, reading the books I’ve been meaning to get to forever and I spend this gorgeous day chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool. [
Ten points if you caught the Fresh Prince reference.
] Fletch runs out to buy more ice for our coffin and when he returns, we transfer the contents of the freezer.

Every couple of hours, I wander back into the house for radio updates. The last time, the outage affected a quarter of a million people and as I checked the radio all day, those numbers rapidly diminished. But today, every time I tune in the numbers rise. Earlier this morning we hit three hundred thousand and at this point, it’s six hundred thousand.

Today would be an excellent day to start my new career as a generator salesman.

A few weeks ago, the outages were really random. Like, one side of the street had electric and the other didn’t, so the roads were crisscrossed with orange extension cords as neighbors helped one another not lose a fridge full of groceries. Joanna said the whole thing turned into a huge block party where people grilled up everything they could before it spoiled and kids got massive bowls of melt-y ice cream. I bet when her children look back at the blackout, they’ll do so fondly. Up here, except for on one side of our fence, we’re separated by woods and are easily a couple of tenths of a mile from all our neighbors, so even if we knew anyone, we couldn’t find a cord long enough to tap into their generators.

While exchanging a couple of brief messages with my agent, I
mention we’re out again and she’s all, “Did you move to the 1970s?”

However, the situation feels different this time, probably because I’m actively working to adjust my attitude. I’m coming up on a busy part of the year, so stealing a little break isn’t the worst thing ever. I’m learning that once in a while it’s nice to have a quick TV time-out and it feels like we’re camping. But we’re camping in a house with all our pets, my favorite antiques, [
Zinc lion heads, I’m looking at you!
] and flushable plumbing, so it’s all good.

The power doesn’t come back until midafternoon, thirty hours after it goes out. Honestly? Last night was fun! The sun set around eight forty-five p.m., so we had plenty of natural light. Then Fletch and I listened to talk radio and just hung out telling stories for a few hours before going to sleep. Because I’d soaked in the pool for so long, I lowered my core temperature and was actually chilly when I went to bed. We had such an adventure that I was a little disappointed when everything came back to life. I had at least two more days of good attitude left in me and I, dare I say it, found a way to enjoy the experience.

That is, except for the frogs.

When I let the dogs out this morning, I saw some stuff floating at the surface of the pool, so I grabbed the skimmer. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were frogs, a hundred mini-frogs, all clustered together! OMG! So adorable! Wee and grass-green with comically bulgy eyes! For a second, I considered running inside to grab my camera so I could document the find for
CuteOverload.com
. I mean, how often do you stumble upon a little froggy fraternity party?

Last summer, we found a couple of small amphibians swimming in the pool but we haven’t seen any since then. There’s something about the noise of the pumping system that keeps wildlife away. I guess with the system silenced, the Itty Bitty Froggy Committee assumed they’d found themselves an ocean! Last one in the pool’s a rotten toad!

I didn’t notice the problem at first. I assumed when my tiny new friends spotted the net coming at them, they’d go all Calaveras County Frog Jumping Competition on me, with teeny fern-colored bodies making spectacular leaps and bounds. It wasn’t until I got my first scoopful that I realized none of them were leaping.

Or bounding.

In fact, they weren’t moving at all.

My pool wasn’t full of dozens of happy mini-frogs, delighted at having found sweet new digs; rather, my pool was full of a hundred mini-frogs who met an untimely death.

Oh, the screaming that followed.

Fletch wandered outside then, asking, “Hey, what’s with all the shouting?” When I showed him, he paled and made the excuse that there was something urgent requiring his attention inside the house. If the predicted zombie war has anything to do with small, dead amphibians, Fletch isn’t going to be quite the warrior he envisions.

I tried to keep the hollering to a minimum as I scooped them out and chucked netful after netful towards the woods. In the middle of my gruesome task, I had to shuffle the dogs into the house.

“All finished?” he asked, looking relieved.

“Nope,” I replied. “Libby was snarfing up frog carcass as though
cuisses de grenouilles
were her new favorite dish.” That’s when Fletch decided he needed to go out for more ice.

Fifteen increasingly screamy minutes later, I successfully strained the tiny bodies out of the Dead Sea… or so I thought. That’s when I spotted the sole survivor, tucked away inside the hollow core of a fun-noodle like a small, web-footed Anne Frank hiding from the German Security Police, otherwise known as chlorinated water.

Gingerly, I liberated her orange foam life preserver from the water, placing it on the other side of the yard, and breathed a little sigh of relief as she hopped towards the wood line. Then I set up the hose to ripple the surface of the pool, hoping to signify danger to any other mini-frogs currently lurking in the grass.

So, yeah, other than the Frog-o-caust, the power outage was fine.

After the electric kicks on, I decide against running the air-conditioning, opting to air the stink out of the joint. One of the best parts of moving out of the city is being able to open a window without encouraging unwanted visitors, be they rats or homeless people or criminals. [
I’ve battled all three.
]

I leave the door open between the kitchen and the screened porch so the cats can enjoy the weather, too. They’re happy to hang out on what we call their “catio” all day, lazing on the couch while glowering at chipmunks and letting the sun warm the downy fur on their bellies.

I keep the dogs inside because I don’t want them eating any more frogs. I’m surprised not to see the cats on the porch, but the dogs are out there and sometimes Libby annoys them. Although she’s gentle, she’s yet to figure out the concept of personal space, so she’s often on the receiving end of a few good swats.

A couple of hours later I come inside to shower. As I pass the spare bedroom on the way to the master, I notice something’s askew. Upon further inspection, I realize the problem. The screen’s been removed and it’s five feet away in the rosebushes.

What the…?

How did…?

Clearly no one broke in because we’re home and the dogs would have lost their minds. And I know the screen was securely attached to the window because that’s the kind of thing I’m fairly neurotic about, kind of like when I check three times to make sure the iron’s unplugged. [
Solution? Never iron!
]

That’s when I realize that our little family is missing three feline members.

Oh, no.

No,
no
.

My cats can’t get out. My cats have
never
gotten out. Never. Not one of the six cats I had before the Thundercats ever made an unauthorized exit. I’ve now owned cats for twenty years and nobody’s ever escaped, sort of like Stalag 13 on
Hogan’s Heroes
. [
Whether or not the old cats had an entire secret bunker set up under the house is still in question.
] I have a perfect record. If I were a factory, my sign out front would read: This Organization Has Gone 7300 Days Without an Incident. I employ Constant Vigilance™; this shit does not happen on
my
watch.

I immediately break into a sweat. I scream for Fletch, shut the window, and conduct a thorough whole-house search for the Thundercats. None of them are in any of their usual spots—between the tasseled curtains and the sliding glass door, inside the
lining of the couch, on top of the Zombie War boxes in the basement. They’re nowhere to be found.

I throw on a pair of shorts and shoes and we spend the whole afternoon calling them and combing the woods around the house. We’re surrounded by trees on all sides except for the narrow path that winds from the road down to the house.

The road.

NO!

These guys haven’t seen any road for two years. And even though we’re tucked away behind all the trees, ours is a fairly busy street and we’re not far from the highway. What’s going to happen if they decide to cross? They don’t know to look both ways. The idea of finding one of them by the side of the road makes me feel ill. We worked so hard to get the feral out of them that now I’m afraid they can’t take care of themselves.

Also?

EVERYONE ON THIS ROAD IS DRIVING TOO FAST.

There are cats in these woods! Be careful, you assholes in your zippy cars! Give ’em a BRAKE. I stand at the end of my drive, hands on my hips, glowering at everyone going over fifteen miles an hour. It doesn’t help me find the cats, but it makes me feel a little better.

A couple of hours into our search, we spot Odin in the woods to the west of us but he runs away because he thinks we’re scary monsters. The fact that I’m sobbing hysterically probably doesn’t help.

When we finally come in, we’re covered in bug bites and we’re all slashed up from the brush. Fletch calls our vet to see what our next move is and to confirm that their microchip information is up-to-date. The vet explains that the cats will likely just come
home when they’re bored or hungry and all we need to do is set out some tuna and they should turn up.

This? I paid the price of a used car on cat upkeep and
this
is the advice I get? For what we spent, I want the whole veterinary office up here in S.W.A.T. gear and for us to make a human chain and comb the woods inch by inch. Tuna? Come on!

We set out the tuna and then Fletch decides to retrace the cats’ steps. “We have to think like a cat,” Fletch tells me.

“Okay, would you rather bang open some cabinets or throw up in the cleaning ladies’ shoes?” I ask.

“Shh, give me a minute. I’ll figure this out,” he replies.

I don’t understand how one of them got the screen off because they’re sturdy; I test-push them all the time and they won’t budge. I’d have never opened the windows if I didn’t trust them to hold.

Fletch pores over the point of exit. “Aha!” he exclaims.

“DO YOU SEE THEM?” I shriek.

“No, but I figured out what happened. Look here.” He points at the body of a dead chipmunk and then another a few feet down, plus a stiff mouse ten feet past that.

“Oh, God.” Tears spring to my eyes when I see the furry little victims. Can every woodland creature please not DIE up here today? Hey, Bambi and Thumper! Stay away from my yard or face certain doom! Tell your friends!

He continues. “They must have seen all the rodents and it was too much. My guess is they all worked together to bash out the screen, which is why it flew into the roses and then they went on their killing spree.” Fletch points out where the hedges are trampled on the side of the house and the flattened daylilies. “My Boy Scout training tells me that’s where they left the protection of the side of the house.”

“And then where did they go?”

Fletch looks puzzled. “I don’t know. I wasn’t a very good Boy Scout.”

“Do you want me to keep crying?” I demand.

After more searching and another bout of hysterics on my part, Fletch convinces me to go inside with him. “All we can do right now is wait. They’ll come back. They’ve got it too good here not to come back.”

“What if they don’t? What if they’re hurt or they decide they like the taste of freedom too much? I cannot lose five goddamned cats to death and attrition in one year. Do you understand me?
I can’t do it.
This will be the straw that breaks and has thus far prevented me from being The Crazy Cat Lady.
This
is what’s going to earn me a spot on
Animal Hoarders
.”