Primal Sneeze

A hearty breakfast of fried kitten on toast and I was set up for the day. A beautiful day it was, with a hint of spring in the air. What a nice day for a stroll around the town. I was on top of my projects so I could do it too. And I did.

The newsagents first to pick up my copy of EverythingYouWantedToKnowAboutSex ButWereAfraidToAskAtTheLastMacraMeeting Monthly. Then down past the undertakers (which was closed due to a birth in the family) to The Corduroy Calf Travel Agents and Hardware to buy a long stick. You can never have enough long sticks. Especially when your cat is a hide-and-seek champion and you have a king size bed.

On the way home, with the sunroof down and the wind blowing in my ears (because I haven’t got hair so it has to find somewhere else to do its blowing), I waved at the truants merrily throwing rocks off the motorway bridge. I waved at the Gardaí fearlessly eating breakfast rolls at the Spar. I waved at the ESB linesman atop a pole and he waved back. Which was an unfortunate move as it turned out.

Feeling the joys of spring and with no-one readily available to mate with, I diverted my springosity into cleaning. Being the feast day of St. Brigid who famously spread her blanket across the Curragh plains I felt it appropriate to begin with changing the bed clothes.

Removing the duvet cover I was met with an explosion of feathers. The duvet itself had somehow been ripped. I ruled out mice because you never get mice where there are rats. I had to rule them out too as the cat seemed quite plump of late. Feegles then. It had to be.

A needle and thread did the trick. But I still had the problem of a 5cm deep layer of feathers and the vacuum resolutely refused to work. Usually this means the filters need changing and unbeknownst to myself I managed to slit three fingers doing this. When I did notice, the vacuum, the duvet, and me, splattered with blood I tripped with the shock and came up covered with blood and feathers. Believe me, such a quantity of blood and feathers has not been seen since the great dancing-girl massacre of Lixnaw in 1803.

Just then a Garda reeking of rashers arrived at the door to enquire if I knew anything about teens tossing missiles from a bridge, an ESB employee being hospitalised with multiple broken bones and the number of missing kittens in the area. It all went downhill from there.