Important decisions

I have lots of important decisions to make. Like when and where is it appropriate to refer to Tessa as “my old lady”? I don’t mean she’s old, old. I called her “my old lady” ten years ago, before she got really old. And I’d never call her “the old lady.” That’s just wrong. But “my old lady” is a genuine term of endearment. Nevertheless, I’m still conscious of certain groups of people who are designated to get pissed off about everything we are not supposed to say. So learning who and where those groups are is quite a task for a man with my responsibilities.

There are other decisions that are piling up. Like, do I wait for the cat to die before I get a new toilet seat? See, I had him castrated, so the dumbass doesn’t realize he’s male. And he tries to go pee in the toilet. Lady cats manage it fine. By the way, anybody who’s impressed that their cats pee in the toilet or in the bathtub? Don’t be. All cats do one or the other. It’s about half and half. I just wish our castrated tom would stick to the bathtub. A tom’s pee shoots backward out of his ass, as you all know, so it hits the seat and dribbles down the side to the floor. We have a vinyl padded seat with little vent holes so the air can escape when you sit. His pee is soaking into the padding. So, if you sit on our toilet and get up with a wet ring on your ass, that’s Cartman’s pee soaking up out of the seat. Sorry.

I just don’t know. New seat? Or dead cat first? He’s only five.

When I was a kid, I thought grown-ups had fun deciding everything. But I’m pretty sure my dad never wondered, “Do I turn off the router firewall so the kid can download a game that takes two gigabytes of disk space and an hour to install?” Yes, I did that. The raciest thing I’ve done in years, if you want to know the truth. TMI? Sorry. We live on the edge here.

So you get an idea the crucial decisions I face as lord and master of this place. Existential questions, too. Such as, am I really lord and master? Or am I a mere lord and not master? Perhaps a high-ranking steward? I can’t be any lower than a steward because I know the PIN on Tessa’s bank card. There is no doubt that I am in charge of all cat discipline and dog training. However, since these duties entail emptying the litter box and collecting all the dog logs in the backyard, the job is really little more than stable boy. On the other hand, we have a robotic litter box which sorts the cat shit for me. And so the question remains.

There are, however, decisions which I love to make. Like whether to get a bale of hay and line the dog houses in the backyard or just let everybody inside all winter long and bathe them and keep them as inside dogs, even the beady-eyed Bud who has cost me well over a thousand smackers in electronics, clothing, furniture, police fines and court costs. It’s ironic. Yes, I have allowed all dogs to remain inside year round for the last two years. Not because of any tenderness or good will toward them in my own heart. Rather, it’s because of the look on my old lady’s face when Bud crawls in bed and drops his dopey head on her breast or tummy. He’s even careful not to disturb her ventilator hose. Or when Sunny sidles up to the bed and stands so very still so my old lady (his old lady, too) can crawl her fingers up onto his bony, aging skull and caress the soft fur turning so white with age. To be sure, this decision was not so tough.

Most things will never be quite clear to me. But I’ve learned that if you have that north star, that old lady, the most important decisions are the simplest ones you ever made.