IF YOU WIN, YOU LOSE. Sorry. I don't make the rules -- I just report them.
A SHORT CHAPTER FROM "Revenge of The Paste Eaters" by Cheryl Peck;
"Upon reflection it has occurred to Babycakes that he could have chosen a better person to feed, shelter, be-litter, and amuse him. He will stay with Mommy, he has decided (if with a slight sigh) -- for in truth, he has seconds of genuine fondness for her (particularly those seconds around 3:00 a.m.) -- but it is only because he is a fine young cat that he has learned to forgive her for her faults.
For instance, she deliberately deprives him of his favorite food group, chocolate. Mommy puts warm chocolate in a cup and drinks it, and she will not share with her beloved Babycakes. Mommy eats soft chocolate out of tiny plastic dishes that are just deeper than his tongue is long and she will only give him these dishes when the chocolate is more than tongue-deep. She is a bad Mommy, but Babycakes is a cat of uncommon inner personal strength, and he has learned to forage on his own.
Mommy has a round thing where she hides everything that might be of interest to Babycakes. It was in the round thing that Babycakes found the shiny metal pockets of chocolate powder that Mommy - silly Mommy - told him he could not have.
Babycakes ate the chocolate powder. Just to show Mommy, he ate his powder, shiny pockets and all.
Soon a dreadful thing happened. He had been going about his life as usual, grooming his beautiful gold self, when his entire body was overwhelmed by painful, agonizing spasms and Babycakes coughed and gagged until his fur came through his nose! He very nearly turned inside out! Nothing like this had ever happened to Babycakes before, and he was so shocked and astounded he had to go take a nap.
But someone had put a fire in buyback's belly, and it burned and burned. Someone had stuck several Ping-Pong balls in buyback's belly and they bounced and bounced. Babycakes was a very unhappy cat.
Mommy rose from her platform to go to her litter room and stepped on a small wet wad of Babycakes' used fur, and she became very unhappy too.
She put Babycakes in a box and took him to Jennifer Needles.
Babycakes has never understood why Mommy likes Jennifer Needles. She seems like a nice Big One. She is covered with exotic and fascinating smells that suggests to Babycakes that she has some very interesting friends. Jennifer speaks to him very kindly when they meet, and she strokes his fine fur, and she talks pleasantly enough to Mommy, and just when Babycakes is beginning to like her, she pokes him in the most unpleasant places and then sticks him with pins. This almost always when Babycakes isn't feeling well anyway, and it seems acutely unfair to him.
Twice a day for several days after they visited Jennifer Needles Mommy put Babycakes on the counter and gave him sticky, bluck-tasting white stuff out of a little glass tube. Babycakes had mixed feelings about this. He rather liked the white stuff, but it's against Feline Law to appear eager, and being aloof can be SUCH a bother.
And then one day Mommy said, in a cheerful voice that lacked sincerity, "Would you like to go see Jennifer again?"
Babycakes said, "No." He said, "No" every way he knew how to say no and when Mommy showed him that hated box Babycakes dug Mommy as his gentle way of saying, "Mommy, LISTEN to me." Mommy said several very bad words and stuffed him into the box anyway and took him to the Place Where All Sorts Of Things Are.
Mommy showed Babycakes a fur-thing that had ears way too long and a nose that twitched and just a little bitty tuft of tail that Babycakes would have been ashamed to own. It smelled like dinner to him, but Mommy said, "Oh, I don't think so."
Mommy showed Babycakes a huge bad-smelling thing that wobbled all over the place and had terrible breath and looked into Babycakes very own box at him and said, "Woof."
Babycakes said, "Oh, I don't think so."
And then Jennifer Needles came to Babycakes' box and she pulled him out of his box, and Babycakes said, "No" to Jennifer Needles.
"Did he just hiss at you?" Mommy asked.
"Oh, it was just a little hiss," said Jennifer Needles, and she began to feel Babycakes all over his body. She felt his tummy. She felt his teeth. She looked in his ears, she played with his coat, she deliberately and intentionally made all of his hairs go the wrong way.
This was the very last straw. Babycakes said, "No" to Jennifer Needles.
"Amazing," Mommy said to Jennifer Needles. "He's NEVER hissed at me -- he usually just swats me and rips off some of my hide."
"I think he's okay," Jennifer Needles said, and put Babycakes back in his box.
Babycakes lay very flat in his box. If anyone had looked in there they might have seen a fine gold rug. All the way home Babycakes was very quiet and very flat. Had his life been a little different, he might have been a Persian rug. He might have learned to fly, and he might have flown far, far away from Mommy and her evil friend, Jennifer Needles.
"So," Mommy said as they rode home, just Mommy and a beautiful gold non-Persian rug, "I guess we won't be eating any more tin foil, eh, Babycakes?"
Mommy seemed inordinately pleased with herself."
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