Love, Jimmie

Oh, y’all I think Tuesday was the worst day of my life.  (That might be a slight exaggeration.  The day I melted deodorant into my makeup bag was pretty bad, as was the day I had to have my car towed due to a dead starter and my neighbor, whose driveway was blocked by the tow truck for LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES, had a hissy fit about potentially being blocked in her garage for LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES on the off chance she might suddenly need to go somewhere which we all knew was ridiculous as she had, literally, just arrived home.)  (I read a lot of Faulkner in college.  You are welcome for the run on sentence.)

Tuesday morning I had the sinking realization that Seamus was missing.  I had a suspicion on Monday evening when he didn’t come galloping out from under the bed when I shook the treat bag, but occasionally he is moody and stuffs himself up inside the box springs to hide.  It isn’t unusual for him to forgo his happy part of the day (i.e. treats/peas) so that he can sulk alone.  I texted Martie about it Monday night and even she, who doesn’t like cats nary even a little bit, was worried and offered to call so that she could commiserate with me.  Tuesday morning I had to text her that it was official.  Seamus was gone.

When it hit me, I started to shake.  Seamus is older and slightly pudgy.  He’s weird and emotionally stunted.  He likes Murphy, treats and the white fuzzy blanket on my bed.  Once he sat on my legs and purred but when he realized that Murphy was nowhere to be found, he leapt off me and went under the bed.  Despite all of this, and I’ll say this at a whisper, Seamus is my favorite cat.  DO NOT TELL MURPHY. 

With tears in my eyes, I started looking under the beds and in the closets to see if maybe he had passed in the night, alone and wadded up in box spring.  I couldn’t find him anywhere and suddenly had the weird notion that maybe he had gotten outside.  I immediately rejected that.  Seamus, even when the door is open for hours on end, will stick one paw and one ear out the door, and like a kid dared to run into the cemetery, will immediately bound back into the house, all giddy and spastic as if he’d just done the scariest, bravest thing of his life.  In short, he never goes outside. With that thought, I left for work, teary-eyed and sad, still wondering where I would find his lifeless body.

Halfway out of my neighborhood, I realized I left my purse at home.  I drove back and ran in quickly to get it.  Guess who was standing outside the back door. Just guess.  That little turd had been outside gallivanting for two whole nights and when I opened the door to let him in, breath whooshing out of my lungs, he pranced around, clearly proud of himself.  I could have beat him.  I tried to hug him but he made a beeline for the food bowl so I settled for just rubbing his ears for a minute.  Since I was already late for work, I left him alone with his food and his friend.

When I arrived at work, I still had a bit of bile in my throat from the worry and then the sudden joy.  My legs were still a little shaky.  So when I happened to look down at the ground and saw that my jump drive, the jump drive that holds everything I’ve ever written over the last two years, the only jump drive that I own and the only place where my writings are stored, was mangled under the tire of a car, wet and covered in dirt, I started to cry.  I know I should have backed all that up.  I know that.  You won’t yell at me any louder or more harshly than I already did myself.  How it got from the bottom of my purse to the bottom of a tire on someone’s gigantic four door jeep is beyond me.  I just know what when I picked it up the mangled metal fell apart in my hands and I was devastated.  No way could I recreate all that work.  No way.

I dusted it off and took a look at it through my watery eyes.  The end that plugs into the computer looked okay and once I blew the dirt out of it, I stuck it into my laptop with my hopes lunging up and down.  I waited.  Then waited. Then waited some more.  It was nauseating.  After an eternity, the window for the drive opened giving me access to all my files.  They were all there and every single one of them opened. I immediately wobbled my way back to Katniss and said in a hoarse whisper “Give me a jump drive.  Now.”  She saw the look of panic in my eyes and handed over her brand new one.  I wobbled back to my desk and did the drag and drop into to the new device.  Then I ordered two more drives from Office Depot, one for me and one for her.  I’ll repeat the process again when it comes in, and then hide one away in a safe place and the other will be stuck in my bra at all times. 

Talk about a roller coaster.  Tuesday sucked.  And then Tuesday was glorious.  Best and Worst, all in 24 hours.  That was a lot for one day.  I need a drink.

Oh, BTW, this was Seamus when I got home last night.  I love that stupid cat.