Our furry friends

 *NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG*

Except me.
As you may, or may not know, I have a cat. His name is Fat Jack and for the most part.
 He is a bad ass.
He was the first Feline to be Issued a man card.
He likes his women and his food ready and waiting for him.
He sounds like Barry White. (But I am the only one that can hear him)
He had a staring contest with Chuck Norris and not only did He win, he went to Chuck's house after and peed on all of his sunglasses.
Yeah.
Fat Jack is a pretty cool dude.
He got his name because, well, he is fat. 25 pounds of lean mean sleeping machine.
A few weeks ago he Jumped a full size Raccoon.
From the sounds of things it was apparent that Jack had been leisurely eating his midnight snack out on the front porch and Vladimir the coon came sauntering over.

Thats when Jack jumped him.

Thats when the coon got a hold of Fat Jack and bit a coon sized mouthful right out of his ass.

Thats when Tom shot Vladimir.

You get the Picture?
Good.


Cause now a couple of weeks have gone by and Fat Jack is all but healed. He lives outside so I haven't worried too much about the blood clots and dried yuck and coon spittle all over his fur.
At least.
Not till yesterday.
That was when Child #2 informed me that Friday is the "GREATEST DAY EBER!!!!!"
Pet Day.
and she was going to be taking Fat Jack cause he is the coolest most famous cat eber.

So.

He needs a bath.
I had never bathed a cat before.
I have seen movies of lions swimming rivers with little lionets in their mouths, and I have seen the sister in laws Russian Van Kitty happily playing under a running faucet, so I figured it would be simple. Easier than the dog anyway.
I mean, geez, he may be THE FAT JACK, but he is still just a little kitty.
I should have a theme song. Something like "Tom is dumb, he is just dumb, he is really really dumb" and just insert it into the soundtrack during these moments.

I filled the tub up with about four inches of warm water and had #2 standing by with the Johnsons baby soap, perfect for babys and kitties.
Then I grabbed Fat Jack and
pay attention here it goes pretty fast
I tried to set him in the water but those ten, inch long razor tipped weapons of death started spinning at mach 8 or so and his 25 pound body proved to have not an ounce of fat on him as he turned and yowled and spit and snarled and twisted and turned and somehow jammed his paws, all four of them, onto the side of the tub as I pushed him towards the water.
At this point he began to scream for help and his Buddy, my yellow-bellied neurotic IBS afflicted Mr. Dog ran in and bit me on the leg.
Then Jack gave me a little love bite on the wrist.
So he earned a moments grace while I slammed the door of the bathroom with the dog in the hall and me and Jack and #2 in the bathroom. She is still standing ready, holding the soap, giant tears running down the sides of her face.
Because.
I was hurting her Kitty.
Here I thought that the damn cat was kicking my ass, silly me.
So I manned up, looked at the spot where Jacks used to be, and dunked him.
then I held him while #2 dumped the entire bottle of soap on him. I figured, why stint?
I was holding him still with one hand and soaping the gross of off him, all was well.
Then he started crying.
Not soft manly sobs either.
he was wailing, sobbing, heart broken and letting the entire world know it.
#2 joined in, then Mr. Dog, never one to pass the chance, chorused in with Howling from the hall.
This went on. Through the soaping and the rinsing of the cat.
He even continued as I lifted him up out of the water and wrapped him in a dry towel.
At which point he did three things.
Bit me, farted and then started purring.
He lost his man card.
The women are gonna make him do some chasing for a while.
and worst of all.
Late late last night.
Chuck Norris called.
He wants a rematch.

                                                                                love taps

And the wall, wins.

Whats the worst pain you have ever felt?
Mommies, no fair bringing up the whole birth thing. That's a hands down winner.
Give the rest of us non-mommies a chance and think of the NEXT worst pain you have ever felt?

Whats the silly little law? The one that states something to the effect of  "an object in motion will stay in motion unless it pisses a bigger object off who then stops its motion with a well placed forearm?" Anyone? Bueller?
I forget the law, in fact, the immutable laws of physics have always seem to stretch a little bit for me.
But not always.
I was once running away from this really big scary person with white blonde curly hair. I am pretty sure it was female, either that or a guy with very high estrogen level wearing a sheepskin hat, and I know that whatever it was chasing me for was more than likely well deserved.
Actually. It was going rather well.
I was 10 or so and fleet of foot, especially when terrified. The sheep-thing was screaming at me and looked really scary so I was making  good time towards home. I had just about hit 88 miles an hour and turned around to see if my feet were kicking up flames when a giant brick wall jumped out of nowhere and smacked me in the head.
It was extraordinary. One second I was moving at light-speed through the sir, my feet barely touching the ground and the next.
Splat.

The sky looks really pretty when it spins.
The sheep was nice enough to let bygones be bygones and carried me home.
Sheep must have known about my parents aversion to livestock because it left me on the front porch in a pile of Tom and doorbell ditched.
That wall kicked my ass.
Fast forward. I am a grown-up man. Married, with children and a dog.
My dad calls and says "Hey! Your Uncle Bill's water heater went out. Go and stick a new one in for him."
He was The Boss at this point, so I hopped to it and bustled over to Uncle Bill's.
I know just enough about a lot of things to get really hurt.
Keep that in mind.
I had cut the old heater out, schlepped it outside, grunted the new one in and was just in the process of soldering all the joints together.
Quick plumbing tutorial. Back in Ye Olde days before PEX we used to have to use flux and solder and propane or mapp gas torches to stick the copper plumbing pipes together. New construction was fairly quick and painless but remove and replace was always an adventure.
Now, the Solder is a mixture of two metals (Antimony and Tin) that both have a fairly low melting point, the heat combined with the flux you spread on the joints creates a vacuum and pulls the molten solder inside the joint.
Did you catch the word MOLTEN, as in HOT!

So, I was working on the last joint, it was above my head but being a safety conscious young fellow I had safety glasses on. Well, safety conscious and still paying for the surgery to remove metal splinters from my eye...... Another story.
The glasses were kinda fogged up so I did not see the large drop of MOLTEN solder that dripped off of the pipe and landed on my lip. My upper lip. Just to the right of the little divot thingy I have.
I screamed.
 Like ten little girls all at once. High and piercing, shattering glass for miles, Dolphins around the world heard me and wondered who had just gone to the big glass bowl in the sky, Millions of bats were blinded forever and I have  unconfirmed report of two submarines colliding with a giant underwater spaceship sent by future us back in time.
It hurt.
Living the life I have led developed two things, a fear of water and a high pain tolerance.
This hurt.
 I can honestly say that it was the most concentrated single spot of pain I have ever experienced. This from a man who as a wee boy zipped his wee-wee into his corduroys.
Solder melts fairly fast, it also cools fairly fast. But not fast enough. I was screaming and laughing and the glasses were fogged and I could not really think. It was more of instinct. Running really fast upstairs to the sink, hoping for an ice cube, hoping for a fairy freaking godmother, anything. I was blazing up the stairs as fast as I could, screaming in gasps now but still at a very high pitch.
I reached for the door handle just as my Uncle Bill opened it from the other side.
I didn't even slow down.
That wall jumped out and hit me right on the head.
Even after the ice cube melted and Uncle Bill kindly picked the now solid solder out of my lip with a needle, I  really had only one thought.
That wall kicked my ass.