Two New Additions

The Grouchy home has recently gained two new additions, “Buford” and “Socks.” Yes we now have two cats, and no they were not my idea. What happened was my sister, the cat lover, played a fast one on me by invited my kids over to her house to see her cute little kittens. Then for the next month all I heard was “Dad can we please have a kitten? “ My sister then snookered me a second time when she convinced Mrs. Grouch that two kittens were better than one. See said that two kittens will entertain each other and we will not have as much meowing, howling, crying, and whatever the heck cats do! Surprisingly, my wife fell for the whole bunch of nonsense.

Well, I thought I would payback my sister so I asked to have her completely black kitten and then told the kids I would be naming that cat. The kids reluctantly agreed to the deal and I announced his name would be “Buford.” My wife asked, “Why Buford?” I smiled and said the cat would be named after one of my favorite characters, Sheriff Buford T. Justice, from the movie Smoky and the Bandit.

After the kids agreed to the name, I announced my real intent when my sister came over for a visit. I had a different name in mind for the black cat. He would be called “Bad-Luck-Buford” and I told my sister that every time I felt like my luck was going south, I would hock a loogie on Buford and that would brighten my future. (Excerpt from a book on superstitions, “When a black cat passes in front of you, spit, to avert bad luck.”)

My sister, the cat lover, was not amused with my big idea that involved loogies. But I must admit that the whole thing made me laugh and laugh. Then I found out that her young daughter cried when she had heard that I was going to be spiting on her favorite little kitty. So I had to think of a way to redeem myself and still enjoy the happiness of a masterly crafted victory.

Yesterday, I found a dead mouse near were the kittens had been playing in the yard. Without any hesitation, I marched into the house and announced to the kids that the kittens are already doing their job as mousers. I explained how I found the dead mouse and I was sure that the kittens had killed it. I told the kids that Buford has been renamed, he will now be called “Good-Luck-Buford.”

The plan went just as expected, today in church the kids excitingly told their cousins about the captured mouse and the cat’s name change. Everyone is blissfully happy this evening, and after the kids went to bed I snuck outside and threw away all the remaining mouse poison from inside the shed. The way I figured is one of two things happened: The mouse ate my poison and died near the shed, or the kittens got lucky and they had their first kill. Well, I’m going with the latter for the sake of family happiness.