If my grandma had a tag name, it’s got to be either “Don’t Let Cat Out” or “Watch for Cat.” She bombs the shit out of her crib with Sharpie markers just so the cat will never taste freedom.
The cat tags be everywhere. She has discovered every possible cat escape route that only an anxiety possessed, slightly morbid, grim, pandemonius imagination could visualize. Like maybe the cat could get out if it had a tiny spacecraft, balloons, or the super powers to melt into a liquid and trickle to freedom under the door.
It’s not always about the cat though.
Sometimes her tags get a little sexy, Salt-n-Pepa style, like “Push In.” Other times she’s like really a positive role model, like “Push Up.”
She can be folky and protesting against tyrannical household oppressors: “Do Not Turn” or “Do Not Push. Don’t!”
She’s got a bit of surrealistic wit in her too, as “Not a Hamper.”
She can be an encouraging yet unyielding with affirmations like “May Have to Pull Hard.”
When her tagging hasn’t quite penetrated sufficiently, she has been known to slap up Ziggy comics for enhanced emphasis. Ziggy stares from his comic, his butter face pooting a little beige fart into the psyche for shutting, closing, turning, or pushing incorrectly (or even thinking of letting the cat out).
If you should find one of her Sharpie tags in a previously undiscovered zone, it will seem like a personal message from a higher order of poetry or sorcery.
It can be the exact most poignant answer you could ever ask for: “….I WILL push UP and I will not TURN!” Sometimes her tagging arrangements can develop into haiku, or sentiments, with a tang of the erotic, ” Push IN to turn ON.”
There are sometimes fantastical wonders and suggestions of equine entities gathering nearby, maybe closing in on us spiritually, like this “Horses” tag.
Is she just fucking around with your mind? She owns these streets! She is all up in the pantry, tagging shit! And she might be so street that she’s developed deep code for her drug deals. Could this mean “500 mega kilos of crack cocaine crack crack crack crack is available?”
Or is it a witchy hex on those that may dare to let the friggin’ cat out? There is no escape, cat. You is owned. These streets belong to Gramma.
Reader Comments
November 12th, 2009
Vice UK has run out of ideas and has resorted to cheep american imports.
November 12th, 2009
hahaha. what happens if you use the timer?
November 12th, 2009
i think i feel worse for the cat than you.
November 12th, 2009
MAD UPS!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 12th, 2009
she should have kept a water gun with her when the cat was a wee kitty and blasted it everytime it got close to the door. that works like a charm.
November 12th, 2009
just let the damn cat out. cats are good at dodging things and you can tell from the window view there is a field across the street. if i was the cat, i’d find one way or another to go exploring.
November 12th, 2009
I used to have a neighbor who did the same thing. She spent her days spray painting the sidewalk in front of her house red, and then spray painting every crack silver. Every week there would be a new message or two on her sidewalk. Usually things about how none of the neighborhood kids could touch her lawn. She’s dead now.
November 12th, 2009
Aww, Mammaw! This is so touching. As soon as I began reading this I wondered if Ziggy w/ octopus was still in place. I hope he is forever!
November 12th, 2009
This is fucking hilarious! YAY!
November 12th, 2009
LOVE THIS!!!!
November 12th, 2009
wow that’s fantastic.
I heart you!
November 12th, 2009
Oh, cats could be mad sometimes )
November 12th, 2009
Very touching story, it makes me think of my own grandma, though she was a poodle person, instead of cats.
November 12th, 2009
I don’t know whether I’m reading too much into this, but what I see here is a woman who has been experiencing her memory slowly fading away, and thus started to leave notes for herself all over her apartment.
This post makes me sad.
November 12th, 2009
you sure she doesn’t have Alzheimers or something?
November 12th, 2009
I was thinking the exact same thing as JOnathan. Poor woman, and poor cat.
November 12th, 2009
JOnathan, I thought the same thing. My opinion: more power to her. At lease she is attempting to help herself, instead of blowing up her house
November 12th, 2009
I agree with JOnathan. It looks like she’s losing her procedural memory (rote memory) and eyesight since she had to write in the light switch names in bigger font than the labels that are already there. I feel bad for her.
November 12th, 2009
Many of us, if we live that long, have a hell of a good chance of ending up like this. This fate scares me, but I’m sure the prospect scared plenty of people in generations past that had it happen to them anyway.
November 12th, 2009
Some forms of mental deterioration can be significantly slowed and some (alcohol or medication related issues) are reversable. Get your grandma to a doctor with experiece with these issues. It may make the the diffence between her saying ” Hi Adriana” and “do I know you? you look familiar” Ihe’She does have Alzheimers medication may be able to significantly slow the progression. Record some conversations ask a lot of questions. There are many interesting things only she knows. Maybe some day your childeren would like to hear her stories.
November 12th, 2009
You cope how you can, don’t trust your memory so much, tags make sense.
November 12th, 2009
I think your gma is sick. Seriously. I think she needs professional help.
November 12th, 2009
What’s really spooky is that there is no cat at all living there. No, just kidding. I actually understand where she’s coming from.
November 12th, 2009
Fake viral. Go fuck your asshole
November 12th, 2009
Dude this is just sad. You’re G-ma is certifiable.
November 26th, 2009
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