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August 3, 2001 - Big Kitty
Welcome to Funny Friday, to start your weekend off with a chuckle!
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This week's quotes:
"The Internet is an amazing communications tool that's bringing the whole world together. I mean, you sit down to sign on to America Online in your hometown, and it's just staggering to think that at the same moment, halfway around the world, in China, someone you've never met is sitting at their computer, hearing the exact same busy signal that you're hearing." - Dennis Miller
"Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff?"
- Steven Wright
"If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend." - Doug Larson
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This week's story by Chuck Dishno still has me laughing even after reading it four times! Tomorrow is Chuck's birthday, so send him an email!
"Big Kitty"
By Chuck Dishno
This tale happened a long time ago when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I lived in the small logging town of Bly, Oregon. Bly had a population at that time of about four hundred people desperate for some form of entertainment. There was a movie theatre but they only showed movies on the weekends and had only one projector so you had to wait while the projectionist changed reels. Any kind of entertainment that came along other than the movies would "pack them in". It would even empty the "beer joints". Several times a year, some form of traveling show came to town.
One day an advance man came through town and put up posters advertising a "Wild West Show" with trick shooting, a horse that could count and do math problems and featuring a cat that he would teach to carry a bottle of Coca Cola across the room. About two weeks later the show came to town and set up in the school gymnasium.
What we weren't told was that it was a one man show and he didn't even have a cat. As near as I can remember, it was a pretty good show with some trick gun shots and cutting newspaper strips with a whip. The horse kept slipping on the gym floor as he had put leather boots over his hooves to protect the floor. During intermission, the cowboy was asked about the cat that was to carry the bottle across the gym. He said he didn't have a cat anymore but told us that he could teach any cat to do it if we could produce one. Not only that, he would give someone $5.00 to bring a cat. Since I lived only two doors from the school, I volunteered to go home and bring my huge cat, "Big Kitty". Five dollars was a lot of money to a kid my age so I went home to get the cat.
Big Kitty was a nice cat but wasn't too thrilled about the situation. When I finally caught her, I put her in a large paper grocery sack and headed back to the gymnasium. By the time I got there, the second half of the show had started and he was shooting his pistol and cracking his whip while sliding around on the poor horse. It was total bedlam in there but nothing compared to what was going on inside of that sack. Poor Big Kitty was sealed up in a dark sack and couldn't figure out what was going on. I finally got her calmed down and sat in the front bleacher with the sack and cat on the floor between my feet.
At the end of the show, the cowboy came over to perform the "cat trick". He placed a bottle of Coke on the floor with the cap up. Remember these were the old bottle caps that required a "church key" opener to remove them, not the twist off kind. The idea of this trick was to reach into the sack, grab the cat by the tail and hold her over the Coke bottle. The cat in desperation to get away would reach down, grab the bottle cap with her claws and he would lift her, bottle and all, and carry her across the room.
It didn't work out quite that way. When he reached in and got poor old Big Kitty by the tail and pulled her out she was screaming and was fighting mad. She did grab the bottle but when he held her up she somehow dropped it and it broke on the floor. Her next goal was to get the guy who was holding her by the tail. She instantly turned abound and proceeded to go up his arm, neck and finally on top of his head. He let out a scream and shouted some choice words as the cat launched herself from his head and took off across the gymnasium floor much to the delight of the crowd.
While this was going on, his assistant was packing up the stuff and was leading the horse out the door. I was crying and not only wanted my cat back but also my $5.00 which he had not given me. He said that the cat didn't complete the trick and he wouldn't pay me. When several of the town men heard this they caught him at the door and got my money. I'm sure he had to buy lots of Band-Aids to cover the scratches left by Big Kitty. As for Big Kitty, she went straight up the gym wall and was perched high up in the ceiling beams and was about twice the size as when I put her into the sack. It took several hours to coax her down but I wasn't about to leave without my cat. Big Kitty didn't seem too much for the wear as she lived at least ten more years and had many batches of kittens. What stories she must have told them. I know she was the talk of the town for many years to come.
Chuck Dishno
dishgov@mcn.net
I am a retired printer living in Dillon, Montana with my beautiful Chinese wife, Roz, and two crazy cats, Max, a purebred Siamese and Amy, a Persian mix. I have written several stories for 2theheart that can be found in the archives.
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Did you know??? This Sunday is SISTERS DAY! Send a free (and beautiful!) ecard from Ohangel.com! Visit our ecard page to see the newly designed cards for this special day. If you don't have a sister, but have "sisters of the heart", there are cards for you too!
http://www.2theheart.com/free_ecards_/
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The Letter Box:
Funny Friday,
I guess Maxine must have promised to love, honour, and OBEY to go out on that killer bike. Brain surgery must be a doddle after that. Bless her. I have had an exercise bike for many years. It has done 155.9 miles so far, not all by me. I get the most exercise by dusting it !
As for camping ! My new husband, John, has a tent and keeps threatening to take me for a holiday in it. He says the excitement is in tents (intense). The old ones are the best, I know.
Only once have I ever had a camping holiday. That was under duress. My first husband was waiting for a move to we knew not where and we couldn't afford a holiday. Some good (?) friends insisted we borrow their tent for a week. All our excuses (good reasons) for not going were disregarded, and we found ourselves, 4 of us - 2 sons 10 and 14 in this tent on a cliff at the edge of the sea.
The first night it rained - and rained. We awoke very wet, as the wind had blown the tent onto the protective lining and we, our sleeping bags and everything was wet. 'How did we get conned into this' grumbled my husband but, as the sun came out and we hung everything out to dry it didn't seem too bad. It wasn't - for the menfolk, but guess who had to fetch the water and prepare the veg, empty the water, fetch the water to do the cooking, fetch the water for washing up, wash up (oh no, that's one job I didn't do - I remember, it was the outstanding memory) and yes, empty the water. The guys just couldn't understand why I didn't take to camping when the sun was shining and the sea was so inviting. Every meal time I was beginning to see red.
That was another thing. The sea WAS inviting. The trouble was, it was down a cliff. There WERE steps down to the sands and that inviting sea, but there was no handrail and I am dizzy in high heels. No, I wasn't wearing high heels, but the fact was, that I could not walk onto those steps without a handrail. I did, eventually, after 3 days, with eyes closed and someone guiding me back and front. Once down, it was easy, why did I ever wait so long.
One day, it was too hot to laze about, so we walked, 8 miles around the bay. We paddled in the edge of the sea, walked on our hands or did cartwheels on the sands, sang rounds and all kinds of songs as we strolled along the deserted shore, laughing aloud at silly jokes and puns. When we arrived at the resort we couldn't afford to eat or do anything there, so we just took a bus back to our campsite. By this time, our feet were very hot, so I (yes I did) fetched water and, one by one, with clean water for each, washed the feet of my husband and sons. Nobody was interested in doing this simple task for me, so I then washed my own feet. Words can't describe the clean, refreshment that brought, and I thought of how the disciples must have felt when Jesus washed their feet in that hot and dusty land.
John has just read this over my shoulder and assured me that he can fetch water, so watch this space, but not for a while, we're too busy doing other things.
Margaret Drysdale
Yorkshire, England
mallott@lineone.net
Dear Maxine,
Your story is hilarious! I'm so glad you didn't fall. What a great sense of humor! You are really unique to be able to joke about getting in shape for brain surgery.
A similar thing happened to my daughter who will soon turn 50. She and her husband now have twin bikes. They live in Florida. One day when they were trying to beat an approaching rain storm, she hit an abutment with her front bike tire and fell off of her bike. She ended up with the skin scraped from the palm of one of her hands, and badly scraped and bruised knees. It took a while for her injuries to heal, and she was stiff and sore. She sent me an e-mail about her "accident". She is definitely athletically challenged. She couldn't believe it when her husband wanted to go bike riding again the next day.
I hope Larry sneaks to Wal-Mart and buys you that lawn swing. You definitely deserve one. I think we saw some of those last week.
Hugs,
Pat
Maxine,
I pray that you are getting stronger and healing from your surgery. Your Funny Friday story had me in stitches, especially the part about forgetting how to stop the bike! And "Bake it, bake it" had me in hysterics! Get well soon and get back to writing!
God bless,
Geena
Dear Funny Friday,
I just subscribed and "The Unwanted" was my first Funny Friday story. What a hilarious story and what a great sense of humor Maxine Wright has. I look forward to more Funny stories. God bless Maxine and I pray that she is recovering.
Karen Clark
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Funny Friday archives: www.2theheart.com/funny_friday/
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