A series of mishaps ...

 

I am not superstitious ... well ... maybe I am a little stitious ... but I would not say I am super at it. There are many things you hear about from people but I don't believe or act on all of them.

For example, they say that it is bad luck if you break a mirror. Who are they who say such things? Who started the rumour or the theory that is repeated over and again? If you break a mirror, for instance, someone might step on it and get injured. So it is more than just bad luck. It is a fact that should be acted upon straight-away. The same applies if you break a window, a glass or spill milk for that matter. 

Then there's all this talk about black cats being bad luck. I don't believe that, although I'd take precautions and never walk under a black cat, if I were you.

We have a black cat. He is friendly and a lovely pet. We've been having electric blackouts recently. Just our area not the whole city. The cat gets very upset and mieaows in distress when it's very dark.

In order to get him used to the darkness of the blackouts, I thought I'd teach him to shut his eyes for a while. I sat him in his box, I went down on all fours and stared him closely and shut my eyes for a while, then opened them, then shut them again. The idea was that he would imitate me and shut his eyes. He thought it was a game and he scratched my nose. He drew blood and it hurt quite a bit. For a few days I went round with a big Elastoplast plaster round my nose.

Two days later the cat got run over by a car. He must have been crossing the road with his eyes shut. I had to scrape him off the road with a shovel and I took him to the vet. They said they'll put him together again. No broken bones, a few cuts and bruises, and he'd used one of his nine lives.

A few days after that I went to the vet to collect the cat. They said he was still asleep under the anaesthetic and they put him in a cardboard box for me to take him home. They said he'll awake in about an hour or so and he'll be OK again.

When I got home, I opened the box and it contained a dead hamster. How did my cat turn into a hamster? And a dead one at that?

I rang the vet. It was an answering machine which said, "Your call is valuable to us. Press 1 if you are a new customer. Press 2 if you are an existing customer. Press 3 if you are phoning about your pet. Press 4 if you have a box containing a dead hamster."

How did they know?

I pressed 4. The machine replied, "Your hamster is not dead. He is hibernating. It is a Norwegian hamster and they hibernate in summer, because it is too dark in Scandinavian countries in winter. Their days are mostly nights. They only have an hour or so of daylight. By the time they wake up to prepare breakfast it is time to go to bed again!"

So there I was having a hibernating hamster instead of my cat. I put the phone down and rang again. This time I pressed 2 to indicate I was an existing customer. The machine said, "You can't fool us. You have a hibernating hamster. Just wait until winter and it will wake up again! Have a good day."

Well I wasn't having a good day. I was having a hibernating hamster instead of an anaesthetised cat. So I rang again. This time I pressed 1 pretending to be a new customer and hopefully I'd get some good service from them.

The machine said, "Are you kidding me? We know you have a hamster. Stop phoning us or we'll call the police."

There was no way I could get to the vet by phone. It was too far away to go back to town by bus, or taxi. So I went on-line on their website and sent them an e-mail explaining everything. They replied within seconds saying, "We do not accept e-mails please write a letter in the normal way."

If they don't accept e-mails then why have an e-mail address on their website? 

There was no time to waste. I phoned for a taxi. They drive faster than me. I told the taxi driver, "Quick ... go as fast as you can to this address!"

The taxi rushed away leaving me standing on the side-walk. How stupid is that?

I phoned another taxi. This time I gave the driver instructions once I was in the cab. We got to the vet just on time as they were closing. My cat was awake and happy to see me. We did the exchange and got home just in time to see Tom and Jerry on TV.

NOTE: I have put a photo of a cockerel at the top because I did not have one of a cat, a hamster, or a taxi. Or a phone, or a vet or anything else suitable!