Raina handed me the reins to her camel, like, “Okay, now you’re in charge of your own bull crap”.

-¡No! ¡I’m not taking the reins! -I cried out like someone had just taken the salt from my saltines-. ¡¿Why can’t you have a hamster for a pet?!

I was treating Raina like she was a ventriloquist dummy, and I could put my hand up her ass and hit her over the head with a tire iron.

But time was slipping away, and with it my dreams of a normal sister with normal pets.

-Fuck normal pets -She said from on top her high-camel.

-¡Hey!

-¿”Hey”? ¡Fuck, piss, shit...! ¡Suck me! -Raina was no showroom dummy.

She had balls for a little girl.

-¡I told you not to bring your! -I screamed- ¡fucking pets into my room! The last time your jackass camel was in here it ate my autographed picture of Justin Timberlake.

-¡Greg! ¡Look! -Liv was screaming now and looking horrified, like someone had put camel meat on her veggie pizza.

I looked in the direction she was pointing. It was a penguin.

A penguin sporting dentures made of balsa wood.

-¡Princess, no! ¡Cease and desist!

The fucking cat was sharpening its claws on the penguin’s teeth.

It wasn’t pretty.

And the goddamn cat already had a pair of dentures. Our family ate a lot of sugar - and we didn’t spare the cat.

Now Princess was trying to eat the penguin’s teeth, but with no luck. Frustrated, the cat started violently pouring salt all over the penguin. This was not “Grunion For Sissies”.

-¡Ewww! -Raina watched, but with eyes that were barely open-. ¡My money’s on Princess! ¡No denture-wearing penguin can kick my cat’s ass!

Now I really wanted what I hadn’t got.

As a last resort, I placed all of my cares - along with my carp - into the bathtub. This seemed to soothe both me and Princess, who was making a beeline to the bathtub. Finally, I was going to get some peace and quiet.

Lately my heart had been beating irregularly. I was always short of breath and my corpuscles were always crying out.

Princess ran out of the bathroom and spat at me as she went by.

That fucking cat, I’m gonna...

Princess ran out of the bathroom again. And, again, spat of me as she went by.

And another Princess, and another, and another, and yet another.

I was soaked in cat spit.

-¡Oh, nooooo! -I lamented my fate.

And just kept on lamenting, as ten white cats came into my room. One of ‘em started shaking salt all over me as I tried to write down this narrative. Another urinated on my baseball trophies.

The trophies started trembling.

-¡Greg! -Liv screamed at me-. ¡It’s sea salt!

There was sea salt all over my room, and it was starting to eat up everything in its path.

-¡Ooof! ¡For Pele’s sake! -I said as the salt covered me in its lugubrious insulin.

-¡No, wait, it’s not sea salt! -Liv cried out-. ¡It’s bowls of salsa!

   

I immediately reassessed the situation and surmised that at least two of the cats were not really cats, but, instead, reflections in my disco ball and series of wall mirrors. And the bowls of salsa had actually sucked out all of the salt from my room. ¡Goddamn that door-to-door disco ball salesman!

It wasn’t good karma to be this pissed, and, as if on key, ¡20 more god-blessed cats went by!

-¡No, nooo! -That was me lamenting my now cat-filled fate.

Now there were 28 to 30 cats in my tiny bedroom.

And these cats knew that I was trying to write a narrative, and they knew that I was tired of Raina’s fucking camel, and they knew that this wasn’t a fucking lending library, and still they spat at me and grabbed books from my shelves.

I was just counting the centimeters until I lit all of these cats on fire. I wasn’t going to tint their windows, I wasn’t going to suck their kitty dicks, and I wasn’t going to give them chocolates. I was going to ¡freaking set them on fire!

But not until I had crafted a mountain of pies and made a swan dive into them.

This all was very alarming, and I was treating it like it was just visiting Germans. I didn’t have my Lugar on me and I wasn’t going to pee on a cat.

-¡Ewwww! -Raina had eyes as absorbent as towels-. ¡Now I’m gonna have teenage problems, Greg!

-¡A pox on all cats! -I screamed.

Liv and I walked through the house, tracking mud and knocking over lamps. Whenever we knocked over a lamp, one of the cats would make a sissy on the floor, and another would eat it as lunch.

-¡Ewwww! -Raina had eyes as observant as towels-. ¡Now I’m gonna have digestion problems!

-¡Hey! -Liv screamed-. ¿¡Which one of you fucking cats just spat on me!?

She grabbed a cat by the clavicle, but it bit her on the wrist and ran.

And still there were more.

And we’re not talking the brightest of Bog’s holy animules, either.

-Pretty kitties -I murmured, trying to appease the little fucks-. Pretty Princess.

That cat was round and getting rounder. That or large or getting lamer.

-¡Hey! -I guess Princess can read minds because she took an open-clawed swipe at my package.

-¡Son of a bitch! ¡I’m saving my package for the last dance!

-¡Poor Greg! ¡Look at your spandex! -Liv - for some reason - screamed.

I couldn’t look, but I could glance. Those goddamn cats had assaulted and then salted my pants, and the fumes from the salt eating through the Spandex were going to my head. Fortunately, I had Spandex insurance. So, even if the goddamn things melted to my legs, I could count on my local veterinarian, Dr. Pantsiera, to pry them from my cold, shriveled penis.

It was just like cats to assault my package. The fumes were making my head feel like it had been shrink-wrapped in plastic, and then the plastic cut out with a dull utility knife. I prayed that Dr. Pantsiera’s utility knives were sharp.

-These cats are certainly as stupid as Princess -Raina said, raiding our parents’s liquor cabinet for some Captain Morgan-. But - ¡Arrrrr! - they’re also nasty little motherfuckers. I’m going to my room to vomit.

She couldn’t have a hamster, she had to have a camel and a crank habit.

These cats were terrorizing us more than any cat I’d encountered, killed or flambé‘d. This was the stuff of bad children’s horror stories. It’s got that fuckface R.L. Stine written all over it: Death by regurgitating cats.

-¡Who’s going to stop them! -I rhetoricalized-. ¡It’s all Raina’s fault! ¡No! ¡It’s Princess’s fault! ¡She’s the one mutating!

Liv started throwing chocolates at the cats.

-¡This... isn’t... working! -She cried out-. ¡We’ll never be rid of these cats!

I was protecting my crotch with my hands when it hit me.

-¿What do all these cats have in common? -I lamented my lameness-. They all have milky white discharges. ¡We can’t discharge anything! ¿Don’t you think that’s an idea?

Liv looked as depressed as the cats looked like they were ready to discharge.

-Yeah. It’s an idea. A stupid, fucking idea.

      -- on to chapter 9   or   back to Halloween --