Do you like boxes of shit in your house? Get a cat.

We have three cats, one of which is an incredibly spoiled Siamese named Jesse:

He's pretty awesome, and he jumps up and drapes himself over my shoulders and rides around. We also have two other "lesser cats" that were here long before him. Unfortunately, he hates the idea that they even exist, and we're constantly breaking up fights.

Periodically, my wife will talk about getting another Siamese kitten, and my usual response to that is, "Three cats is my absolute limit. When we're down to two, we'll think about it."

So the other night, we were sitting on the couch and she started talking about it again...so I just sat there and stared at the other two cats sleeping in front of the wood stove. Finally, she said, "What are you doing?"

"Oh nothing," I said, distractedly. "Just trying to figure out which one of the other cats I'm going to have to kill."

Fast forward to the next day. I'm working from home, and sitting on the couch with the computer on my lap, and my wife is at work. Maggie, one of the two 14-year-old cats, is standing behind the wood stove and suddenly starts hacking on a hairball. She finally coughs it up, and then just... falls over. Like someone tipped over a statue of a cat. She's lying there, not moving. I run over and drag her out into the open and try to stand her up. She falls over again. I feel like I'm trying to balance a bike that doesn't have a kickstand. All I can think is, "Shit! This fucking cat is going to die, and my wife's going to think I killed it." I immediately call her at work, to throw off any suspicion, should worst come to worst.

"Hey, um...I think something's wrong with Maggie," I said.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"She just... kind of... fell over," I said, warily.

"What do you mean, she fell over?" she asked, alarmed.

"Hang on," I said, and put the phone down.

I tried again to stand the cat up, and this time she stayed up. She was shaking like a leaf, but she wasn't falling over and that was a decided improvement.

I picking up the phone again. "I thought she was gonna die, but now I don't think so," I said. "Maybe. It could go either way. She looks a little weird. Stoned. Shaking a lot."

I started to feel like I was constructing a shitty alibi or something, so I wrapped it up.

"I'm not sure why I called," I said. "Don't worry about it, she's probably fine."

I could tell she didn't believe me, but she hung up anyway, since she was at work.

I turned my attention back to Maggie, who was now lying down in one of the cat beds, looking a little tired, but pretty much normal.

"You just have to last until she gets home from work," I said, pointing my finger at her. "Don't fuck me over."

It turned out she was fine, and still is.

I'm pretty sure I got punk'd by my cat.

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ps - if you get a chance, check out my buddy Glen's blog here. He's trying to convince me to do a book reading with him at a local bookstore. I'm a little apprehensive about it, but if I did do it, which story or stories from my book do you guys think I should read?