It could be the hormones talking. Or the change in weather. Or maybe it is the fact that I am finally starting to grow up, but I have come to the sad realization that I have lost my faith in humanity. That deep-down assumption that most of the time, most of the people are good. The idea that there is some great Karmic force weeding out the ne’er-do-wells and the low-lifes and, well, the people I seem to find myself coming into contact with on a daily basis.

Steve and I had a lengthly discussion about it on our drive down to the valley over the Thanksgiving holiday. I can’t remember exactly how it started, but it was most likely in response to me making another flip comment about the overall downfall of our society and it’s inability to care about anyone but itself. Once he got me going he couldn’t shut me up. There has been a slow accumulation of instances overe the last couple of years that has ignited this slow burn of frustration. He tried the whole you-need-to-be-more-optimistic approach, then the don’t-you-think-you-are-being-too-pessimistic angle, then finished it with the you-need-to-have-more-realistic-expectations plea. I was having none of it. I am now beginning to think that the whole time we thought Stella was soundly sleeping in the back seat she may have actually been faking in an attempt to avoid any involvement in the conversation taking place in the front seat – I am sure Steve would have done the same if he wasn’t belted into the driver’s seat next to me.

I have had this conversation in various forms with about all of my friends and family. The one about how insanely rude people can be. And there is the one about the people who spend their lives working the system. Of course there is the ever-popular one about people who BREAK INTO YOUR HOUSE AND STEAL YOUR THINGS. Ugh. And don’t even get me going on customer service – or the ubiquitous lack thereof. That is a post all unto itself.

We live in Gods’ country up here. It is physically beautiful, remote, moderately progressive, home to a state university and aside from being ethnically homogenized, we seem to do pretty well in cultural enrichment. So why is it that each time I leave my home I seem to spend my time wondering where the normal people are? The people you look at and don’t immediately question whether or not you locked that 15th deadbolt on your house. The ones that actually think there is life beyond meth? The ones that aren’t materialistic, but take pride in having nice things. Or the ones that don’t think smoking when you are pregnant is okay? One trip to the grocery store reveals a fine sampling of what Humboldt County has to offer – and it just seems to be getting worse. And no matter how much Steve tries to deny it, he knows I am right.

One of the sadder realizations that I have come to over the last couple of years is that our one line of defense against this plague – law enforcement – really don’t seem all that interested. Mostly it is the jaded, “oh well” attitude they seem to have about everything. Yes, I know they see this all the time and it’s all just another day on the job, and Yes, I know they are understaffed and underpaid. It has, however, been my experience over the last couple of years that, when it comes to law enforcement, there is some secret memo that outlines what kinds of crimes acutally matter. Everything else is strictly procedural. Car got broken into? Bummer, it happens all the time. Mail in this report. House got broken into? Sucks, doesn’t it? In the last 2 months I have actually heard two completely separate stories wherein law enforcement’s official answer to questions of follow-up were “What do you think we are – CSI?” Are you kidding me? It is one thing to blow stuff off, it is quite another to confirm our worst fears – that we aren’t worth your time. Perhaps we should be notified of what kinds of crimes really matter so that we don’t get so disappointed when we set our expectations too high:

• Anything involving kids = Action (thank God)
• Death = some interest, but really… it happens all the time
• Property crime = good luck on that (insert CSI comment here)
• OBVIOUS AND BLATANT DRUG AND STOLEN MERCHANDISE TRAFFICKING = we’ll see what we can do – but no promises
• Over a dozen burglarizations/thefts in the neighborhood within the vicinity of a single house that is participating in OBVIOUS AND BLATANT DRUG AND STOLEN MERCHANDISE TRAFFICKING = let’s not jump to conclusions

I may have missed a couple, but I think we all get the gist.

For those of you who have not yet heard my mail delivery story – sit back and refill that bucket ‘o popcorn, because this one had me baffled. About mid-way through the summer I started to realize that we weren’t receiving any of our magazines. When we finally did receive them they were either mangled and/or weeks late. Now, when it comes to me, there are a couple of things you don’t want to mess with. One of them being my monthly delivery of Vanity Fair. When I die, my subscription will be clearly bequeathed in my Last Will and Testament. So you can imagine my frustration when I realized that – HORROR – my July issue had not arrived! After a couple of months of this, a conversation with the guy at Borders (because I actually had to go buy a copy off the stand!), and a phone call from Dore telling me to read the article in the paper about the local post office, I became aware of something that, to this day still confounds me: all third class mail was being housed in a parking lot under a blue tarp. Wha-? This is the United States Postal Service. (Maybe that is my answer right there.) According to the article in the paper, going back to March, the local postmaster was implementing some operational and personnel changes, and they were in some sort of “transition” period. That’s it. No apologies, no answers, no reassuring words that my next issue of Vanity Fair would be with me soon. So, I did what any person not receiving their holiest of scriptures would do, I fired up the computer, dug around on the USPS site and found myself a complaint form. A couple of email exchanges and two weeks later all of our myriad of paid magazine subscriptions starting arriving with a vengance. Back issues of Eating Well and Sunset and Everyday Food and Woodworker and VANITY FAIR! I have since also heard that there is a new postmaster at the local Eureka branch. Gee, ya think?

I guess lately I have just started to feel like the balance of decent people is being outweighed by all the others. Maybe it was always that way and I was just too naive to realize it. Either way, I find myself practically moved to tears by a polite and curteous girl at the coffee counter and seriously considering acquiring a firearm so that I can shoot at the ridiculously loud red Honda with the muffler kit that roars past our house, rattling the windows 15 times a day.

So, it was right about the time that I was down on my hands and knees in Stella’s closet (you know, the one that – in all of her generostiy – she allows me to share with her) sniffing our clothes because I had caught a whiff of cat pee, that I realized my distain for our cats has reached a whole new level. This, along with the fact that while in the garage we also found two new places that our cats have taken the care to pee all over, has given me a renewed interest in revenge.

Some ideas I am playing around with:

• I could run the vaccuum cleaner nonstop, but the spillover effect of that would be that Stella would also be hiding in a closet.
• I could wrap their paws in tape, but that borders on sociopathic.
• We have considered just locking them out forever, but there is a whole host of downsides to that approach — one of which is that our neighbors would grow to hate us so much that they would want to burn our house down.
• Which leaves us with a conversation that Steve and I had the other day wherein he informed me that monitor lizards eat cats. (I know what you are all thinking – and NO, I didn’t prompt this line of questioning.) If I can find research substantiating the fact that they don’t also prey on curious and cute toddlers, we’re getting one.

Get hideous geometric sunburn from overalls while gardening: Check!

Slowly, over the course of the last couple of years, our cats have slowly begun the process of methodically and systematically planning our death. The how’s and why’s are still unfolding, but the overall reality of the situation has really started to sink in. This is where they slipped up though. The chaos of the remodel made them heady with arrogance. Gave them a false sense of security wherein they got sloppy, and ultimately, let us on to their plan.

It’s no big secret that I am not exactly a cat person. Maybe it is because I am so selfish and, aside from Stella, I can’t let anyone in our immediate living space be more selfish than me. Maybe it is just a battle of wills that I am not willing to concede. Maybe it’s that cats are petulant and could honestly care less if you are around — unless of course, they want something. Although dogs come with some similar baggage in regards to cleanliness and naughty behavior, they at least seem to have some modicum of earnest interest in you, and seem to actually, well, like you. Like, if they were people, the dog would walk in and say “Hey dude, what’s up? Missed you. Glad you’re home.” and the cat would walk in and say “Ugh. You. Could you at least make yourself useful and pet me, feed me or do something otherwise useful with that tiny brain of yours?” Both of our cats have a certain way of looking at you like you are a total idiot.

Little did we know that when we gave Boris his name, it would be the most appropriate moniker to be bestowed on a pet. Ever. If Boris were a person he would be a large, dark-eyed Eastern European — probably in the Mafia. He would speak broken english with a thick accent and would have ordered thousands to be iced for accidentally brushing past him on the street. Boris, the European, would have spent a lot of time and energy establishing his turf — extorting and blackmailing people as a matter of course. In the real world, our tuff guy has taken to spraying everything he comes in contact with. New stove: spray it. Inside of Stella’s caterpillar tube: spray it. New kitchen cabinets: spray it. South panel of the passion vines: spray it — everytime you walk by it. We get it dude; you own the place.

As for cute, diminutive Rosie — or as we refer to her: the serial killer living among us. Don’t believe me? When our neighbors ‘cat-sat’ for us over the holidays we came back to not only a sweet, little grey kitty who wouldn’t leave our sides, but also a house covered in feathers from one end to the other and a note from our neighbors indicating they had renamed her Charlie (yes, as in Manson). During the course of our absence they were forced to clean up the remnants of not one, not two, but up to three birds in a single day. And that this happened *every day that we were gone*! We belled her — with two bells, no less — only to find that, as Steve put it, now she hunts the deaf birds. Aside from her quest to eliminate the entire avian population in the greater Humboldt County area (sorry, Andrea), her single-minded determination to completely shred every piece of furniture we own has taught me that having all your furniture covered in sticky tape just isn’t really worth it.

Nothing any of you cat-lovers out there (and I know that pretty much everyone reading this post is seething with cat-loving thoughts right now) can convince me that ours are not, as we speak, mapping the unraveling of our existence.

Note to Boris and Rosie and all your brethren: I’m on to you.