This is a true story, with an unfortunate ending – for the cat – and one I’m sure will tick off a few people.

We had a cat back several years ago. The cat was a pretty good cat, as far as cats go. She had a lot of personality and for the most part a pretty good disposition, except for one slight problem.

In our kitchen of an old farmhouse that dated back to the mid 1800s, there was a lot of old Wainscoting throughout. We had hung some coat hooks on the chair rail just inside the door. Being country people and all, it was the simplest solution to finding a jacket when it was time to go outside.

Over a period of time, my wife and I began noticing what couldn’t be anything else but a smell of cat pee coming from some of the clothing hanging on the coat hooks. What was puzzling was that at times it would appear that the pee was showing up near the tops of the coats as they hung.

We remained perplexed until one day we decided to go for a walk down back toward the river. We were about half way across the field when we heard a noise behind us. I turned to look just in time to see the cat come bounding up behind us. She ran about 10 feet past us, stopped, made an odd sound, kind of throaty, did a little jig with her rear legs, then commenced to pee a stream that shot about four feet into the air and out a distance that would have made some high school shot-putters envious.

I had never seen anything like it in my life before, especially coming from a female cat.

We paid the local veterinary a call and told him the story. He half smiled and said, “Well, my guess is she either has some kind of bladder infection or needs an attitude adjustment.

I bagged the old feline piss pot into a pillow case one day and took her to the vets. He checked her all out and said she was healthy as a clam, whatever the heck that means. How would anyone know………never mind.

He prescribed Valium. He said to give her a half pill in the morning and a half at night. It would calm her down and hopefully she’d stop peeing on everything.

Initially it was quite a chore to shove this tiny pill down her throat. I placed her in the kitchen chair and first tried butter, then peanut butter but as time went on, the damned cat fell in love with Valium. She would wait patiently for me outside my bedroom door. As soon as she would hear me get out of bed in the morning, she would run to the chair and wait for me. I got tired of doing this twice a day so I just gave her a whole pill first thing in the morning.

She was happy and stopped peeing everywhere. If you’re like me, there’s not much worse than rotten old cat piss!

End of story? Naw! We were moving to New Hampshire. My wife’s sister and boyfriend came to our house to get the piano we were giving them. Before they left, we had filled the back of their truck with anything we could shove in it.

As we loaded what seemed to be the last possible item one could squeeze in, I told my sister-in-law she had one more thing – the cat. She objected and said the cat wouldn’t ride good in the truck. Any excuse she could find she tried.

I said, “Don’t worry! I have just the answer for that cat.”

I took her to the kitchen and somehow that cat knew she was in for a treat, so she hopped up on the chair and waited. I grabbed a pill, popped it into the back of her throat and she swallowed.

I took the cat out and put her into the cab of the truck and said goodbye…….and good riddance.

Later, when we talked to the sister, we found out the cat never made it home. She said half-way, of the one-hour car ride, the cat began acting really strange. They stopped the truck to try to get the cat calmed down and in the process the cat bolted out the door and was never seen again.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I figured out what happened. My wife takes a prescription drug called Synthroid for a hyperactive thyroid. She had moved bottles around so I ended up giving the cat a dose of synthroid instead of Valium.

No my wife didn’t take the Valium.

A man is driving down Rt. 5 heading toward Bethel from Andover. He’s barely out of town when he meets a woman driving quite slowly coming toward him. As she gets near his car, she yells as loud as she can, “PIG!”

The man immediately yells back at the woman, “BITCH!”

The man navigates the next turn in the road and immediately hits and kills a pig standing in the middle of the road.

Yikes!

As you know, Otis has been described as being both the dumbest man alive and the smartest. I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself which he is but the other day he walked into Sam Fox’s barbershop and there were three guys in there – all very big and all very blond.

He says to the biggest of the three, “You want to hear a good stupid blond joke?”

The big guy stood up, towering some 18 inches above Otis and bellowed in a deep thundering voice, “I’m a world professional wrestler. I weigh in at 263 pounds. I break people in half for a living. This here’s John. He’s a national judo champ. He can bust cement blocks with his bear hands and that guy over there if Butch. He’s 230 pounds and he likes to hurt people just because he can. You still want to tell your stupid blond joke?”

Otis hesitated for a second and then answered, “Not if I have to explain it three times.”

We’ve all been there. You’re in a group and one person begins by telling a story. Perhaps it’s funny or bizarre. Whatever the topic of the story, the first person to tell their story is going to be immediately bested with a bigger and better story by the next person.

There was quite a gathering last Saturday afternoon on the Andover Town Common bandstand. There was Otis and Gabby, Gary, Virgil, Bruce and Alston. Bruce started the conversation.

“You know,” he began. “Them people down at the telephone office ain’t too bright. I called down there yesterday and asked to speak to Arthur. The person who answered the phone told me that Arthur was on vacation for the next two weeks and asked me if I wanted to hold.”

“Hell, that’s nothing,” exclaimed Alston. “I stopped in over at the town office to pay my taxes the other day and the clerk was very angry. I asked her what the problem was and she told me she couldn’t take payment for my taxes because her computer wouldn’t work ever since she bought a new one of them power strips at Wal-Mart. I asked if I could take a look at it and when I got behind the desk, I saw that she had plugged the power strip into itself.”

“Here’s a better one,” said Virgil. “I went over to the post office and that new guy from down in Chester was working in there. When I came in he looked really frustrated and he asked me if I knew anything about fax machines. ‘What’s problem, I asked.’ He said he sent a fax to the office over in Bethel but the woman over there called to say all she got was a cover sheet and a blank sheet of paper. I asked him how he sent it and he told me that being that the document was something he didn’t want just anybody reading, he decided he better fold it in half to make sure no one saw it.”

“Weeeelllllll,” said Otis. “I got you all beat. I was over by the library just yesterday and I saw a young blond woman standing beside her car crying. I went over to see what the problem was. She said she was locked out of her car. She explained that her remote control to unlock the car must have a dead battery in it and she couldn’t get her car opened. She said she was going to walk over to Mills’ Market and see if she could get a new battery. I took her keys and manually unlocked the door, sarcastically telling her to drive over and get a battery because it was too far to walk. So she did.”

“That’s nothing,” said Gabby. “I went in to the doctor’s office over in Rumford one day and as I was leaving, the secretary said she couldn’t give me the written stuff about my visit because all she had was one piece of typing paper left and she needed that for something else. I can’t believe she was so dumb. I had to tell her to use the copy machine and make some more.”

A lawyer was driving down the road one day on the way home when he looked out his window and he saw a father, mother and two children sitting in a large grassy field eating grass because they were hungry. The lawyer asked his driver to stop and invite the hungry family to his house to eat.

The driver went into the field and returned shortly with the family. The lawyer opened his door and invited the family to sit in the back of his limo with him for the ride.

They all squeezed in and headed for the lawyer’s home, when the father says to the lawyer, “It is really nice of you to take us to your home to feed us. We are very poor and have no money to eat.”

“Oh, that’s quite alright,” exclaimed the lawyer. “My lawn needs mowing anyway.”

Otis knows all and isn’t afraid to let you know. Because of that, sometimes he becomes the good target of a prank or practical joke.

Otis and Gabby were hanging out in front of Mills’ Market one day when Bruce and Alston came by and stopped to see Otis.

“Say, Otis”, exclaimed Bruce. “I’ll bet you $100 you can’t go up to the old loggers camp on the back side of Berry’s ledge and spend the night.”

That was all it took and Otis took Bruce and Alston up on their proposal. Of course Otis thought Gabby would tag along with him, especially if he brought plenty of food along. Gabby would have nothing to do with it. He knew better than take up that bet. After all, he’d heard all the stories about that camp.

Otis wasn’t about to be made a fool of so he grabbed a six-pack of Pepsi, some red hot dogs and a loaf of Country Kitchen bread and headed for the old loggers camp.

All the while he was riding his bicycle up the East B Hill Road, he talked incessantly to himself making every attempt to convince himself that there was no such thing as ghosts. He claimed that anyone who ever said they saw one was only seeing what he called a figment of their imagination.

Otis arrived at loggers camp and shuffled a few things around inside knowing it was going to be a long night. He dusted off an old mattress on one of the bunks and rolled out an old thinly worn sleeping bag he had kept from his high school days.

Once he felt somewhat settled in, he built a fire in the fireplace and went outside and gathered as much firewood as he could find. He wanted to keep a fire going all night. Not that he was scared or anything but because he was afraid that if he got hungry during the night he wouldn’t be able to quickly cook up a hot dog. Yeah, right!

Darkness began to fall and Otis sat quietly in front of the fire. He had cut about a four-foot long alder stick from down by the brook that ran near the old loggers camp to roast his dogs on. He pressed on a red dog and slowly began roasting it over the open flames.

About half way through cooking his first dog, he heard the front door of the cabin ever so slowly creek open. Otis listened. Soon he looked by the corner of the fireplace and saw a little green man that stood about 4 inches tall. He had funny looking shoes and bright red hair.

The odd looking little creature approached Otis who was nervously rocking back in forth in the old rocker while trying to convince himself he wasn’t really seeing anything.

In a high, squeaky voice, kind of like what an immature Theodore or Alvin Chipmunk might sound like, the creature spoke, “You gonna be here when John gets here?”

Otis looked over at the alien creature and said, “You ain’t nothing but a figment of my imagination!” And with that he took his finger and snapped the little man right back out the front door.

Otis sipped on another Pepsi and talked to himself. He finished that one hot dog and began roasting another when once again he heard the front door slowly creek open, this time just a bit faster than the first time. Otis looked over by the corner of the fireplace and there stood this very weird looking thing. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was about 4 1/2 feet tall with long arms. On each hand it only had three fingers. It had one eye in the middle of its face and hair like that of a Mohawk and it was bright yellow.

It spoke to Otis with a raspy, gravely kind of voice that may have closely resembled Louis Armstrong in his latter years. “You gonna be here when John gets here?” it asked.

With that Otis stood up and approached the odd thing, exclaiming, “You ain’t nothing but a figment of my imagination!” He escorted the thing to the front door and kicked him in the pants forcing him outside.

Otis returned to his seat breathing a bit harder than he normally does and began talking to himself a bit more and a bit louder. He still was trying to convince himself it was really a figment of his imagination.

He finished his second hot dog and sipped his third can of Pepsi. Contemplating whether he was going to roast a third hot dog, for the third time, Otis heard the front door creek open quickly this time followed by a loud “slam” when the door shut. Nervous as a clam at low tide, Otis watched the corner of the fireplace and much to his surprise this manlike creature about 8 and 1/2 feet tall, a huge structure of a being that was fire red in color and eyes that threw sparks out them, came close. It’s mouth opened a bit and green, thick oozing puss-like liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

In a loud billowing voice that shook the entire camp, the giant bellows, “Are you going to be here when John gets here?”

Otis quaked in his boots. He tried to tell himself it was a figment of his imagination but just couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead is said, “If you ain’t John, I’m gone!”

Little Megan Marshrall prayed and prayed to God because she needed $100. After about a month of praying, she still didn’t have $100. She didn’t know what to do. She thought some of going downtown and finding Otis to ask his advice but decided she would take matters into her own hands.

She sat down and wrote God a letter asking him for $100. When the post office saw the letter addressed to God, at first they wasn’t sure what to do with it so they decided to forward it on to President George Bush.

Ole “W” got the letter and thought it was cute. He instructed his secretary to answer Megan’s letter and send her $5.00, thinking that $5.00 is a lot of money to any young child.

Megan received her answer from who she thought was God and immediately sat down and wrote God back.

Dear God,

Thank you very much for answering my letter asking for $100. I noticed that you had to mail the letter through Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, those crooks in Washington took $95 out of it first.

Sincerely,

Megan Marshrall

It was a pleasant day. Otis and Gabby were doing their thing wasting time away sitting on the Andover Town Common bandstand hoping against all hope something would happen. Generally these two guys never get bored as it’s difficult to bore a simpleton.

As they sat twiddling their thumbs, little Freddie Emerson came wandering by on his way home from school. Freddie was only 10 and he attended the Andover Elementary School. If he was lucky he had Mr. Emery for a teacher because Mr. Emery is “smaht”.

Oddly enough, Freddie stopped for a second and gazed up into the gazebo at Otis and Gabby. Next thing you know, Freddie was sitting on the bench between Otis and Gabby looking at Otis as if he was some freak show entertainment at the Fryeburg Fair.

Otis of course was bored, so he said to little Freddie, “You want to talk?”

“Sure!” says Freddie. “What you want to talk about?”

“Well,” Otis hesitated a bit. “We could talk about nuclear science.”

“Yeah, we could,” replied Freddie. “But before we do let me ask you a question.”

That certainly perked Otis right up because he loves to be asked questions. He thinks he’s so smart and all and most of the time he can be quite successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of many people – especially the Andover Town Selectmen.

“What’s your question young man?” asked Otis all snuffy and puffed up like.

“You know deer, cows and horses eat the same thing, grass” declared Freddie. “Deer excrete tiny little hard pebbles, cows lay out a big flat patty and horses make a pile of big round lumps full of hay. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Well, geez,” replied Otis. “I can’t say that I rightly know why that is.”

“If that’s the case then mister,” began Freddie. “I can’t see talking to you about nuclear science when you don’t know shit.”

I don’t think that I can honestly say that Andover is a town of much diversification unless you’re discussing the diverse ways to get a skunk out of your shed or better yet, discovering different ways to bitch and complain about the weather.

Andover is lacking in cultural diversification and seldom do the locals, who almost never leave town, see someone from “away”, even from a foreign country.

Many, many years ago a very handsome and smooth talking man from a relatively remote small village of Northern Italy, traveled to the United States looking for that “American Dream”. I would have to say that this particular Italian had a very lousy sense of direction because somehow he ended up in Andover, Maine looking for work.

He was a married man and left his wife and two children at home. He intended to send his money home to care for his family and once settled in, he would send for them.

With no place else left to go, Guido looked for work and a place to live in Andover. During his search, he met up with Gladys Forkinham, a single woman whom many in Andover thought to be nothing but an old “school marm”.

Needless to say, Gladys found “work” for the very handsome and debonair Mr. Guido Italiano. Guido lived with Gladys for several months and decided that he had better head back to Italy once he discovered that Ms. Forkinham was pregnant with his child.

Before leaving he told his mistress to send him a letter in the mail once the birth had arrived and he would begin sending her money to support the child but he had one request.

“Don’t tell me exactly about the baby,” he explained to Gladys. “I don’t want my wife to know about this, so send me a letter and once the baby is born just tell me you have cooked some spaghetti and it’s ready to eat.”

Guido headed back to Italy and within a couple of months Gladys delivered. Much to Guido’s surprise, he opened a letter one day from his darling mistress. This is what the letter said:

Dear Guido,

I have been cooking some spaghetti just as you taught me how to do. I found the learning process quite enjoyable and wish I could see you again to learn more about cooking. You wanted me to tell you when I had cooked my first batch of spaghetti and so I thought I would tell you that it is all done. You should also know there ended up being 3 batches of spaghetti, two with meatballs and one without.

Sincerely,

Your friend and fellow spaghetti cook, Gladys.

Virgil and Florena run a very small farm but during certain times of the season, Virgil needs help getting in the crops and feeding the animals. He pays them quite well for their work but somehow word got back to the powers that be in Augusta that this poor farmer might not be paying his help the minimum required by law. They sent an official out to visit Virgil.

When the man, clad in a nice wool suit, arrived at Virgil’s farm, he asked that Virgil provide him with all the proper papers so he could verify how much money he was paying his help. Virgil didn’t understand why he was being targeted.

“Why do you need to know this information?” asked Virgil.

“We received word that not everyone on your farm is being paid the required minimum by law,” replied the Augusta official man.

“I can tell you right now that everyone who works on this farm makes very good money except for one very big fool. He’s often called a half wit” said Virgil.

“So, you admit it then?” said the official.

“Sure!” replied Virgil. “I got this guy who comes in and milks for me everyday. I pay him $600 per week. I also got a fella who mows my fields, bails the hay and puts it in the barn. I pay him $800 per week but that other stupid half-wit don’t make nothing for all the work he does.”

Now very curious as to why Virgil would be outing himself with incriminating information he says to Virgil, “What does this man do anyway?”

“He does just about everything!” said Virgil. “He milks, he mucks out stalls, he tinkers on the equipment when it breaks, he repairs buildings, puts the cows out and in, plants crops, reaps the harvest and sometimes he’s up all hours of the night helping to deliver the newborn animals.”

“That’s the guy I want to talk with!” exclaimed the officials. “Where can I find him?”

“That would be me!” answered Virgil.

I just couldn’t resist this. Can you imagine that people say this woman and her husband are the cream of the crop when it comes to educated intelligence.