PC Kitty

Political correctness has been maligned and ridiculed, but in many ways it is simply consideration and common sense. Admittedly, there are times when the “Rules” are ticky-tack, e.g. the journalistic practice referring to firemen as firefighters. They’re postal workers not mailmen. One should write humanity not mankind.

Some PC terms aim for gentler rhetoric: overweight instead of fat, challenged rather than handicapped, but others are the righteous blowback of bigotry and ignorance. Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Imus can attest to the repercussions of speaking a hurtful boorish mind.

Sometimes PC can sneak-up and bite you in the ass, or is it butt? Once, in mixed company, I referred to the opposite sex as, “this chick I know” and was immediately reprimanded by more than one woman for the fowl reference.

However, one day, I learned my lesson that one man’s… er… person’s, ceiling is really another’s floor and that even “trying to fit in” can be extremely embarrassing, if not down right dangerous, when you don’t think before you speak.

I consider myself a progressive, modern man, all inclusive and unbiased. I have friends from different ethnic and racial backgrounds and one day I was at a kickback with some of my cat friends.

It was down the street from my house. Yeah, that’s right, there are cats in my neighborhood, I’m proud to call them my friends, but I’m not cool with how I acted that day.

Fluffy Williams invited me over to watch the game with a few of his friends, mostly cats. There was this one turtle, but I didn’t catch his name. Anyway Fluffy’s wife had set out a nice spread, some meow mix, bowls of milk, a few chips, that sort of thing. She purred and rubbed against my leg a little before leaving. I was a bit uncomfortable and was glad Fluffy didn’t notice. A couple of Toms were hanging around the scratching post and me and Fluffy were watching the tube with three or four other cats. They passed around some “nip,” but when I said I was a lightweight they just wrinkled their noses.

I was sort of uncomfortable and I guess that’s where I went wrong because, obviously they knew I wasn’t a cat, no fur, tail, but that’s not why Fluffy invited me, so why did I feel I had to try to fit in? I started telling some off-color jokes about mice. You know Mickey didn’t say Minnie was crazy. He said she was fuckin Goofy, just silly stuff really. Then it turned more specie-ist. I was baggin’ on their little whiskers, how they had those beady eyes, weren’t getting anywhere in those mazes stuff like that. I said all they like to do is eat cheese and lay around their holes.

I had those cats cracking up, until this one big Calico starts really hatin’ on them. Calling them rats and science experiments, saying how he’d like to trap them all and make a mouse sandwich, hold em up by their tails and swallow em whole. It was pretty ugly. Fluffy looked at me like I was a jerk for starting it and I felt like one too, but not as bad as when the door opened and this big Tabby came prancing in the room meowing really loud and twitching his tail in the air.

His name was Sylvester. I know funny, but no one dared call him that. He was Sly. Everyone knew that cat. You could hear him any night of the week at midnight out on the fence fighting and scratching, and you know what. Well, he makes this big entrance after the party is really going strong. I was feeling like one of the litter. Fluffy had just come back from using the cat box and was grabbing a ball of yarn when I yelled over to Sly.

I don’t know what came over me. I guess it was the excitement, maybe the catnip floating in the air, but I shout, “Hey Sly, What’s up Puss?”

The room went silent. The only sound was some Persian tossing around a sock toy with a little bell on it. Man those eyes give me the willies.

Sly’s ears drew down. He arched his back and hissed, “What’d you call me?”

I tried to blow it off and said, “Hey cat pull your claws in. Just being friendly that’s all.

Sly Pounced. In a split second he was on top of me, nose to nose, growling in this low moan. I thought he was going to scratch my eyes out and then he let me up. “Don’t you ever call me that MAN. You get it? Ever.”

“Listen,” I said. “You cats call each other the “P” word all the time. We're friends aren’t we? Don’t I scratch you under the chin and behind the ears? What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Dude. You ever seen your kittens tied up in a bag and thrown down the well? You ever have your friends rounded up and the air sucked out of them just because they weren’t somebody’s kitty? Ever been chased by a pit bull and cornered in the ally fightn’ for your life? Didn’t think so bro.”

He pushed his front legs out and stretched, then straightened up and told me, “Look man, I just did you a favor. Think before you blurt out something you know nothing about. Yeah we talk like that sometimes but you got no idea how it is to be called ‘pussy this and pussy that, here pussy here pussy.’ Screw that man. Just think of it as a learning experience. Were all equal man, but we ain’t the same. Respect dude. That’s the name of the game”

The party got back to normal and I slipped out after a bit, but that’s one lesson this cat’s never going to forget. PC has it’s merits.

Sean Reynolds

TMD
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A Small Good Thing

On Saturday morning, at the local farmer’s market, the tables spill over with color. The cool air is scented with breakfast crepes, gyros, fresh baked bread and bowls of menudo…Small Good Things.

There are good reasons to eat organic fruits and vegetables. Primarily, the lack of pesticides, but there are also secret, unique motives that (when discovered) release the magic properties of a savory, connected life.

Small Good Things.

And when the connection is made, it seems as if it was always there waiting, the natural thing to do. A fat plum, ripened to perfection, purple as a king’s vestment, tastes like a sweet dream in the backyard of an everlasting summer. That first bite bursts with a trickle of juice from the corner of your mouth and is met by the grin of the woman standing behind the table. She tells you she knows her orchard. She knows just when to pick them. “You can’t buy them in the supermarket,” she laughs. And you smile also, but not too wide, because they are so juicy.

The farmer’s market is a place to gather your senses and expand your spirit. You can taste life.

Raymond Carver’s famous short story, “A Small Good Thing,” zeros-in on this unique secret. Carver keeps his words close, his prose so efficient that when we meet the emotion (he vitally wants to extend) we are just as delighted as that first bite of delicious fruit.

It is a sad, troublesome story about the death of a son, close to his birthday no less, but Carver knows us. He knows we long for connection. He knows we want to unite with our senses, our emotions and our faith in all that is alive. He leaves us, (in the story) spent and empty at a warm bakery, early in the darkness before dawn. Then he feeds us, fills our souls with fresh baked rolls and pads of melting butter and the soft connection of grief.

Small Good Things.

It is that way with wine also. The large wineries produce thousands of gallons fermented in huge stainless steel tanks, barely having the chance to smooth the bite of ancient zinfandel vines or thick cabernet clusters that ripen in the central valley sun. But take these same noble grapes and crush them in a small, competent wine cellar, let them ferment in open casks and age in cool oak and you will taste the vineyard, the toasted barrel and the skill of the impassioned winemaker.

Perhaps it is not simply taste or competency nor even quality that supplies the secret, unique aspects of a connected life. Maybe it is desire, emotion, patience and love that turn these things to magic, but it is worth the effort to seek out the Small Good Things.

TMD

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