"I think we have a problem, and I'm glad we're both here, because I'd really like your feedback on it," The Roommate began, delicately wiping some stray polish from the side of her finger. We have mice again, I thought. Or rodents. But then I remembered that mice are merely one form of rodents, and my thoughts were being redundant. Rats, is what I meant to think, I thought. Rats are also rodents but different from mice, that's why I accidentally thought "rodents," but what I really meant was rats. I know a lot about rats, because rats (or rather the fleas on them) were the harbingers of the Bubonic Plague in AD 1347, and I am a historian, so I'm pretty passionate about rats and plagues. In fact, did you know that the Bubonic Plague actually affected the Mongolian empire even more than...
"Did you hear what I said?" The Roommate asked, looking up.
"We could just use mousetraps," I commented. "Or rat poison--is that legal? We could experiment..."
"What are you talking about?" The Roommate griped. "We have mice?!"
"What? Don't we?" I asked. "What were you talking about?"
"I was talking about Lucy!" The Roommate stared at me impatiently.
"But she doesn't even catch mice--she's too fat, remember last time? She just laid on her belly and watched one run past her," I reminded The Roommate, whose codependency sometimes impedes her memory.
"No, I said nothing about mice. I was talking about Lucy's problem, and not the mice-catching problem. Well, sort of--it's related to her body shape issue," The Roommmate stammered. She likes to use "body shape" instead of "morbid obesity" when it comes to Lucy, because I think it makes The Roommate feel better about herself. Lucy on the other hand seems to have the exact opposite of shame about the issue, she flaunts her fat flap all over the apartment like a sack of gold nuggets.
"Is she dying?" I asked. I don't believe in being afraid of death, particularly the death of one's cat. I believe in such deaths one should feel the opposite of fear, i.e. expectation.
"NO, she is not dying," The Roommate practically threw her words at me. "Get your mind out of the gutter. No. I just noticed something about Lucy. Her body shape is impeding her from doing something very necessary--"
"Being a feline rather than a bovine?"
"No! Are you going to be supportive or not?" The Roommate chided.
"Of course I'm going to be supportive. And we all know Lucy's so big she needs--"
"No, I mean supportive for real--not supportive in a sarcastic way because you are going to follow it up with some tagline about Lucy's body shape," The Roommate. "Just think of how you'd feel if..."
"If what?"
"If you were so big you could no longer lick your back to get it clean after using the litter box!" The Roommate glared at me. "That's what I'm talking about!"
There are moments in life like this, such as when one bungie jumps off a sky scraper, moments that seem like eternities. My friends and I call these montage moments, because what happens is a photo montage plays like in a movie--usually a flashback of your whole life. Well, in this moment, a montage played in my mind but it was not a montage of my life. It was a montage of about a million comebacks, fat quips, hilarious jokes, maniacal laughter... A montage of Lucy's "body shape" issues, her emotional eating habits, her lazy laying, her gold nugget bag... In short, a montage of joy. joy. joy. There was so much joy I was unable to respond to The Roommate--I think I was disassociating with reality due to so much joy. That or shape shifting, because I don't think I've ever done that before, so I don't know what it feels like. In fact, I think it is happening again, because the montage is coming back...
More to come in the post-montage third installment of this episode. heh heh.
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