She was nothing short of a fire hazard.

I know this girl, we’ll call her Melanie because that’s her name…and OK, well, I don’t really know her. I just saw her on TV the other night, a special that TLC was running on psychological disorders.

Melanie had one. She’s a hoarder.

You don't want much more of the picture than this.

She hoards things, and I must say, I’d never even heard of such a thing before.

It’s rather disturbing, actually. My heart went out to her…but not at first.

No, at first, I thought: “Come on! Give me a break. You’ve got to be kidding me! Can’t she just clean it up?” I imagine a lot of viewers were thinking the same thing. That’s because TLC waited to show you the proof: her apartment.

And also, I am my uncle’s nephew, after all.

When she opened her front door, and the camera panned to survey the vast amount of Stuff she’d accumulated, I had no appropriate reaction other than to say, in a whispered tone: My God Above.

I had no idea people lived like that. Or, rather, didn’t live. That was more to the point of this documentary on hoarding. Her apartment was overwhelming, and that’s just me being polite. It was so stacked with odds and ends, pertinent and pointless items that I felt my throat constrict.

It was terrifying and suffocating.

And I was snuggled under a blanket on the couch irritating Lazarus-Rasputin, The Cat That Shall Not Be Tamed, with a red laser light we bought at Wal-Mart.  It’s how I amuse myself; it’s also an effective behaviorial tool, believe it or not.

Well, it was until Max, The Dog That Would Like To Be A Cat, decided it was also toy for him. Big animals (and people, too, for that matter) do that, they just take whatever they want.

Melanie only got my full attention when she showed us where she slept, each night. It was somewhere between Shelf #12, where razors and Ziploc bags were kept, and the bottom of a mini-fridge. She couldn’t even stretch all the way out.

She slept in what appeared to be a cross between kneeling in haphazard prayer and what Jell-O would do if it had legs and a definitive left side.

I cringed, I did.

And I wanted to cringe. I didn’t want to think all the obvious, nay-sayer things that U.L. would bring up, like: 1) why she invited a TV crew in her apartment in the first place, or 2) – well…one’s enough. You don’t need any other reasons when you’re U.L.  God love him, but it took him a long time to get even that compassionate about “people on the TV.”

They’re all on there to make you want to buy something, he says.

I didn’t want what Melanie was selling. Believe me.

She spent an hour discussing how difficult it was for her to find love, a job, the bathroom. (Look, I’m not saying there weren’t moments that I find disrespectfully humorous). But, I still felt for her.

The way I see it, though, it isn’t about the disability that hoarding creates in its victims…no, the maddening part for me is the length that such an illness lies dormant.

I mean, this didn’t happen on overnight.

Ironically, I didn't see even one of these. But, it was hard to look too closely.

Melanie’s been collecting this junk for years, like a squirrel. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she kept extra pairs of socks and packs of Trident in her cheeks. This woman had a serious case of collection. Her apartment was filled with multiples of everything. Eve-Ry-Thing. The landlords had warned her to clean it up, or if nothing else, to at least create a clear, walkable path from the front door to the back door, or she would be evicted.

She was nothing short of a fire hazard.

TLC wasn’t entirely heartless for exposing her detritus to the viewing public (and by the way, Thank you, TLC!); they also brought along a psychologist to talk with Melanie. Talking was fine, Melanie said. Sparks didn’t fly (or, in this case, they were tears) until the psychologist went to move a plastic box of what I think were yarn fractures and thimbles from a spot on the shelf.

Excuse me, their spot on their row of their shelf.

That’s when I realized just how deeply this problem ran. Then I understood it to be an actual disability.

What to me appeared to be a hot mess of household junk (and downtown junk, as well…ever an opportunist, Melanie did venture out-of-doors several times a week to dumpster dive), was actually a system of organization to Melanie.

You just don’t know what people waste, she said in explanation.

Moot point. Moot point. (And also, touche.) No wonder the poor woman couldn’t process the thought of having to move. This wasn’t just her apartment, it was her brain. That’s what she was living in: a fourth floor brain.

Melanie had a panic attack right there on TV. 

Then, that’s when I had my panic attack.

First, as with anything I see on TV, I began to justify to myself why I, too, am suffering from the same disease. I spent the entire week after seeing Melanie’s life in squalor believing that I was also hoarder…or in the early stages of it.

My house isn’t as filthy as her apartment; quite the opposite…but I got scared because I understood her obsession. At least, I think I did. I completely relate to the comfort that items give me. That cookbook, that broken necklace, the rusted wind chime. Things that I leave right where they are because that’s where they’re supposed to be because that’s where they’ve always been. 

Wasn’t I, that very moment, wrapped up in a blanket that I’d had for years, cocooning myself because that closeness made me feel safe and secure?

I began to stare at every single thing in the house, debating its necessity, its worth, its purpose in my life.

I didn’t really need five different sets of champagne flutes, did I? I never used that panini press, but I might. Should I keep that bill organizer…maybe. I really should make better use of it. Those magazines, the out-dated ones from The New Yorker, they could go, right? But, I hadn’t read all the cartoons, yet, had I…and I was quite capable of creating a collage at the drop of a hat, should the need arise, so I might should leave them in the corner, stacked in the shape of a slick tower.

Round and round the house, I went, my heart a mile a minute: there were so many things in the house!

I mean, why stop at small things. I didn’t really ever use the dining room table – so, out it should go. That recliner, please…company didn’t even sit on it – out. No one ever slept in my bed, except the Old Cat – out. The dryer didn’t work – out. And, the TV is the whole reason I’m having this breakdown – so, out it goes, too, but since I wasn’t about to throw the TV out, to save my life, it stayed where it was, and I finally calmed down and took a deep breath…

…and turned the channel. (I’d tell you where I turned it to, but I’m embarrassed to).

I dare you.

It seemed to be the only sensible thing to do, turning the channel.  So, that’s what I did…I watched some other inane, safe show that involved fictional storylines with people I could relate to without needing to love or care about during the commercial break.

It made me feel so much better, but then again, I bet  “The O’Reilly Factor” does that for a lot of people.

Rasputin and the Fateful Finger Day

I: Confession

I don’t have many great qualities, I’d imagine (for instance, I find it increasingly difficult to even get a date, so I’m tempted to say that I must be lacking some crucial quality – unfortunately, it’s a temptation I never give into. I know better).

What I do have, and consider a good thing to have, is a large, uncontrollably malleable heart. Even if it’s quite a fault of mine to have it, a liability.

It’s still not the worst thing to have.

Attention: Will Robinson and The Clever Kris

Then, again, I’m also ignorant about a great many things, and most often, after the initial shock of owning so much pathos, I tend to hole away again into my own, insular world.  So, no loss is ever that greatly overwhelming, except death, antithetical cliches, and poorly played tennis matches. (i.e., a missed dating opportunity, small potatoes; a grocery store out of small potatoes when I want potato salad, devastating).

I know it’s not going to come across this way, upfront, my big heart, etc. in today’s blog, perhaps…since, one of the two kittens in question attacked Amanda, the other day, sending her to the fate of a Tetanus shot, but “hold off the earth” your criticism, for awhile, to paraphrase the Bard.

What you should know, first, about the cat attack: Max, the dog, was let into the backyard, which is his backyard, and there, underneath the last step, were two kittens, kittens that had appeared from nowhere but out of the calm green grass, and there they were sitting, the two kittens, as was told to me, like a planned lolcat photo op, by the bicycle.

Max, of course, immediately fell under the impression that he’d been given the greatest gift of all: toys that were alive with fur and embedded noisemakers, like his stuffed polar bear. Amanda barely rescued one kitten from his vice-like jaws; this is the kitten that bit her so maliciously on her pinkie…and maybe, we’re not sure, somehow on her wrist.  

The other “kitteh” got away…and, we thought, would stay there.

Amanda, whose heart is, admittedly, only slightly larger than mine, due to a misshapen left aorta, I believe, (that’s what I tell myself) took the helpless, strikingly demoralized kitten to the Vet School, here on campus. I must say, here and now: I find it rather ironic that several blogs back I was bragging about the stewardship of this school and program, and yet, here they were, unwilling to assist; they wouldn’t help Amanda at all. Not really.  

Instead, she was referred to another veterinarian’s office; he was also irate.  Not at her, but at their inability to offer the very assistance they should be offering in order to better learn their craft. What few options they gave Amanda were ridiculously expensive.  That, or, euthanization. 

I was, then, via proximity of incident and the ridiculously-expensive-options only rule, irate as well.

This other vet, though, has done the right thing, mostly, in my opinion. He has been nursing this ravaged kitten ever since that Fateful Finger Day. He called yesterday to say several things:  1) the hole in the kitten’s side had healed; 2) his lung had reconstituted and his diaphragm was not, after all, damaged; 3) he had finally decided he was hungry enough to eat; 4) the quarantine was in effect and working well; and 5) when would be taking him home, please?

Amanda said, Well, could you put a collar on him and perhaps, neuter, him, first, and then we’d bring him home and go from there.

The vet said that it would take 10-14 days post-quarantine before he could neuter the poor, feral, pure evil, vicious, frightened, intimidated feline that we’d taken already, around the house, to calling, affectionately, Rasputin. The tone of his voice said more than enough. Neuter him on our own time.

He’s been poked, needled, fed, stitched, prodded and watered, the vet continued. He’d also bitten a vet assistant who had attempted to pet him.

I’m pretty sure I think I love this kitten.

I’m not sure, however, what will happen to him, even after we bring him home, as we’ve all but flat-out decided to do that.  If nothing else,I reasoned, our house was where his people were, right? It might give him a better leg-up to return to his homeplace and start from scratch here. It made sense to me.

There were several kittens under there, originally, and for safety’s sake, we called the Humane Society; our neighbor has a crackhouse of cats, apparently. The congregate, they do their “drugs,” they kill a few birds, no cockroaches, though, I should point out, and they hang around in the yard, all damn day and night.

The Humane Society, like cats themsevles, came, in the still of the night, apparently, because all the kittens were gone the next morning. Sigh. Of course…he has no people now.

Or, so, we thought…

…until last night, when I was taking a much deserved bath, propping my sore ankle over the side of tub to let it wrap itself in steam. The other kitten, the one we thought had run away, seems to have come back; it’s like, almost right out of the Bible – 99 sheep lay down to sleep, or whatever, but one wanders off and you really only want the one that went away.  (This is my version of that shepherd story because truth be known, I worried sick about that other kitten, the Houdini). To me, he was the one that stayed awake, and aware, and wandered off…to live. (He’ll have the best stories, if he ever comes back). Prodigal as his nature is, he did. So, I said, he must belong to me.

He gets by with a little help from his friends.

I kept hearing this tiny meow, as I lay steaming in the tub, but I refused to think that one had been left behind. I convinced myself that this was the one that had returned. I couldn’t bear thinking he’d been overlooked. How lonely that would feel. I know. 

No, no, he must be the one that left and returned, I mean, how could they have overlooked a kitten, I kept saying over and over to myself. 

The next thing I knew, I’d said it over and over to myself so many times that I was crawling underneath the house, fresh from my bath, at midnight last night, searching him/her out. I couldn’t stand that pitiful mewing. I would never get a night’s rest with that awful, plaintive cry for love and affection. Especially not when I have these arms, so eager to love and affect. It’s odd, but we do that to the sound of a cat’s meow, much more than a dog’s bark, I think: we personify it. It just sounds too “of the depth”, too doleful, too Mahalia Jackson.

I care for animals sometimes more than I do for people. I have yet, however, to trace that root down. I think it must have happened when I decided to love animals more than people.

Sometimes.

I searched forever, and I couldn’t find it, that poor kitten. We decided to leave it food, water, and a lantern for a more fine dining atmosphere. It seems to have done the trick. At least, it’s grown quiet.

And, so, I’ll do my best to do the same as soon as I get these cobwebs and dead crickets out of my hair. I’ll just run another bath, quickly, and say a little prayer.

That’s right, Annelle, I pray.

II: Addendum

I came back from class, today, and as promised, went outside to check on that kitten, I’ve named him Houdini Pip, both for his disappearing act and also because poor Pip, in Great Expectations, just couldn’t stay out of trouble, could he?  Also, I wasn’t against using a file and a pork pie to lure my shackled robber out of the fog of the house foundation. It is plain filthy under there.

I peered under the house, and the lantern was gone. I stood silently in the dead heat of 92 degrees, but I heard no mewing issue forth when I called for him.

The water had been touched, though, and some of the food had been eaten. I was elated. Let him stay under there if he wants, I used to crawl under the house all the time when I was a little kid, much to the chagrin of everyone else. So long as he eats, he’ll be fine. And that’s what it appeared he’d done: eaten, at least a little of the food.

Amanda, ironically, I realized then, had not asked me to meet her anywhere for lunch. That’s when I g0t a little worried.

I ain't no Ingrid Bergman.

What if she’s taken to eating cat food? I fear that would not bode well for the future of groceries in our home.

This is how I stress: What if she’s just moving the food around in that bowl because she knows how neurotic I am about stray animals and someone loving them, and by so moving the food, she’ll think that I’ll assume the kitten’s being taken care of, because that’s exactly what I’d think.

If any of that’s true, then all I can say is this: that’s one hell of a gaslight.

But, I know better. After all, the lantern we used takes batteries.

I called her Margaret Alice and her awkward daughter Michelle.

Sometimes, I dog sit.  It’s just for a precious handful of close friends, as I’ve never been one to necessarily want the responsibility of caring for living things.  Especially those that drool (which includes not only dogs, but also babies, and some elderly people).

 

I love better at an arm’s length. 

 

This morning, though, I was tending to K.P.’s dogs, she was away on business, and it’s really a very simple set-up. I’ve done it several times before. First, you separate Buddy from Sophie because Sophie, every time she is fed pretends that it is the first she has ever been fed and will eat absolutely anything at the end of her nose.  And Buddy, well, he never puts up much of a fight, so…it’s best to feed them separately. 

 

Which is what I was doing.

 

I’d unleashed him and led him to his food bowl, and slowly, he began to eat, a nibble first, he requires a lot of encouragement having grown used to barely seeing his food before Sophie gets to it, and then, after gently goading, he dives full face into the bowl. I was standing outside the fence, leaning on it, cheering him to eat faster.  I was already running late. 

 

Now, K.P.’s fence meets three other fences in the far north corner of the backyard, and as you might have guessed, this is a neighborhood “for the dogs.”  I have yet to discover one house that does not have a dog, or two, or three, or a gutter-full of wandering cats. (I’m just as confused as you are).  

 

I’m inclined to feel grateful for this neighborhood as the overwhelming majority of dogs seem ragamuffin and from mutt descent. They appear to be dogs that had been rescued, which is by all means, a positive.  There are a few pure breds, and granted, I’m sure they’re loved equally.  Sophie, for instance, is a pure bred beagle.  The dog in the immediate backyard behind K.P’s is a whining Weimereiner. 

 

And he figures greatly into this story.

 

While I was standing outside the fence, I noticed some movement off to my right. A young girl, of let’s say 12 or 13, a very healthy 12 or 13, I should add, was slowly lifting the latch to the gate of what I was assuming was her own yard. I tried to think nothing of it, but she was wearing a faded and torn Whitesnake t-shirt, which I’m not sure she had the right to wear begin but a mere child, and fuzzy pink-ish slippers, which only a mere child could and would wear, so I had no choice but to stare. She stuck out, as it were.  

 

 

She then began to bend halfway at the waist and then further over, until she was on her hands and knees.  She crawled beneath the three windows at the back of the house, avoiding the small muddy area just a little in front of the nandina bushes, until she’d reached the screen door of the back porch.  At this, she jumped up and frightened an older woman who, unknown to me, had been sitting on the back porch with the newspaper and what appeared to be coffee. I looked up, and there she was, staring at me, while I was staring at what I assumed was her awkward daughter. 

 

The older woman was only slightly startled, “Quit sneaking around and doing that shit to me.”

 

To which the pudgy adolescent replied, “Well, me and the Weinerainer are thirsty.” (It was a silly mispronunciation; capital “W” emphasis mine).

 

Immediately, I began to create a history, a backstory, for this strange pair:  a daughter on the verge of schizoid behavior, spending hours every morning trying desperately to bond with her “Weinerainer” who led a life meant only to eat, drink, poop, and sleep. It was her only friend; she spent every morning crawling around in the yard, because she was obviously homeschooled, sniffing out strange and unique smells with him: the track of a Whitetail, the musk of a Calico, the fecund guano of a random fruit bat.  

 

 

And I’m sure she recorded these events in her diary.  Diaries, rather.  She reeked of someone who kept more than one.

 

Diaries are the Facebook of the homeschooled. Her mother was a bitter chain smoker, whose husband had phoned it in for the last 8-10 years of their difficult marriage, on a rotary.  Sex had stopped after the daughter showed signs of communicative disabilities. A second child, a rubbery boy of 5, had been allowed as a means of salvaging the decaying love they thought they still held for each other.  It didn’t work.  The husband left, taking the male heir, and eventually hooked up with a Chevron attendant, you know the one from that Chevron station that’s always right on the edge of town, having been shouldered out of the city limits by Wal-Mart, and now all the mother had left was her coffee, cigarettes, a modified Fleshjack, and the paper. Her name, undoubtedly, was Margaret Alice.  The embarrassment of birth, Michelle. 

 

The girl, somewhat deflated by her continued, and ill, attempts to frighten her mother, quickly surrendered and asked the mother to unlock the screen door.  She got up, lifted the latch, and the girl disappeared behind the wire mesh. I’m sure she had oatmeal to stick her fingers into, or a bottle of syrup to start kissing.  I wondered what her mother would teach her this day, and how much, if any, I might factor into the lesson:  don’t take candy from strange men who lean on borrowed fences and stare at us; never look a dogsitter in the mouth – I’m sure there’s a parable in there somewhere.

 

I only hoped she would pay attention to her mother, while in class, and if at all possible, give her mother something to live for.  I enjoyed a private giggle, at that. I can be so mean to those I don’t know. 

 

Of course, coffee drinkers are a hard people to read. 

 

I noted as I was getting Sophie from the house to put her in the backyard, that there was a large Bradford pear tree in Margaret Alice’s backyard.  

 

Being from  Mississippi, I knew what that meant. 

 

And yet, they hadn’t struck me as Southern Baptist.