Public Service Anouncement: Feline AIDS Isn't Funny

I have a quirky and at times inappropriate sense of humor.

I found it hard not to laugh when my mother-in-law was talking about the recent “tea parties” protesting something or other and how she forgot about giving teabags to someone. A little giggle effervesced in my mind as I thought about her giving a lecture on tea bagging some politician or other. As the giggle did not actually escape, she was none the wiser.

This was not the case during lunch with some of my co-workers on Friday. Everyone has had the experience of being around someone who has an inflated sense of self and who is just plain annoying with his or her tales of moral outrage over the little realities of life. I find it hard to take them seriously. So, as we sat discussing the new television season for the fall – a safe topic of conversation as I find office lunches a conversation minefield – things began to take a bad turn.

It all began with the discussion of the NCIS spin-off. Chris O’Donnell is going to star in it with LL Cool J. I was surprised to hear that bit of news, as I thought from the ending of the NCIS crossover / spin-off pilot episode that Chris O’Donnell’s character had been assassinated. When I mentioned this, the expert on all things t.v. informed me that I was mistaken and why would I think that. When I pointed out that you saw the black SUV pull up, the side door slide open, the barrel of some kind of automatic weapon come out, the ensuing hail of bullets, Chris O’Donnell’s character falling to the pavement riddled with aforementioned bullets, LL Cool J’s character turning in slow mo mouthing “NOOOOOOOO!” and running down the street – still in slow mo - to fall on the pavement and pick up a broken and bleeding Chris O’Donnell in his arms while crying was a good indicator to me that Chris O’Donnell’s character was most probably dead. Apparently, I am not the audience for this show as logically you can survive such a thing quite easily.

Things took an even weirder turn with her next pronouncement about one of her next-door neighbors. In another proof of my observation that life is like living in high school, one of the neighborhood couples is not like the others, so the others have to gang up on them until they conform.

Aside Commentary: I am not sure I want to buy a house because from what I understand all neighbors suck. They have pets that crap in your yard; children that pick your flowers; bushes and trees that hang over the property line (I mean how dare they grow that way! They should know better stupid bushes and trees.); cars that are too loud; or dare to have people over.

The cause of the recent outrage is that one of the neighbor couples, I will call them XX, evicted their cats due to the arrival of one of the X’s pit bulls. Because the cats were now outside cats, the cat owner X accidentally backed over one of the cats when leaving for work. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

To the chagrin of XY neighbors 1, cat owner X just deposited the body of dead cat 1 under one of cat owner X’s shrubs instead of giving dead cat 1 a proper Christian burial. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

XY neighbors 1 then phoned animal control demanding that they make cat owner X give dead cat 1 a proper Christian burial. I did not laugh at this point, but I smirked and said, “Well, given the length of time a dead cat can lay by the side of the road as road kill, XY neighbors 1 should have known where dead cat 1 fell on the list of priorities of animal control.” I got the look that said, “How could you possibly be so insensitive about a dead kitty”.

Because I wasn’t sufficiently upset and filled with outrage and co-misery, co-worker continued. It wasn’t enough that cat owner X backed over her cat. Shortly after the flat cat incident, soon to be dead cat 2 showed up on XY neighbors’ 1 porch looking pitiful, hungry and missing some fur. I was losing interest in the story, but I endured because my mother always taught me to be polite.

Outraged, XY neighbors 1 phoned cat owner X and demanded that she come retrieve her cat from their porch and take it to the vet. Now co-worker assured us that XY neighbors weren’t being unreasonable as they had a tomcat and they could not have an YY cat household. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

Cat owner X complied. The diagnosis was feline AIDS. I chortled.

Now I had heard about feline AIDS, but I had never really thought about it. I had never really thought that cats in the US could get treatment from kitty AIDS, whereas some poor little kid in Africa could not, but this is not the observation one should make during co-worker lunch.

XY neighbors were further outraged that cat owner X had the animal put to sleep instead of treating the disease. I chortled again a little louder.

One of my other co-workers inquired as to the origin of dead cat 2’s AIDS. Co-worker replied, “They think he got it from a fight.”

Without stopping to think, I inquired with mock seriousness, “Was it a bar room brawl or a cat fight?” The words had barely died on the air when I started to keel over laughing. I laughed so hard, tears streamed down my face. No amount of indignant outrage on the part of my co-worker could stop it.

As we drove back to work, I determined that perhaps I should ban myself from going out with them for a while. Whether it is my inability to muster the correct amount of disapproval for people’s personal sexual predilections that require seeking our services, to my status as bleeding heart A-1, I don’t think I am fit for out of office socializing. I don’t think I get it. At this point, I am not sure I want to.