W & M: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am soooooo glad you are home. I missed you so much. I’ll tell you why.
I don’t know who that woman was that you hired to come by to check on me but I can just tell you that she was Invasive (note the capital I). Every time I settled into an activity, she was at the door, kicking me out of the way to come in.

Sure, she changed my water and scooped out the litter but she was constantly interrupting me. One night I had a perfectly harmless poker game going on while we ate Russian food and drank some vodka and in she blasted, making me clean up the game and play with the boingy toy with feathers on the end instead. It was really irritating. M had to scurry out the living room window to get back down to her apartment before this Invasive woman went down to check on her. (I hope she made it).

Another time, she barged in and interrupted my reading. I was just reading an engrossing book called “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” with an eye to helping you guys out before you came home by cleaning up O’s toys (which really have taken over the place, don’t you think?)

M’s always after me to mount this campaign (She’s a bit of a neat-freak. She’s Felix to me, Oscar) and she pushed the book with her little paws all the way over to the elevator, then jumped up and hit the 2 with her nose, then pushed the book all the way down the hallway to our apartment. Then she jumped up and rang the bell with her paw (I heard her outside the door thumping up and down pretty actively for about 15 minutes, but waited it out until she connected with the doorbell before I opened the door and let her in because that’s what friends do for each other – they allow them to have their successes and failures). Anyway, I tugged on the string I’d put around the door handle and let her in and I had just made a cup of tea, and was settling in for a quiet read when I heard the key in the lock and that woman showed up again. GRRRRRRR! I was so mad.

Anyway, she eventually left, but not before I gave her a piece of my mind and a good chomp to the forearm. She looked pretty surprised and the next day when she showed up, she was way more tentative in her approach. I give her some credit for actually sitting down on the couch and letting me climb in her lap. But she looked really scared all the while. I think I made my point. Not that I aspire to be a bully or anything, but you know, a girl likes her privacy every now and then to get things done around the house and to let her hair down.

Anyway, all this to say M and I are sooooooo glad you are home again. We hope you had a splendid time and I’m sure it was important whatever you had to do while you were gone, but next time, find someone a little less responsible so we can have some unguarded time alone, okay? In other words, can you find someone a little less Invasive?

Love, M & W