And then, it happened... The sun came out as the guys farted... skies parted... whatever. Anyway, all alliterations aside... As I checked my mail tonight a little fireball of spunk and sass came a'tumblin' out.
My heart lept... my forehead broke into a sweat... and I cried a little.
Hot damn, Cathy’s back! (no, not Cathy’s back as in, look at Cathy’s back all covered in jelly, but Cathy’s back like it’s short for Cathy is back... I used the apostrophe S to save time in typing, which obviously didn’t turn out so well) I always wondered whether Cathy would find her way back into my life. Does this all sound strange to you? Well, then you need to march your butt back to my first Cathy post to get the 411 on Cathy and all her going’s on. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the trouble that darn Cathy can get into at the post office of all places! And then there’s her husband Simon who clearly is hiding something from Cathy. And for those of you who questioned the existence of Donny, allow me to present Pane Number One.
Obviously, Cathy and Simon have been attending counseling, and it appears that this is the time of the week where they sit down and tell each other how they feel the relationship is headed, what they are feeling, and why Simon is sleeping with a Puerto Rican Mail Man (Seriously, if you find this hard to believe, go back and read my first Cathy post. I can’t have the class held back by one person who didn’t read his assignment). Usually things start off well, but then Simon gets a little fed up and tells Cathy to stop worrying and Cathy tells Simon to not tell her how to feel. It’s then that Simon realizes that he made the right decision to stop smoking, otherwise there would be some serious ash-tray chunking... and not the little plastic ones, but the big lead crystal ones that are economy sized and were thrown around a la Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf know what I’m saying B? Anyway, this thought crosses his mind... but enough about the back story, lets look at what’s going on in the now.
There’s Cathy, sitting on the couch, the obvious Matriarch of the household. Simon has just gotten onto a rant about how she doesn’t put out like she used to, back when they were dating... Oh the times they had making out under the bleachers, or in the restroom of the International House of Pancakes (I mean, come on, IHOP... it’s like a European Vacation of breakfast! You show me a cheaper honeymoon... can you blame them?). Then there was the time that Simon got frisky at that funeral, or the time Cathy decided she would dress up like a slutty encyclopedia salesman, complete with encyclopedias already open to pages that discussed anatomy, mitosis, stamens and pistils (not to mention Georgia O’Keefe), and Grover Cleveland. Cathy would saunter in to Simon’s apartment and set down the C volume, point to Grover and then look at Simon, who by now had started writing his name on the carbon triplicate order form. Never in the history of encyclopedia selling had a complete twenty-nine volume set been sold without the salesman uttering a single word.
In any case, Simon was making his case that Cathy wasn’t, shall we say, Grovering his Cleveland (you’ll just have to figure that one out on your own... then tell me, ‘cause even I lost myself on that one). Cathy just sits there and sighs, because what can she do? What happened to the romance? Before Simon would leaf through the encyclopedias, paying attention to each page as he thumbed through, looking for subjects that caught his eye like Socks, Tinsel, and Ethylenediaminetetraacetates. Now, all Simon is interested in is flipping the book right open to a word, and saying “I’ll take it.”
So Cathy sits there, not saying a word. Simon, whom you’ll notice has got that strange bow tie back in front of his mouth, has gotten tired of the one sided conversation. He goes into the kitchen, picks up a whole mess of letters and presents which he meant to mail before the holidays, but somehow ran out of time (which is amazing since Cathy had bought most of the supplies from the post office in a timely manner... way back in October... Looks like Simon just isn’t holding up his end of the bargain, which is again hard to believe seeing as how he sees Donny, the Puerto Rican postman, all the time. He could be delivering his package while he’s... well, you get the idea).
ANYWAY, what I’m trying to get at here is Simon has taken to avoiding the subject all together and is informing Cathy that he is going to go to the post office instead of discussing Cathy’s feelings and their relationship. Here we actually see Simon’s first mistake... Why, if he even thinks that Cathy is on to him about Donny, would he escape to the post office? A bold move? No, a not well thought out one, my friend.
Cathy takes this all in and picks up the laptop that is on the coffee table as we proceed to Pane Two.
Holy Cow! Look at what’s happening! Cathy is some sort of superhero, or X-Man, or something! One, two, three, four arms? Are you kidding? And look at the couch! Is the couch a source of her power? It’s gotten all pointy! All the while, packages are flying, letters careening into boxes, bills and cards being snatched by one hand, thrown into another, then up into the air much like Nostradamus did before predicting the invention of the dual cassette player/recorder. And that laptop must sure be taking a beating... And through it all, Simon has somehow been drug onto the couch, bowtie gone from the mouth.
But what gets me about Simon is the fact that he isn’t staring at Cathy’s extra two appendages, or the pointy couch... not even the Barnum and Bailey style letter tossing going on in the center ring... No sir, he’s looking at the laptop. Why? What the hell does Simon see on that thing that is more amazing than that pointy couch? She must have one of those screen savers that draw all those funny looking pipes all over the place...
So while Simon is transfixed on the laptop, Cathy is in a turrets like trance... Only instead of yelling and spitting profanities, she is mailing letters like a chihuahua on crack chewing on a spare rib off the side of Fred Flinstone’s Coupe De Ville. Somehow I have to think this happens at the house quite often. Although I don’t see how a transforming pointy couch could ever get stale, I guess it’s just old hat.
Cathy yells for all to hear “Postage Calculated!” “Free Pickup Requested!” “Supplies Ordered!” All that with just three clicks... I tell ya what, Cathy sure is a computer whiz... It would seem to me that the object of four swooping arms and hands would make a little more noise than just click. I guess those piano lessons paid off for something. Lets move on to Pane Three.
It appears as though hurricane Cathy has subsided. Gone are the four arms, the pointy couch which I am seemingly drawn to has returned to a more Clark Kent subdued state, and all the letters and packages are gone (and more than likely just sticking to the ceiling like so many lead pencils to the ceiling of an office building). With the two arms Cathy didn’t molt away, she expresses one big “huh!” and invites Simon to resume talking about their relationship.
Simon, who is obviously constipated by the whole ordeal, has somehow managed to taper the ends of his sweater into the fly of his pants (which could be another reason for the profuse sweating). All seems to be back to normal. Cathy has successfully shown Simon that the truest form of love comes out of fear, which leads me to believe Cathy comes from a Sicilian background. There’s really not much more to say about this one... It clearly gives us an insight to how Cathy and Simon are getting along after going to extensive counseling. Everything is tied up into a neat little bow... Or is it?
What if all this time, unbeknownst to Simon or the millions of USPS recipients of this Cathy brand of postcards, Cathy had a special secret friend? This would rock the very foundation of the Guisewite empire! Well, yours truly (Michael to my friends) has found a photo that clearly shows Cathy with another man... I end this blog with the picture that could bring the world to an end.
That's all I got!
Your pal,
Michael Lamendola
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