The Cat and Ham's Key...

I just finished reading “Cloud Atlas,” which is an amazing piece of writing, if anyone is looking for a good read. I cannot stop talking about it. As a writer, I have moments in which I am reading something and get this twinge of jealousy because it’s so damned good. Sometimes it’s just a sentence or a paragraph, but there are entire scenes and characters that keep me writing just for the sake of trying to get at something partially as amazing.

Now, I don’t want to ruin it for any of you with specifics, but the big theme of the novel is how lives intertwine and affect each other throughout time, in the past, present, and future. It’s this big, creative philosophical puzzle that really makes you think. It’s a gift with a big, fat bow on it for an introspective chick like me.

So last Tuesday, with about 200 pages to go, I decided to leash up the bitches and go for a run. Time to digest a story like that is really important and a run is the perfect space for me to muddle around in it.

We cruised down 18th Street and hopped on the bike trails behind the zoo. A loop around O’Gorman High School and the hills of Kiwanis Avenue give us a nice five miler.

And just as we had, so many times before, we broke off the trail at 41st Street, in front of O’Gorman, so we could break back to the north.

But, like never before, a beautiful cat lay dead next to the sidewalk. My gut reaction was to make sure the bitches didn’t get interested. Wrestling away squirrel carcasses is one thing; disrupting the lifeless body of someone’s family member is another story.

It was a very pretty cat, dark gray with those tigery stripes and a touch of white on his paws. He seemed peaceful enough, postured in a slight stretch. Since 41st is a busy street, how he met his maker was probably not a case for the Hardy Boys. I just hope the little one didn’t suffer.

I called Animal Control when we got home so he would be picked up. I’m sure someone was looking for him.

And I really didn’t think about him again, until last night, after I finished the book and jumped on The Book.

Facebook really is a wily bastard. For all the bullshit, nonsense, politics, and well, hate, that is often spewed there, now and then there is a reminder of the promise of social media. The promise of actually connecting people and making us see the connections throughout our lives.

I know you’re thinking that I found the cat’s parents.

This is my life we’re talking about, not an ABC Family Movie of the week, kids.

I caught a status update by my buddy Sambourine Man, who prefers the moniker Ham Surly. His story, below in italics, is used with permission. I would like to state, for the record, that I do not condone his blind consumerism. I would also like to state that, other than that, he rules. Hard.


Today while delivering tasty beverages for Coca-Cola, my co-worker gave me a soda machine key off of his key ring, so that we could go to different machines at the same time, thus saving time. Upon unlocking the soda machine, I tossed the key into my sweatshirt pouch, for quick storage until I could return the key to my co-workers key ring. The machines were filled, and we were on our way.

As the weather gets colder, one must start wearing warmer clothing items. The way I ween into winter mode is through added layers, until I need to just put a dedicated winter coat on. This morning I wore two sweatshirts, staying fairly slim and agile, but adding extra thickness and warmth for the chilly morning.

The next stop was O'Gorman high school, and I was already heating up from my double sweatshirt strategy. I make the decision to remove my innermost sweatshirt layer, (one non-zipper hoodie is an awkward task in its own to remove, two takes some prerequisite courses in physics and biology) and then proceed to hop out of the truck and be on my way with work.

Spoiler: this is where the key fell out.

There are different keys for different soda machines. Each key is universal in a sense, but only to the machines that have a lock specifically set for it. On my route, I have 3 or 4 different keys for the numerous machines I service. The situation with losing a key is that you can't just get a replacement key and continue on. Someone could find that key and go on a Coke banaza, so all of the locks in the machines designated to that key must be changed. That is a lot of machines and a lot of money, all put on the person who lost the key. Me.

Roughly two hours after removing my innermost sweatshirt and dropping the key, we arrived at the next soda machine that required that keys pattern to unlock it. My co-worker asked for the key and I assume I looked like Sponge-Bob and Patrick doing the slap dance in 'The Spongebob Squarepants Movie' (http://youtu.be/j5mb3Uoz3hQ). I couldn't find it but remembered putting it in the pouch pocket of my sweatshirt, possibly the worst pocket to leave it in.

The rest of the day I had to record all the machines we were unable to fill because we were unable to unlock them. Machine by machine I slid into a deeper somber state, imagining all the hours I had worked turning into all the dollars I had earned, that would soon disappear because of a misplaced, quarter-sized hunk of metal.

At the end of the day I was allowed to take a work truck around to retrace my steps in hopes of finding the key, which turned out a lot easier than a hostile attitude would first perceive. Any time I get hit with a ticket, fine, or lose money I imagine all the cool things that could have been purchased with that same sum of money. All the currency possibilities, dead and depressing.

Rolling up to O'Gorman I could see something shining from a distance, a light of hope. I parked where we had hours before and hopped out to where that first small step for Sam-kind was this morning, and there it was. The key, literally "chilling" on the cold ground, presumably untouched, ultimately unclaimed, now retrieved. I hated the day until that moment, but now I gotta say, today was a good day.

Back to the thinking of all that money that was about to be lost because of a key. The key was found and back in our possession, thus leaving my funds snug in my bank account. But now that things are back to normal, is it too soon to forget "all the cool things that could have been purchased"?

Luck was indirectly on my side today, and now it's time to buy something.


Crazy luck, right? Maybe. Good Catholic kids? Perhaps, although I have plenty of evidence to the contrary, some even living under this roof!

You see, an introspective like myself, high on the philosophical novel has to draw a deeper conclusion here. And since it all happened within a 48 hour time frame, I have to believe that there was some sort of karmic energy at work. I think my little kitty friend took some suffering away from the world right here, on that campus, so there was enough good floating around for no one to mess with Ham’s key.

I don’t always understand the balance of the universe and I don’t often see it, but I know it’s there. That I believe.

I don’t know what Ham bought. I might suggest that he buy a bag of cat food and donate it to the Humane Society.