Dear Pet Lady,
Is it true that pets will act all weird just before an earthquake? I was at work so was unable to observe my cat Cop Car (he is black and white just like a cop car! Funny!).
All Shook Up
Dear Wild as a Bug,
The Pet Lady was feeling a bit vague upon arising, having had an Evening the night before, and so made her way to the kitchen in the north wing, where, finding no one about, she put on some coffee. She was thus staring contemplatively out the window at the view, thinking thoughts that may not have been of great import but nonetheless are lost forever, when the view began to move about suspiciously, along with the entire Pet Manse and indeed the Pet Lady herself. With tremendous presence of mind, the Pet Lady made her way to the nearest doorjamb, where she protested in vain, “No! No! NO!” to a seemingly indifferent god or set thereof. The Manse seemed to temporarily attain an alternate state of matter, jostling about in the most peculiar gelatinous way, tossed on an extremely nauseating invisible sea of tremor. The Pet Lady is no shrinking violet, but as the cupboard doors opened as if by shaking unseen hands, Grandmother’s china rattled toward the edges of the shelves, pictures flew off the walls, and the pepper mill hurled itself suicidally off its perch on the electric range, the Pet Lady felt a terror she finds uncharacteristically difficult to convey. It was as if our fair city had been transported to an unpleasant, unstable alternate universe wherein all previously known to be incontrovertibly true was now suddenly, horrifyingly open to debate if not entirely false, wherein the shaking might just go on until the house fell down and all met their certain demise.
Being faced with your own imminent doom at the hands of an unstoppable force is not fun. The aftermath was no pique-nique, either, what with neighbors standing about the street in their bathrobes looking stricken. The Pet Lady’s cohort the Brit rang shortly, reporting: “All my cosmetics fell into the toilet. Blimey,” going on to explain that “blimey” is an abridgement of “God blind me,” which seems terribly dramatic for a rather reserved people but not uncalled for under the circumstances.
No pets were about for the Pet Lady to observe, either, but she did note frantic seed-eating at the bird feeder immediately following the seismic uproar, the feathered ones feeding as if they thought they might never have access to sustenance again. The Pet Lady’s coffee finished making itself unperturbed, but full of adrenaline and near both tears and retching, the Pet Lady did not partake.
The Pet Lady
Picture your beast here! Send photos and/or questions to thepetlady@seattleweekly.com or The Pet Lady, c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste 300, Seattle, WA 98104.
