"Cats not the WHOLE Story"

Now instead of going on and on with "call back" comparisons between the artist and the afore mentioned Helen Keller's drawing skills, I think there might be another story lurking behind the scenes... a murder-mystery if you will.

Now taking the condition of the cat at face value I have come up with two likely scenarios that I think resulted in this crapshoot of a missing animal poster:

1 The lovely "Mrs Bates" Theory:

You all know the movie PSYCHO right? The one where you are led to believe that the movies killer is the mother of creepy hotel owner Norman Bates. This woman secretly lives in a house on the hill, but then turns out to have died YEARS ago while her still living son pretends to take care of her mummified corpse? Well.. um if you haven't seen it.. you pretty much have now. ANYWAY.. I think a similar situation may have happened with this unnamed cat (who I have nicknamed "Spunkie").

You can see from the picture (artists "rendition") that the animal that is now missing does not appear to be healthy. I'd even go so far as to say it wasn't even alive when this sketch was made. IN FACT, I think this cat had been dead for a while.. and in the meantime the kids parents were going along with the "Spunky is just sleeping" white lie as long as they could. I'm sure Spunkie had been recently backed over by one of the guilty parents earlier that week. Judging by the flatness of Spunkies' abdomen in the poster, I'm sure whichever parent it was felt TERRIBLE, and in a JonBenet Ramsey panic, they decided to come up with a few "false truths" in an effort to keep the kids from freaking out and hating them forever.
But this got difficult...
After a few days the children began asking questions like "why isn't Spunkie eating his food?" and "How come we can't see Spunkie breath anymore?". These questions would have become increasingly difficult to answer, and when the dog decided to finally turn Spunkie's shriveled corpse into a make-shift frisbee there would be no denying that Spunkie was in FACT dead. So late one night Mrs. Ramsey took what was left of Spunkies newly shredded corpse and buried it in an undisclosed location out in the woods near camp. After all, it is much easier to tell your children that "Spunkie chose to run away because he just didn't like you anymore."

or

2: The Good ol' Fashioned Country-Style Euthanasia

Now I understand that the drawing of Spunkie doesn't quite prove that he was already dead. But I think that we can all at least agree that if he was still alive.. he was very sick. His face had turned white, possibly from dehydration and excessive vomiting. The muscles in his legs were so atrophied from their lack of use that they had been reduced to mere sticks. His pupils were fixed to a position where they were unable to dilate anymore. And he had even developed of those creepy 3rd world country bloated bellies. If Sally Struthers had seen this animal she would have probably begged you for your "coffee money" while showing you pictures of the flies pouring out of Spunkies eyes and nose.

So under these circumstances the parents must have been equally stressed. They are watching the family cat go deeper and deeper into a stinky and puss-filled oblivion that was not going to end pretty. Let's be honest, this cat was one episode of ventricular tachycardia away from the kids sobbing their eyes out for days or weeks, and most parents know how hard it is to keep your child in daycare when they are THAT upset... you only get so many sick days after all.
So what to do? Well lets just say you have a "camp" and you grew up on a farm. Now we all know that sickly animals are put out of their misery swiftly behind a barn every now and then in an effort to keep them from suffering... and keep production costs at a minimum. So now the C.S.I. In me would bet that there is an oak baseball bat behind a shed somewhere with a medium blood platter indicative of a blunt force trauma all over the tip. I'm sure if anyone cared they could match this splatter to the DNA found in any of the hair Spunkie left on the couch when he was shedding. The problem is, nobody knows this happend! That's right! Because the children all think Spunkie decided to randomly "run away" from his life of free food and shelter to try and brave it out in the woods with the wolverines and bored local hunters. The parents even made sure to put the poster on the SIDE of the phone booth so as to attract as LITTLE attention as possible to the various phone numbers they listed (and were edited out for obvious legal reasons). Besides, who wants REALLY be bothered at camp every time someone sees another black cat that you KNOW isn't yours.

That is my opinion. Please feel free to click the link above to E-Mail me any other theories or ideas you have based on the evidence. The BEST theory/idea will will FREE tickets to a Lease-A-Laugh comedy show!

"Cats not the WHOLE Story"

Not too long ago, I was walking into a local convenience store and something... caught my eye. This "something" was an 8 1/2" by 11" piece of paper with a particularly intriguing drawing of a missing pet scribbled DEAD center (yes I CAPITALIZED the word dead for a reason).

The poster read "BLACK CAT LOST" in bold semi-fancy text reminiscent of a shadow box I made in the 2nd grade about Helen Keller. The whole "poster" was done in what appeared to be a BLACK permanent marker which I'm sure matched the tint of this cats fur exactly hence its inclusion in the very extensive artistic planning of this poster. In fact, the talented graphic designer who posted this on the side of the public phone (where it could easily NOT be read unless the caller walked 90 degrees around the phone after placing a call) also decided to include an artists "rendition" of the missing animal. In an effort not to over-use adjectives I have included a couple pictures of this poster so you can see for yourself: