I opened the door and there, holding a pair of red baseball cleats, was a confused looking man of indeterminable age.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Hello. I’m looking for a man who plays sports.”

A what?

I waited a few seconds, figuring that it was he who knocked on my door and not the other way around. If the onus to explain oneself is on anyone in this case, it’s on him.

And so we waited, staring at each other in silence for approximately 15 uncomfortable seconds.

“You’re looking for who?” I asked.

He sniffled a few times, cleared his throat, and asked again, “I’m looking for a man who plays sports. Does he live here? He lives here doesn’t he?”

“I’m the only man that lives here but I don’t exactly make it a point to tell people that I play sports.”

“No, no,” he replied. “He lives here.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong apartment,” I said.

“He plays sports. He has white hair. He plays sports! He has a wife and she is Filipino!” he said.

And then it hit me; he was looking for my neighbor across the hall – the ever-irritating middle-aged jock douchebag wannabe that coaches little league a little too seriously.

“You’re looking for the guy across the hall,” I said, and pointed behind him.

“Oh ok.”

I closed the door and prepared to go back to my Friday.

Five minutes later, another knock at the door. I opened it and to no surprise found the same cleat-carrying member of the Adult Sports Dickhead Squad.

“What?” I asked, doing nothing to hide the annoyance in my voice.

“He is not answering,” the man replied.

“Ok? Well? I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

“Can you tell him I was here?” the man asked.

Wait. What? Seriously? Now I’m my neighbors’ fucking concierge? I think fucking not.

“No. No I can’t sorry,” I replied.

“Can’t you just tell him that I was here when you see him?”

“No. In fact, don’t knock on my fucking door anymore whether he’s home or not.”

“It is important, sir.”

“Yeah, I can tell. You’re holding cleats, I’m sure it’s a matter of life and death,” I quipped.

“We don’t have the field reserved for tomorrow and….”

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE AND IT’S REALLY NOT MY PROBLEM!”

And then I slammed the door, prematurely waking the baby and putting an end to my ability to enjoy the rest of my mellow Friday morning.

Fuck baseball.

In any case, it’s interesting to see how the rest of the world views us. Portland is the big city that doesn’t feel big – we’ve all read it and said it ourselves. “Portland has everything but also manages to retain a ‘small town’ feel.”

I can only guess that most of the misguided masses that have uttered those words have never been to a small town, let alone a big city that truly has “everything,” but I digress; we love it here for our own reasons even if very few outside our borders can articulate why without reading like an Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine – including Fred Armisen.

Last week The Guardian ran an excellent article on Portland written by Mr. Armisen; excellent if your literary standards hover around a middle school level that is. In the article, Armisen describes all of the things about Portland that he’s enjoyed in his time here filming Portlandia – the show that dares to mock our cliché little Pacific Northwest lives, lining Armisen’s pockets in the process.

Some fascinating highlights:

Seriously? The fucking coffee thing again? Jesus. Can’t we just hand that shit over to Seattle along with the goddamn salmon and call it a day? As if Armisen has never noticed that modern-day Manhattan is basically built atop fucking Starbucks stores?

Yes, because the Pearl is truly the best Portland has to offer. THE BEST, JERRY! Just ask anyone that lives here. We all unanimously love the Pearl.

Gag. Was there a word count Fred needed to reach before The Guardian would publish this crap?

I love Powell’s. I do. I also think Powell’s is one of the most overrated tourist attractions around; it’s either them or fucking Voodoo Doughnuts. Regardless, is it the “centre [gag] of Portland?” No. It’s a big bookstore that attracts a shit-lot of iPhone-wielding kids in skinny jeans who think it’s somehow ironic to be playing “artist” on a sticker-coated laptop in a bookstore.

Yeah, if you’re my dad.

Gosh Fred, thanks. We wouldn’t want anyone to know anything about the 10 million other things to do here. Nope, let’s just leave it at Powell’s, inoffensive middle-aged white people bars, and the fucking Pearl district. That way we can attract more affluent, white college-graduates in search of a great place to write their next bullshit screenplay. WHOOPIE!

I feel so validated to know that Armisen really does like Portland; or at least that he’s willing to take the time to write a bunch of ridiculously weak observations as though he were copying them directly from a 2005 travel brochure.

Photo: Robert Wagner

While it might be considered Good Twitter Etiquette to use hashtags for their intended purpose, the sad news is that “Good Twitter Etiquette” doesn’t exist in reality so expecting everyone to play by a particular set of rules is absurd. Your hashtag is going to get hijacked every now and then, intentionally or not – and like anything else it’s how you deal with it that matters.

Do you want to know what irks me? When a small, humorless group of people lay claim to a given hashtag and disallow any and all tweets that aren’t 100% related to “their” hashtag. As if they spent their own hard-earned cash buying a little hash mark with a word or acronym next to it. As if they single handedly invented it.

Take for instance #RCTID, the favored hashtag of the Portland Timbers Army. At what point am I not “allowed” to hashtag a tweet with #RCTID and on whose authority?

Obviously none of this is exclusive to soccer or the Timbers Army by any means. Snobs of all walks of life are guilty, I’ve just got a particularly stupid exchange involving #RCTID from last week on my mind.

What if I’m at a match but my conversation over Twitter has evolved over a few tweets to something not-quite-soccer-related? Should I expect someone to step in and correct me or show me the error of my ways? If so, who?

What if I’m at a match and someone throws a beer at the back of my kids’ head? At that point could I, for example, tweet “Some dickhead in 208 just lobbed a beer and it struck my kid in the head! #RCTID,” or is that unacceptable use of your sacred fucking hashtag? I’m at a match and it is related to the Timbers, right?

Wait; hang on a second. What if I’m at a match and I tweet something, hashtag it with #RCTID and someone else who is also at the match complains? Can I then punch the douchebag in the neck and tweet “Punched a Hashtag Nazi in the neck! #RCTID” or is that bad?

And again, whose rules are these? And why the hell should I give two shits about the opinion of anyone whose life is so devoid of joy that they take the time to enforce the false dream of “Good Twitter Etiquette” anyway?

There’s a very simple solution to this problem, believe it or not.

If you’re holier than thou ass finds itself dismayed that the entirety of Twitter doesn’t bow to your every wish, simply block those that offend you. Think about it. Rather than rattling off a half dozen or more cunty tweets about how you think the world of social media should operate, you can simply click a single button and be done with it. Granted, no one will know the depths of your self-righteousness, but you’ll be rid of the “problem” once and for all. Wouldn’t that be a lot less exasperating?

Alternately, you could choose to enforce The Rules of Twitter as written in The Book According To You and look like a complete fucking tool to all except your BFF’s, jack your blood pressure into the stratosphere in the process, and ultimately accomplish nothing.

You can’t win the Internet; but more importantly, only a fucking idiot even tries.

Photo: Robert Wagner

I am not now, nor have I ever been, capable of holding a “regular” job, working a “regular schedule,” for a “regular” employer. I’m simply not wired that way – and I oftentimes find myself envying those that are.

This isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Given my inability to live the stereotypical American Dream™ I’ve resorted to myriad employment alternatives, ranging from entrepreneurship to freelancing to dumb luck – almost all in equal measure. Each has its pros and cons and each has its benefits, financial and otherwise.

And each can sometimes leave you feeling like a whore.

Several months ago I took on the task of writing “independent” blog posts for a major consumer electronics company. In exchange for a pretty decent monthly paycheck and free products, I was to write SEO optimized blog posts about the various goodies and gadgets I’d receive. I was never paid to lie, mind you; in fact I was encouraged to be truthful in my reviews. However it’s worth noting that to date I’ve not written anything less than positive because all of the products I’ve received have been excellent.

No, I’m not going to tell you which company I’m referring to, though if you’ve been paying attention it should be pretty obvious.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to receive free stuff – expensive stuff – and write about it for money?

Trust me, it is. It’s fantastic and I’m not complaining – not in the slightest.

So here’s the rub

A few months ago I was asked to consider moving my “personal content” away from my “technology content” so as to appear more “professional” in the wild world of the blogosphere.

I resisted, not once but twice; after which I was told that my services were no longer needed.

A few days later I received a phone call explaining that perhaps the decision to let me go might have been made in haste and that it should be possible to reach an agreement that could serve both parties moving forward. They asked me again if I’d consider separating my content and this time I agreed – which is why you’re reading this here rather than on the blog I’ve been using for the past couple of years.

To clarify, I’ve no ill will against this company whatsoever; in fact, I’m very impressed not only with the products I’ve been reviewing, but also the way in which they’ve conducted themselves on a business level. Granted, our business relationship had a rough patch for a few days there, but my unwillingness to honor their particular wishes at that time had more to do with my own stubbornness than anything. I wanted to continue to do things my way – and my way wasn’t the way they wanted it done.

So here I am, once again blogging from this old and tired domain simply because I still own it and don’t feel like spending $10 on another one.

Personal stuff will go here while all of the technology-related wonderfulness will be moved elsewhere within the next week or two. Yes, it’s kind of a pain in the ass but I’d be remiss not to inform you, the reader, about what’s transpiring and why.

Yes, I’ll post the URL to the other blog as soon as it’s online.

Meanwhile, let me assure you that at no time have I ever been paid to write something I didn’t believe in, nor would I ever consider doing such a thing. My opinions are my own and they are not for sale. I will continue to be honest, sometimes brutally so, about the products put in front of me, regardless of who is writing my checks. I’ll just be doing so from a blog with fewer baby photos and snarky posts about social media marketing schlubs.

Photo: Robert Wagner

Maybe it’s always been that way, I don’t know, but today’s professions are more obscure, complex, and convoluted than they’ve ever been – especially if you’re trying to define your career for older generations.

For more than 12 years now I’ve struggled to explain my various means of breadwinning to my folks, and for more than 10 years I’ve failed. Is this my fault? No, not really. The world has been changing rapidly since the rise of the Internet; and just when your parents think they’ve caught up with the times, they wake up one day and find out that no one is using Earthlink or America Online anymore.

Still, they try, but few of us (myself included) are making it any easier on them.

Consider my own (semi) recent occupations:

Occupation: For two years I was an “entrepreneur” that ran a “start up” that created a “set top box solution” designed to work as something of an ultra high-end audio/video jukebox. Pre-iPod Video and pre-Apple TV, the “box” fit dual ATSC HD tuners and several terabytes of storage into a stereo rack-sized unit that was network ready and capable of ripping, storing, and playing back physical media with a single push of a button.
Translation: “We make a thing that replaces your VCR, your CD player and your DVD player, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “Well I don’t really use the VCR all that much.”

Occupation: For a while there I was working in DVD Authoring and menu design, creating original animations and using film assets to give your plastic disc movies some polish.
Translation: “I make those menus you go through when you rent a movie at Blockbuster, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “Well next time can you make them shorter? I hate having to sit through those things.”

I still dabble in web design and development for a very select few clients because I mostly can’t stand the work.

Occupation: Upon moving to Portland I became a web, graphic, and UI designer.
Translation: “The stuff you see on the Internet? I make things like that, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “People pay for that? Why? I saw that you could get that done for free on GoDaddy.”

Podcasting as a business works for 0.001% of podcasters. In other words, don’t try this at home unless you enjoy unemployment and/or burning money.

Occupation: For roughly 3 years I ran a live Internet radio/podcasting studio out of downtown Portland. The endeavor made use of pretty much every skill I possess at one time or another and was generally successful, so long as you don’t measure success by income – at least not while it was operational anyway.
Translation: “It’s like radio for the Internet or you don’t have to listen to it while it’s happening, you can download it later, dad.”“Oh,” he said, “But I don’t have the Internet in my car where I listen to the radio.” “That’s why we encourage listening on smart phones,” I replied. “Oh,” he said, “I don’t think I’d do that.”

Occupation: Currently I’m one of the few, proud individuals that actually gets paid to blog. While the jobs themselves each entail a bit more than that, that’s the common denominator that’s easy to explain to people.
Translation: “I write stuff. For blogs. On the Internet.”“Oh,” my dad said, “I read in the newspaper that you probably shouldn’t trust anything bloggers write.” “Yes,” I replied, “that’s true.”

I suppose we all seek validation from our parents well into middle age; I often wonder if mine is the first generation to do so. Did our own parents struggle with these things? My dad has been in the same line of work his whole life – something I envy quite a bit even though I chose to leave that same line of work some years ago – but his father did the same thing before him. In other words, my dad had it pretty easy – save for that whole “working for your parents” thing; trust me, it’s the very definition of Hell – he never had to explain what did for a living, they already knew.

And now I can’t help but wonder…

Is the world filled with that many more opportunities than it used to be? Has technology really opened that many new doors in terms of career possibilities? Or are we simply a lot more adept at creating careers out of thin air and hoping for the best no matter how ridiculous some of them might sound to the generation before us?

My answer? Yes. All of the above.

Photo: iStockphoto

Worse, you can’t read many of those articles without having to endure their authors’ oh-so-brave and self-congratulatory stories of (gasp!) Internet Self-Deprivation.

They’re kicking the habit so that you don’t have to! Or, more accurately, they’re temporarily kicking the habit as part of a shameless SEO grab on a slow news day.

Still, you can’t help but wonder if constant connectivity has become a problem for the rest of us – even if we aren’t all bored, self-righteous journalists suffering from low self-esteem.

The bar I’m referring to is The Lotus.

I meandered into a downtown Portland bar the other day just after 2 o’clock. Between 11:30 and 1:30 this particular establishment is usually full of patrons, most of them area business-types getting their drink on in a vain effort to forget how shitty their lives are – I know this because on more than one occasion I’ve had to (gasp again!) talk to them and they’ve told me so.

20 or so patrons managed to fill nearly every visible stool and high top on that day, all of them more or less unaware that Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer” was skipping on the ancient multi-disc CD changer behind the bar.

If not for Simon Le Bon’s crooning though, the place would have been dead quiet.

I ordered my lunch and then played some Oregon State Video Lottery while I waited for my meal to arrive – and won $632, thank you very much. Upon returning to my table I noticed that nearly everyone in the establishment was still mostly silent ­– and Billy Idol doesn’t have quite the stutter Simon Le Bon did.

Everywhere I looked, lunchtime patrons were glued to their respective smartphones – the blank stares on their expressionless faces illuminated only by the glow of their screens. At one table no fewer than four smartphone zombies robotically ate their meals with one hand while staring hopelessly into their phones held in the other. Not a single word was uttered between them, at least not that I ever heard.

The bartender counted out my Video Lottery winnings, her voice booming through the silence.

“20, 40, 60, 80, one hundred. 20, 40, 60 80, two hundred…”

I scanned around the room, eager to put on a smug smile of victory for whoever might notice – and nothing. Not a single person looked up from their phone to see who won 632 painstakingly counted dollars.

Apparently my victory wasn’t nearly as interesting as whatever apps, tweets, or IM’s these freaks were busy looking at.

Somewhat deflated, I ate my lunch in record time, anxious to get away from the distracted masses. While I’m as guilty as anyone of using my phone too much – particularly in social situations, the Twilight Zone vibe I was getting from the bar patrons was making me anxious.

I finished up, paid my tab, and stepped outside.

And then I heard it.

Conversation.

To my left as I exited the bar I saw several tables, each one occupied by between two to four people engaged in jubilant discussion – some were laughing, some were more serious, and some were just content to listen and wait their turn to contribute to the topic at hand.

All of them were smoking.

As I passed them on my way to street corner, one of them asked, “Hey buddy, I saw you playing that machine. Did you win?”

“Yeah,” I said, “632 bucks.”

“That’s awesome,” he replied, “my name’s Dave by the way.”

And so I stood and talked with Dave and his party for the next 10 minutes, long enough for a cigarette and a discussion about lottery funds, Oregon tax codes, and the evils of the IRS.

As I walked back to my office some ten blocks away, I passed several other conversations – nearly all of them between smokers.

I began counting the people conversing vs. the people staring at their smartphones and noting which types of people had cigarettes vs. those who didn’t.

Smokers made up three-quarters of the people being social without the assistance of an overpriced data plan.

Maybe the next time a popular, bored tech blogger wants to kick the social media and smartphone habit, they should just take up smoking for a week instead. Sure, smoking kills – we’ve all known that for as long as most of us have been alive – but at least the people doing the smoking don’t seem to be wasting their days looking for the meaning of life on a 4” screen.

At least not when there are other smokers around to talk to anyway.

Photo: iStockphoto

E was in a band, just like everyone else in Seattle in the 90’s. He wasn’t aspiring to much, again much like everyone else in Seattle in the 90’s; rather, he was pretty much content to shoot up, fuck willing females, and occasionally play an off-night show here and there at one of Seattle’s many “here today, gone tomorrow” live music venues.

And he was the most prolific heroin user I’ve ever known.

Still, I admired and respected E for whatever reason. He and his band were Signed With A Major Label – and back then that was like winning the fucking lottery. Get signed and you don’t have to worry about bullshit like day jobs, cars, or paying off your landlords. It was nearly everyone’s goal – at least among my fairly extensive circle of friends – and there was no better place in the world at that time to achieve such a thing. Not L.A., not NYC, not Detroit or fucking London.

If you wanted to “make it” in music in the 90’s you had to be in Seattle. Fortunately for me I only needed to walk out my front door because I was born there.

By the mid-90’s I’d moved to Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Capitol Hill was ground zero for the city’s weirdos, gays and lesbians, and drug addicts. Mixed in among the misfits were a handful of well-to-do types, but back then the neighborhood was a 24/7 freak show – and maybe 20% of them were Seattle natives, the rest had come from around the globe to get in on the “scene” as it were.

E was from a different country originally. He spoke with a heavy accent that got heavier the more loaded he was. I confess that I was rarely able to understand more than about half of what he said, and I’d frequently laugh at the end of his sentences after they’d long since trailed off. I don’t suspect he ever caught onto this, I believe that he really thought I found him that entertaining but in truth I never caught a single punch line – I only knew that he was telling a joke or a story with a humorous conclusion; I’d comprehend just enough to understand that much.

For whatever customs E brought with him from his own country, he had fully converted to the hardcore and mostly cliché grunge era Seattle junkie lifestyle by the time I met him. He wasn’t a sensitive type though, preferring (to a fault sometimes) to temper his modern rock dude act with a sufficient amount of glam and swagger. He was cool, or at least I thought so, and quite different from a lot of the other people you’d meet in town back then – most of them were caught up in the asexual shit-head hipster revolution brought about by bands like Weezer.

E was a different beast entirely: a completely unoriginal original.

E and I met through a mutual friend of a mutual friend, neither of who partook in our particular and poorly hidden drug of choice. One of them was in his band and the other was in mine. We started hanging out mere weeks after E’s band had received their advance from one of the many Major Record Labels that were pissing money away in Seattle like they were printing it themselves. It seemed like he was a millionaire, and for a time he tried his best to live like one, but in the end it was only a mere $10,000.00 once everyone else got their cut.

Back then $10,000 seemed like a lot of money. Today I laugh at how quickly he managed to burn through it. E and I would fix in the back outdoor courtyard of the Eagle, a gay leather bar on east Pike. We knew none of our other friends would go there and the Eagle was very heroin-friendly back in those days. We never shared needles, only lofty exchanges of dialogue in which we both shared our plans for Total World Domination – or at least get another $10,000 advance and retire in a haze of drugs, girls, and guitars.

Two months later he was piss broke, begging his rep for additional funds and even offering to forgo his advance on the bands’ second album – an album that was never recorded because the band was dropped after the first album tanked.

I’ll never forget the night a few weeks later when I went to a local bar and found E working there. He was beyond loaded and had nodded off on a barstool only an hour after his shift had begun. He worked there for 2 weeks before he was eventually fired and had earned just over $500 in the process.

It was at that point that E and I saw less of one another. His manager had given him an ultimatum of sorts and told him that L.A. called and he was “out” if he couldn’t get his shit together. Sort of a funny threat now that I think about it because E’s band seldom played after they’d returned from a disastrous U.S. tour some months before.

Who cares if you’re fired from a band that no one likes?

Apparently E cared because he did his best to shake his demons and he even succeeded for a while but it never really mattered, his band was doomed. I recall seeing a show of theirs one night that only 5 other people managed to attend – not a good sign if a Major Record Label has invested $100,000 in you.

A month after that the band broke up and E went back to being E.

I’d still see him around Capitol Hill every now and then, usually doing menial jobs for minimum wage. We’d stop and talk just long enough to share our latest dreams of Total World Domination, downgraded to Partial World Domination by that point, and then we’d go our separate ways.

A year later I moved away from Capitol Hill. Some years after that I moved to Portland from Seattle and never saw E again, though I’ve thought of him often ever since.

Today I found out completely by accident that E died late last year. He had moved several times over the years and finally settled back near his place of birth, well outside the United States. At the time of his death he’d been clean for over 5 years but his body had begun collapsing some time ago from the damage he’d done to it for so long.

Finally it gave up on him.

Rest in peace, man. The times we had were never healthy, we both know that, but they were fucking fun regardless of whatever standards the regular “normal” people have – then and now.

Fuck ‘em if they want to be boring.

You never were.

Photo: Robert Wagner

But dammit we take exception to horses – particularly when they’re ground up and mixed with our Whopper Jr. with Cheese or used as a beef substitute in our frozen lasagna.

And I agree that it’s a terrible thing to serve horse to someone expecting cow. It’s even more terrible than selling ground up, deep fried parasites on a bun and calling it “Filet-O-Fish,” but only because said parasites are ground up with the equally repulsive fish known as the Alaska Pollock – a technicality that allows the sandwich to be served as “fish” even though there’s very little fishy about it.

Truth in advertising; thank goodness for truth in advertising.

When I was a kid, somewhere between 1st and 4th grade, I spent quite a few summer vacations living with my best friend Jeff and his family. Jeff’s father was a doctor, and old enough to by my father’s father, having served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars and fathered 6 children (and adopted 2 more) between 3 families.

Jeff’s dad was a bit of an eccentric. Not only did he actively walk around his house and everyone in it (whether related to him or not) with no pants or underwear on, he also picked up some rather, shall we say “interesting,” culinary skills in his time with the military.

Jeff’s family lived adjacent to the 1st hole of a nearby private golf course, even though no one in their family really played very much. It was a great house if you were a kid because it was large enough to cause all manner of mischief – including playing with loaded guns or huffing ether – and steer completely clear of the adults.

I recall it was a hot Saturday evening in July when Jeff’s father called the kids to dinner by yelling from the 2nd story window of their massive home.

“Dinner” on this particular evening was some kind of yellow curry dish served with rice and vegetables, a favorite of Jeff’s mom and dad – and definitely not a favorite of mine. It seemed like Jeff’s family had a curry of some sort nearly every time I was over and I always found it to taste something like pasty, over-peppered blandness – but what did I know? I was used to a steady diet of Burger McKing at the time.

All six of us kids arrived in the family dining area (a different room than the formal dining area that they never used) to find Jeff’s dad beaming. I recall this well because the man, a dead ringer for Hans Moleman, never smiled but on this particular occasion I remember not only seeing him grinning from ear to ear, I remember realizing for the first time that he had teeth – not that I figured he didn’t, I’d just never seen them before.

And so we all sat down and began eating the yellowish, gooey chicken and rice and vegetables in front of us.

Conversation around the dinner table was colorful, as was the norm at Jeff’s house. Being the youngest, Jeff’s contributions to the banter were mostly met with his mother’s rather cross suggestion that he “shut up and eat,” particularly when he had a friend (me) over. Meanwhile the older kids would ask stupid questions about life, love, and politics – all of which would receive rather conservative replies from Jeff’s Reagan-loving mom and dad.

My goodness the chicken was tender and moist that night.

Succulent.

Delicious.

As I recall we were about 15 minutes into our meal when the source of Jeff’s fathers’ giddiness revealed itself.

“This is some good curry tonight, isn’t it?” he asked.

The rest of us, with the exception of Jeff’s mother, sat there exchanging mostly puzzled glances. It was rare for anyone to actually comment on the quality of the meal before them in Jeff’s household, let alone for anyone to ask.

After several seconds of awkward silence, I spoke up.

“Yes. This is really good chicken.”

Jeff’s father began laughing. Correction. It started as something of a mild chuckle and escalated into full laughter that continued for another half minute.

“Keep guessing, Robert” he said.

Guessing about what?

Hmmm, this chicken is chewier than normal.

It was at this point that Jeff’s older brother Chris turned bright red as a creepy smile crept across his sinister, freckle-covered face. It was as though he was suddenly privy to a secret that no one else knew and was doing everything in his power to contain himself.

And he was. And he couldn’t.

“Is this the stray, dad?” Chris asked.

“Yep” said Jeff’s father.

One of Jeff’s sisters, Jenny, who would go days without saying a single word to the rest of the family because she was going through her Misunderstood Teen Angst period, put her fork down and asked “Stray what?”

Jeff’s dad opened his mouth to speak but Chris, boiling over with excitement, beat him to it.

“The stray cat we caught in the yard last month!”

Suddenly the banter around the table stopped and all eyes were on Jenny as she turned an almost impossible shade of whitish-green. I’m not sure if she slammed her fork down on the table or simply dropped it, regardless it hit the wooden surface hard enough to bounce back up and then onto the floor as she struggled to get up our of her chair.

She was halfway up out of her seat when her stomach began to unload its contents; all the while Jenny fought to keep her mouth closed, to contain her vomit long enough to reach the bathroom.

She didn’t make it.

As it turned out, Jeff’s dad learned to appreciate the taste of both canine and feline while he was serving as a medic in Korea. He liked it so much that he actually had a small black notebook filled with recipes that he learned during his tour there but had mostly refrained from indulging in his favorite delicacies since returning and starting a family.

Why he changed his mind is anyone’s guess. I only know that I stopped eating at that point. I had eaten enough cat for one day, and I’d witnessed a 14 year old girl throw up what looked like gallons of partially digested food – all over Jeff’s family’s hardwood floors.

Normal parents would be somewhat understanding. Jeff’s were not.

Later that night Jeff and I sat in his bedroom listening to Jenny receive her punishment: a series of beatings inflicted by Jeff’s father, who was all too fond of using a large plastic paddle to inflict his particular brand of discipline.

He was pissed that she had puked all over the floor; not that he had to clean it up, they had a live-in housekeeper for that sort of thing.

She was defiant at first, which seemed to only anger Jeff’s father even more. Eventually her defiance turned into screams, and eventually the screams turned to tears – all because she discovered after the fact that the chicken wasn’t chicken after all.

And Jenny couldn’t stomach eating a cat.

As for me, the experience turned me into a cat lover. No, not like that. I grew up in a household with a dog but became obsessed with the idea of owning a cat for a pet. A few years later I did just that. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking that if I could keep even a single feline off of Jeff’s family’s dinner table I was doing the cats around the world a favor.

So far I’ve robbed his family of about 5 meals.

Photo: iStockphoto