Read the previous chapter here.
"Weren't you supposed to have left by now?" the friend said, shielding his eyes from the bright afternoon sun.
"Yes, we were supposed to leave at 10:00," the girl answered.
The friend consulted his watch. "And it's now... 12:30. I see that you neglected to add in the new husband time multiplication factor."
"Correct. It would help if I actually knew what that was."
"We use it around your husband all the time. We do a mathematical calculation based on a variety of factors: What time you're supposed to leave, where your husband is going, and the nature of what he needs to accomplish. We then estimate the actual time of departure or arrival. Which is always different than the stated time of departure or arrival.
"For example, if your husband says he's going to Andronico's, we use the multiplication factor to determine that he will actually be 72 minutes later than the stated time of departure or arrival. Because of the cheese."
"The cheese?"
"He has a weakness for cheese. He can't help himself."
"And what does this time multiplication factor tell you about what time we'll be leaving to move across the country today?"
"My calculations put you at 3:00 pm, a good five hours behind schedule."
At 3:08 pm, the rear tailgate slammed shut, the final items having been lodged into their Chevy Blazer. They had followed the moving company's advice and taken items that were truly irreplaceable in the car with them: Their wedding pictures. Her husband's stamp collection and Boy Scout badges. Their four cats.
At 3:09 pm, her husband slid into the driver's seat and made the final adjustments necessary for a long drive. Sunglasses on. Soda open. CDs loaded into the changer.
At 3:10 pm, the scratching and meowing began. At 3:11 pm, the girl asked her husband to do something about the scratching and meowing. "There's nothing we can do. They'll go to sleep once we're on the road."
At 3:11 pm, they pulled out of the Stanford University parking lot, waving goodbye to the small congregation of friends.
At 3:13pm, the scratching and meowing crescendoed, and the girl twisted herself into the back and undid the latches on the carriers containing their pets. Four cats now roamed the car freely, draping themselves in the most unfortunate of locations: heads, dashboard, near the brake pedal, knees. Tension mounted between Isabel and the other cats: they had never gotten along, and the confined space heightened the animosity. Isabel couldn't run to her usual hiding spots, she had to confront her aggressors.
At 8:45 pm, the girl suggested they abandon their plans to drive to Ely, Nevada in favor of stopping for the night in Reno. "We got a late start, and we can make up some time tomorrow. Ginger, I SWEAR. Would you not sit right on the back of my head? Why does she need to sit right THERE? Come on!"
At 8:55 pm, they drove right through Reno and headed out into the craggy desert of Nevada. "I feel fine. I could drive this desert in my sleep," her husband said. Having grown up in Nevada and Arizona, her husband felt comfortable with their route.
At 10:30 pm, the girl clutched the handle hanging from the ceiling with white knuckles. "PLEASE BE CAREFUL," she pled. The journey seemed more dangerous as the night wore on. Unlit mountain passes. Hairpin turns. The potential to plummet into the abyss was high. They could die at any second. Their obituaries would read: "Determined to press on, newlyweds stupidly drove the unlit mountain passes and hairpin turns of the Nevada desert with four cats driving them to distraction. And just look at what happened."
At 12:45 am, they pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn where they had a reservation. Thankful to finally be off the life-threatening roads, the girl waited in the car while her husband checked in. She hoped she would not have a heart attack caused by sleep deprivation and allergy to unlit mountain passes.
"Well, they gave away our reservation, because we didn't check in by 10:00. Apparently there's a biker convention in town, and the whole place is booked up. I made them call all the other hotels in the area, and they found us a room down the road."
The couple had already made plans for how to get their four cats in and out of hotel rooms. It wasn't like they could just walk past the front desk, furry creatures in tow. There were too many of them. They would take turns bringing in a piece of luggage in one hand, and in the other, they would carry a cat in a pillow case. The pillow case cradled the cat, and with no firm surface to scrabble upon, they couldn't scratch or hurl themselves from side to side. The girl offered Isabel $1,000,000 to hold still and be quiet.
The motel room was miniscule and reeked of cigarettes. The cats wandered and paced all night, meowing, jumping, hissing, and exploring. The morning brought the real challenge: how to wrangle all four cats from their hiding spots, force a sedative down their throat, and load them back into the car without losing one of them or wanting to curl up into a fetal position and ingest the remainders of the cat sedatives. The girl was surprised that yes, in fact, it was possible to lose a seventeen pound animal in one tiny room, and it took them approximately twenty-three hours to herd their menagerie into the shimmering morning sun.
Isabel meowed and scratched at things in the car even though she was not confined to her carrier. She was clearly an anxious animal, and the sedative (a different one that what the girl used on her cross country flight with Isabel) did little to abate the nervousness. Perhaps it's time to get her a psych consult, the girl thought.
The couple did their best to habituate the noise -- they couldn't let it bother them, or they'd spend the next five days being driven crazy. They listened to books on tape. How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, which the girl didn't enjoy. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale, which she did. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, which the girl regarded as one of her favorite books of all time.
By the time they made it to Denver more than twelve hours later, the girl was ready to be anywhere -- ANYWHERE -- that did not involve cats. "I'm totally catted out," she told her husband.
"Catted out? What would you like me to do about this problem?"
"Get me a giant hotel suite where the cats have somewhere to be other than ON me."
"Done," he replied. They wearily toted their four cats out of the car and up to their -- as promised -- giant hotel suite, where the girl promptly sank into the cool sheets and went to sleep.
She was awakened minutes later by scratching, meowing, and a cat sitting on her head. "Kia! For crying out loud!" The girl wrestled the charcoal gray animal off her head and looked it deep in the eyes. "I AM CATTED OUT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? CATTED. OUT. GO SLEEP WITH GINGER OR JAKE. GO!" Kia wandered around the bed for a few minutes, looking for another place to sleep. The girl dozed off again, and woke up twelve seconds later to more scratching, meowing, and a cat sitting on her head. This time, it was their large tuxedo cat, Jake.
"Honey. Honey!" The girl shook her husband awake. "You have to do something!" she pled. "Help me! I cannot take this anymore! The cats are going to make me have a nervous breakdown!"
"Let me guess, you're catted out?" he said. He snapped his fingers. "Come here, Jake." Jake obediently left the girl's pillow, purring loudly, and laid down next to her husband. "Kia," he said, snapping again. "Lay down next to Jake." Kia did as she was told. "There you go," he said to the girl. "Is that better?"
"What are you, a cat whisperer?" she asked him.
"No, they just love me better," he teased.
Purchase book "How to Win Cats and Influence Felines," the girl mentally added to her to do list.
The next day would bring trouble of a new kind.
Continue reading here.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 4:49AM 
