Mom comes home from shopping. Since she still owes me a truckload of treats, I sniff the bags as best I can – I don’t table-surf like Catie and there’s a limit to how high I can lift my nose but it’s all good because I have superpower nostrils. I don’t smell anything interesting. Mom is enthralled however with all her goodies and she carefully lines a series of small packages on the table. Then she puts on her funny-looking facial apparatus that makes her eyes look scary huge.
“Hm. Why do they make the print so small,” she says. She turns a pink box over and over and squints at some microscopic markings on the back. She notices that Catie and I are watching her and mistakes my apprehension for curiosity – her eyes look like that guy in that horror movie The Fly and it’s creeping me out. She feels compelled to explain. “These are beauty products. And this…” she squints some more. It’s not a good look. “..is a hair removal kit.”
That sounds seriously wrong. I look at Catie, who still has these funny naked patches on her front leg and both her back ones. I look at the box Mom is holding in her hand. Aha. I make the connection and slink off to a safe corner where Catie and I hide all our fur balls from Mom. Catie’s too lazy to be concerned and flops down on her pillow while Mom disappears upstairs.
Just as I start to relax, there’s some commotion from the room with the flushable water bowl.
Mom comes back downstairs. She’s wearing her bath robe and she’s got the pink box crushed in her hand. She shoves the package in the garbage can and stares at it for a moment. “That really hurt,” she says. She has some funny red patches all over her legs.
For a species that prides itself on its intelligence, I’ll never understand humans. I certainly don’t understand mom’s obsession with grooming. Maybe it’s just her. Dad’s not nearly as worried about it all – in fact, one time he was sitting at the table reading the paper and something caught Mom’s attention. “You have an eyebrow hair that’s four inches long,” she said to him. “Stay right there.”
When Mom says stay, everyone but Catie listens.
Now, my dad’s usually a tough dude like me; but when Mom came back with some tweezers and yanked on that eyebrow whisker, he cried like a baby.
Mom blames the disappearance of Catie’s whiskers on some chemo treatments. Hmm. I’m just not too sure any more so Catie and I are going undercover to put the pieces together. The truth might not be pretty.
Riley, you MUST stop with all this, or charon will end up peeing her pants as we read your posts!!! tell your mom she is lucky not to have tried a epilator device that pulls them out by the root…mother of god that is the worst pain in the world, and the upper lip will stay numb for a week!!! whoever started this ‘anything for beauty’ deal should be severely punished!!!
gayle
p.s. my don cries like a baby over the ear hairs…..
Good move, Riley, in getting far away from the hair removal kit. No dummy are you, I see. Obviously you can’t really trust the humans, and you just never know when she will decide to practice on you.
Run fast, and run far, my friend…in fact, come hide out with us and celebrate the Summer of Lincoln!
Lincoln’s Mom
Oh Riley – do you think she’ll start on ear hairs, too – like my mommy does with daddy?
By the look of your ear hairs, that’ll be a week’s project for her! Buy some ear mufflers NOW! Pretend you don’t have ears!
Oh how lucky are we that we don’t have zits? Can you imagine how much fun our moms would have if we had zitkys to pop!??!! Oh wait -Crapola! I do have that one between my toes and the vet gave my mom permission to lance it and squeeze it! She was eyeballing it the other day. I know that look, too. I’ve seen it with daddy!
He had a hum-dinger come up on his face and you could see mommy salivating to get her hands on it! But it was growing so fast, mommy decided to wait until it got really big – you know, ‘the only on Youtube’ kind! Well, it surpassed her zit-popping skills and she decided to not do it and perhaps daddy should go to the doctor instead. It turns out it was shingles (whatever that is)!
I’m going to go tell her I have shingles so she’ll stop eyeballing my foot pimple!
Comet
Hey Riley,
You should tell your mom to stay away from those in-home do- it- yourself – all in the comfort of your home – beauty kits. Ha! It’s a total trick and there’s nothing comforting about it!
Judging by the photos both you and Catie look like total sleuths so good luck with your undercover work and let us know what you find (like what kind of beauty kit box was that in pink that caused red patches all over your mom’s legs??? ) Inquiring minds want to know.
And once again, Riley, you have made me LOL!
P.S. Be glad you don’t live near Vegas – otherwise you might be hearing a knock on the door from Comet’s mom with a zit popping kit in hand :).
Boy you’re lucky your Mom didn’t try that kit on your Dad’s eyebrows! Or ears! Or up his nose!
I think human females must part cat with the way they’re so obsessed about grooming.
Hey, Riley! You had my mom laughing pretty hard there. My mom wears that facial apparatus that makes her eyeballs look huge, too. She has them all over the house so she can have flies’ eyes wherever she is. Scary stuff! What else might these humans think up? I’m glad you and Catie are going undercover to find out. Count me in if you need backup!
HJBG
So that’s what happened to Catie’s whiskers! Ah, the dark secrets that your Mom tried to keep under wraps are starting to come out. With the 2 detectives on the case, I’m sure that even more will be uncovered. So, Riley — will you and Catie work on an hourly basis or do you charge a flat fee per job? I think the dog that lives behind me is trying to sneak into my yard, so I have to keep barking at him. I think I’m in need of some undercover specialists.