I'm not a very tender person but hand me a little kitten and my eyes moisten, my voice gets higher, and I start hissing at all who come near. I do come by this feline fetish naturally: both my mother and father are "cat people". In fact, my parents own a cat right now that is more loved than me (and that's saying something because I am, in fact, my parent's favorite child). I won't get into all the dirty details but just know that if I clawed the heck out of my mother's arm, I would not be sitting on her couch watching CSI come nightfall.
About a year ago, while visiting my parents (Ad was at a smart people convention, I'm sure) we found a little blind kitty by the dumpsters and decided to take it home. After all, a cat could do worse than live with Mark & Deb (let's keep it easy by saying they believe in
Fancy Feast).
My father chased it down and put it in a box. Of course, it was a stray and of course, it was scared out of its wits. We took the box home and to the back porch to do the unveiling because, with a railing and a drop of about 15 feet, we thought we had the kitten cornered.
We were wrong. We opened the box, whereupon Blind Kitty jumped out, ran to the edge of the deck, and leapt off. We watched as Blind Kitty headed west through 3 feet of rotting March snow. Now, what would
you do? Leave this poor, stupid thing to die or chase after it?
We chased it. Now who's stupid? We did succeed in finding Blind Kitty some hour later on the neighbor's porch stairs crouched with its face in the corner going into what we cat people call "lock-down". It didn't even fight us as we picked it up, put it back in the box, and returned it to the dumpsters.
Poor, stupid Blind Kitty. You coulda had Fancy Feast! You coulda been a contenda! *sigh* My point in telling you this rather long-winded and seemingly pointless story is the part about the lock-down. Now stay with me here.
I have a recurring nightmare consisting of me and the Taurus on
Dupont Circle at 5:00 pm. My hands and face are drenched with perspiration. Jay Leno is in the seat next to me telling endless political jokes and Taylor Swift's faux country voice booms through the speakers at an earsplitting decibel. As I attempt to merge right, not one soul will let me in and instead, engage in honking at me. I put the car in park right there, unbuckle my seat belt, climb into the back, and bury my head in the seat crack.
In essence, traffic situations push me into lock-down. Blind Kitty and I are kindred spirits. Yes, folks. I have amaxophobia or fear of automobiles in traffic.
I thought the purchase of this little baby would help:
And while we love Sam (as she has been christened) and have taken her into our lives with open arms, she still doesn't curb my fear.
The only thing that seems to help is public transportation. That's right. I'm saying that if I ride the bus, Metro, or train, I have no fear of being bumper-to-bumper.
The problem is that the crazies are also drawn to being publicly transported. My pockets are brimming with anecdotes, as you can imagine. So I'm creating a new platform and I'm calling it "
From A to B". Anytime you see a post so titled, you can expect verbal sketches of [hopefully] interesting and humorous incidents taking place on any of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's vehicles.
I do hope you enjoy.
I always suspected that she's crazy. Anyone who believes Imelda Marcos is a "hero" is not someone you want running your daycare. But if my suspicion level were like the Terror Threat, color code system, I was at a yellow before. Now I'm approaching red. 
