Black Cat Blues

Today on the way home from walking with my girlfriend, a black cat darted across the road in front of me. I nervously laughed it off. After all, I’m a woman of the technical age. What’s an old superstition got to do with anything? How can the color of a cat and the time it crosses the street cause me to have bad luck?

I don’t know how, but it happened. What a day. I got home and received a negative response to an email about a book layout. No big deal – everything can’t be a slam-dunk in life. Then another negative responses popped up about the same thing. Crap. The black cat.

I went to tutoring early at the request of a teacher, and I had one student after another wanting help. I don’t mind, but sometimes when no one needs me I get to go home a little early, and right now I’m really busy so I could have used the time. Instead, I had to stay until the end of the school day, almost 4 hours, which is a marathon of tutoring. I don’t know whether to chalk this up to the black cat, but it certainly is suspicious.

When I got home my dog was walking on three legs. She looked so pitiful. My mind immediately defaulted to cancer, hip displacement, broken bone, and all the above. I waited a couple hours to see if she improved, but ended up taking her to the emergency vet and paid $89 to find out her leg is sore. I have to give her doggy aspirin for three days. Black cat.

Plus over the course of the day I’ve bit my own lip eight times.

Now I’m writing this blog and I’m having a hard time thinking of anything humorous at all. When you’ve got the specter of a black cat hanging over you, how can you think of anything funny? What’s amazing is that my dog was in the car with me when the black cat crossed, and she’s had a rough day, too. First the sore leg, then the trip to the vet, which she hates. Then the doggish humiliation of a stranger poking a rectal thermometer in her bottom. She didn’t like that one single bit. If she could talk, she’d say: BLACK CAT!

Oh, and on the way home from the vet I meant to stop and get toilet paper because there are about three squares each on the last rolls in the house. But I didn’t remember, and now in the morning, after the coffee, I’m going to be SOL, as they say. If that’s not the curse of the black cat, I don’t know what is.

Even though it’s not very late, I’m going to bed and pray that a tree doesn’t fall on the bedroom in the night. I wonder how long a black cat curse lasts? Is it 24 hours, or until sunrise? Or seventeen years? I hope this cat will be lenient.