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Saturday, April 24, 2004 

My sister's cell thinks it's a wolf

And apparently so do I.

I'm at my parents' place for my sister Kelly's birthday, which was yesterday.

She got herself a new cell phone. The ring tone she's picked for it is the sound of a wolf howling. She called it from my parents' phone last night so I could hear it. And promptly forget about it.

Today after she got home we were chatting away when I heard the cat meowing, long and low. At least that's what I thought it was at first. When the sound started I was sitting by the wood-stove. It was surprisingly cold in the house today and mom had lit a fire.

About half a second later I was off the bricks and moving toward the sound, because if it was the cat, something was very wrong. That's about when I realized it wasn't the cat, but a coyote. And it sounded like it was in our front yard. I immediately thought 'coyote' because there are no wolves around here.

I next thought, 'What the fuck is a coyote doing in our front yard in the middle of the afternoon?'

Kelly had started for the front door as soon as the sound started, and I just thought she was going for the same reason I was.

Then she reached in her purse and the howling got louder as she pulled the cell out.

"Jesus!" I said, exasperated with myself.

Dad burst out laughing at that point. I joined him.

Shortly later I was thirsty and felt like some orange juice. So I opened the fridge and saw three cartons lined up along the right inner wall of the top shelf. The first was milk, the second was grapefruit juice and the third was orange juice.

You know the old style cartons of milk that you used to rip open along half of the peak? The new ones have the same look but have a cap and spout set into one of the slanting panels. I get the new ones. Have for years. To pick those up I put my middle finger in under one corner of the peak and my thumb in under the other.

Guess what happens when you pick up a carton of milk like that when it's the old style and has already been opened.

After having cleaned up the spilt milk - no, I didn't cry over it, you bunch of smart asses - I tried again. Didn't spill the milk. Got the grapefruit juice out of the way. Brought out the orange juice and shook it to mix up the pulp. Quickly found out the last person to drink orange juice hadn't screwed the cap on properly.

As orange juice spilled on the counter I snarled at the mess. Literally.

Mom started laughing and asked what I'd done now.

Kelly piped up to say, "You sound like my phone!"

So I lost it and started laughing too.