Ghost
2003-03-11, 9:11 a.m.

I so want a cat or a small dog but the roommate does not like animals.

The last pet I had died when I was a freshman in college.

She was a cat...her name was Ghost as she was pure white and I'm just creative like that.

She was a strange cat who was terrified of the garbage truck.

One day, soon after I first got her, I noticed that she wasn't eating. I topped off her food bowl and she began eating...but then she stopped. I soon figured out that she was not eating once the food was below the level of the lip of the food bowl.

So, being the brilliant indivdual that I am, I gave her a food plate...no problem with below level food any more. However, she would stop eating once the plate began to show through the food.

She was quite a high-maintenance cat.

Unfortunately, while I was away at college, she got bitten by a spider and the bite became infected and the infection spread. She spent two days at the vet before the vet told my parents there was nothing else he could do.

I returned home for a weekend and asked where Ghost was...my mother turned to my father and my father told me what happened. My mother then turned to my father and said, "Nudeplatypus' dad...I thought we were going to tell her that Ghost ran away."

Number 1: It's a cat...the whole "run away" excuse doesn't work well for cats.

Number 2: That may have worked on me when I was six and my dog died because a)Socks would get out of the fenced backyard constantly and b)I was six.

You've gotta love moms.