Mortimer Snert had always been fond of cats, having owned several of them in his life, and so, when the time came for the Big Move, he naturally took his cat with him. His present cat was a bit on the bizarre side, being half Siamese, it was as rowdy as could possibly be. Also, the fact that she was named after an obscure thrasher band probably did not help things a lot either. Along with the cat came the litter box, a lovely device which caused Mort a considerable amount of grief. The problem with the cat reared it’s ugly head when he first moved to Los Angeles. Mort had discovered that motel operators universally hated animals, posting signs which said Absolutely No Animals Allowed in conspicuous locations around their motels. Now Mort, who was basically an honest person, had tried without success to convince several of these people that his cat was harmless, but to no avail. So his criminal side went to work, and under cover of darkness, he would sneak the cat and all of its attendant paraphernalia into the motel room. The cat box posed the biggest problem of all. Moving as frequently as he did had upset the cat, and caused serious repercussions in the cat box, causing it to need to be emptied every other day or so. Herein was the problem. He could not very well empty the cat box at the motel, since he was not supposed to have a cat in the first place. Besides that, he had never located a dumpster at the motel. He wasn’t sure what happened to all the garbage that the maid hauled out daily, although he suspected that it may have been recycled at the motel’s lovely restaurant and fed to unsuspecting patrons. Mort had eaten there one fine day, and was certainly not on the list of satisfied customers. So the motel was out of the question. Being the resourceful person that he was, Mort loaded the offending box into his truck and set out to find a dumpster. Driving up and down alleys, he found that all the dumpsters carried a warning against unauthorized dumping, providing a $1000 fine and a jail term to anyone who was brave enough to commit such a heinous crime. Mort, who was becoming desperate, located a conveniently placed dumpster. Deciding to try his luck, he quickly checked for cops, jumped out of the truck and headed for the back where the foul smelling cat box was. Just as he was about to open the back door and make a mad dash for the dumpster, who should turn into the alley but a motorcycle cop. Howdy pardner, said Mort in his best Texican accent. Just checkin the tars ta see if’n any uv em’s low. Eyeing Mort suspiciously, the motorcycle cop decided that he was probably too stupid to do anything illegal, gave him a nod and roared off down the alley. Mort, who had a vivid imagination, lapsed into a day dream, where he was being hauled cuffed and kicking to the L.A. County Jail. He was loaded into a cell with a bunch of hardened criminals, who were bragging about the crimes they had committed, robbery, murder and the like. One of the thugs turned and asked Mort what he was in for. Mort, not being proud of what he had done answered sheepishly that he had emptied his cat box in a dumpster marked no unauthorized dumping. The words struck terror into the hearts of the thugs, and they all started backing away form Mort. One of the thugs commented on the severity of such a crime, adding that Mort would probably get the electrical chair for that. Suddenly he snapped back to reality. Deciding against dumping the cat box there, he got back in the truck and headed off down the street. The next thing that attracted his attention was a drive up mailbox. For a fleeting instant, he thought about opening the mail flap and emptying the contents of the cat box down the mail box’s throat. Thinking better of that, because he was sure the penalty for such an act would be far more serious than putting it in a dumpster, probably something similar to being skinned alive and flung into a pool of alcohol, he drove on. For miles he drove, trying to locate a convenient place to dispose of the contents of the box. He thought about fertilizing the trees on the corner, but was prevented from doing so by a sign which stated that there was to be No Littering in capital letters. Finally, he reached the industrial part of town. In the midst of all the death and destruction that industry had wreaked, he spied an appropriate looking dumpster. Bringing his truck to a screeching halt, he bailed out, grabbed the cat box, and with lightning speed, dumped it into the dumpster. Turning around quickly to head back for the truck, he was confronted face to face with a huge dog who did not seem to appreciate what Mort had just done, and was sizing him up to see just how many bites it would take to eat him for lunch. About 4 or 5 thought the dog. Mort, who was normally a calm person, panicked. Clanging the dog over the head with the now empty cat box, Mort leaped over the dog, yanked open the truck door and jumped in, slamming the door in the dog’s face. The ensuing scene was straight out of Cujo, with the dog eating the door handles, radio antenna, and anything else it could manage. Happy to still be alive, Mort put the truck into 4 wheel drive, dropped it in gear, and stomped on the gas, showering the dog with a ton of dirt and gravel. Arriving back at the motel room, he discovered the cat, who was standing on her toes and dancing around in circles. Mort quickly emptied a fresh bag of kitty litter into the box, and the cat, just as quickly, destroyed the freshness of the occasion, restarting the whole process of where to empty the cat box.
