16 February 2009

Stop me if you have heard this before

I tried to figure out if I have posted this story before, but the blog search feature here is pretty dysfunctional. If you have heard it, just smile and nod along as I do every single day of my life at my folks's house.

(Today it was the one about the time that George the short-order cook threw a guy out of the restaurant for ordering a hamburger at breakfast time. For some reason, that story really tickles my Dad's funny bone. I hear it on average once a week).

The Story of Max

I was volunteering at the animal shelter when a nice-looking college-age young man came in looking for a lost cat.

He described the big fluffly white Persian cat and said that it belonged to his girlfriend, who was at college on the East Coast. Her parents had called her about a week after she got to school and told her that her cat had disappeared and they presumed it had been eaten by coyotes, since they lived out in a rural area.

His distraught girlfriend refused to believe that the cat was dead, and had sent her faithful boyfriend out looking. He posted flyers all over and decided to check the shelter.

"That sounds like Max," someone said, upon hearing the cat's description.

"Max?" the boyfriend said. "That's weird, my girlfriend's cat was named Max."

Yes indeed. The cat was not lost. The parents had turned Max into the shelter as soon as their daughter had hit the road for college. Though the daughter loved dear Max, the parents were not fans.

So now the boyfriend had a quandry. Should he reunite his girlfriend with her beloved pet and let her know that her parents were evil liars, or should he leave Max at the shelter?

He chose to take Max home with him, and to tell the girlfriend.

And she chose to NOT confront her parents. Why? Because she was afraid? No, because, she said, she was saving that evidence for a time when she really needed something good to lord over her parents.

12 comments:

J said...

Oops. Lucky cat! I took my dog with me when I went to college, though to be fair I had an apartment, not a dorm room.

My brother repeats the same story over and over again. About how some medication he once took turned his pee RED. How scared he was for a second before he remembered his doctor's warning that his pee would turn RED. I spent 4 days with him last year, and I think I heard that story 6 times. I wonder if I told the same stories over and over in self defense?

Project Christopher said...

tee hee! It's like ammo I'm sure!

Stephanie said...

My parents did this with a dog. I WISH I'd had a boyfriend like hers, just for the ammunition!

German Shepherd Mom said...

My dad would have said the cat had been attacked, then he'd have shot it (or let the dogs loose on it) and sent me a picture of the carcass to prove it. On the up side, though, he generally never repeats a story unless he's certain he has a new audience.

Anonymous said...

Janine~ THat's TERRIBLE! It hurts me to even joke about something like that, letting any animal maul another, just to prove a point! But then, I might just be a litte emotional today...

ANYWAY, what I meant to say was, my grandparents do the same thing, I hear the same story at LEAST once a day while we're there.

Green-Eyed Momster said...

Oh my, I'm so glad that Max was found!
That daughter of theirs has some pretty good ammunition to use as she wishes.
I'm glad that the boyfriend told her. The truth is usually best!

Hugs!!

Kaylia Metcalfe said...

Awesome! Everyone wins!

Wow, that totally makes me wonder about when my dog ran away when I was 10.

/sudden doubt!

Mignon said...

My dad made me give away my dog before I left, which is probably the 'kindest' option of all of these. But he was a really good dog, and I'm still sad. Ah, happy memories...

super des said...

Once when I was on vacation as a little girl, my mom "accidentally let my parakeet escape." My sister has since tried to tell me the real story but I put my hands over my ears and go lalalalala. Why are parents jerks like that sometimes?

Deodand said...

Wow, that's uncool of her parents to do that. I would put my parents in a nursing home if they did that to me. - no matter how old they were.

laineydear said...

I cant believe how common it is for parents to do this!

When I was little we had a black cat who I loved dearly. Unfortunately he got in a lot of neighborhood scrapes w/ other cats, so instead of paying for vet bills my parents told me he somehow "disappeared." A few years later they told me my dad actually dropped him off on the sidewalk in front of a house that "looked nice." I'm still not over it.

Anonymous said...

My mom 'fessed up decades later that she let my guinea pigs loose in the yard one day. :/ They surely died.

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