Pablo's Tale: Day Five of On the The Road

"Not this again," I think, as the crazy woman gripped me tightly and stuffs me into the zippered box like thing. Yeah, yeah, it has windows, but since I made the mistake of demonstrating how easily I can bang my head against the zippered side and escape, she faces that side toward the door, so if I bang against it, I'm only going to give myself a headache instead of freedom.

My traveling companion, an old coot the crazy lady calls Henry, starts vocally protests. "May as well save your breath, old man," I say. “We're not getting our freedom anytime soon. "

For the last several days, this is our routine: lady shunts us inside crates as she hauls our litter box, food, and her computer and clothes and stuffs this all in an already overstuffed car. She finally loads us in between precariously stacked bags and drives for what seems like days to us cats, but apparently is July around seven hours in people time. We spend our days lingering in the backseat while English accented people narrate books. We stop, occasionally and she checks our water dishes. I refuse to acknowledge her and turn my head when she asks how I’m doing, especially when she uses her mock English accent. Henry, though, vociferously offers his opinions on everything from the hot weather, the changing altitudes, and his views on gay marriage and universal health care.

When we are finally freed to walk around, voila! We're in a whole different room in a whole different city.  The crazy cat lady feeds us right away and disappears for awhile, apparently to let the mangy old striped cat and me to sniff our way into finding a spot. So far each placed we've stayed hasn't been bad. Until today.

It's the fifth day, and she has installed us into a very stinky pet designated room outside of Boise, Idaho. She sprayed some lavender, and sprinkled baby powder on the skanky carpet, but it doesn't mask that 1)someone may have been murdered here, 2) stored soiled clothes in here for six months, or 3)had some bowel infestation and didn't quite make it to the toilet . "Sorry, guys," she says, the place is booked solid ."

Other than the smell, the place itself is nice. The desk clerk was friendly, and secured the crazy cat lady some help shuttling us into the room. CCC assures us we will be able to park ourselves for a few days with some of her crazy relatives tomorrow. Meanwhile, she cracks the window and runs the fan full blast. Too bad she didn't book at the Motel 6 up the road. I hope we survive.