I have the ‘Cosmic Catnip Alpine Scratcher’ (or something like that). Basically, it is a loaf of corrugated cardboard that you ‘impregnate’ with catnip and cats like to scratch it. It comes with a cardboard holder that keeps it at an angle which makes it more attractive to my cats. This does seems to make it more attractive to my cats and they use it regularly either ro scratch or to tip over in a fun game of “look at the mess i made, smell my ass”. There is also the special ‘Added Feature’ of a circle cut into each side and a cheap mouse shaped toy dangles within to entice the cats.
The company who makes this product decided that the alpine theme should not stop with mountain-like angle of the product, but should also include alpine-themed illustrations. I am of the opinion that the illustrators of these pictures procured the highest quality crack to put them in the right mindset for these Alpine-esque murals. First of all, there are human shaped cats. These human shaped cats have bodies not unlike Popeye’s, but with head so disproportionately large that they make Hello Kitty look like an escapee from the Pinhead show at the circus. Within these heads rest eyes stolen directly from cheap Japanese Anime ripoffs. These human-like cats are wearing lederhosen, yes, lederhosen. There are rocks and trees littered appropriately throughout.
This all seems fairly innocuous but then things take a turn for the painfully bizarre. Remember the circles cut out of each side? Illustrated next to each circle is a pile of rocks approximately as high as the circle. Next to the rocks stands a Cat-Man in a ‘Price is Right’ pose, funneling my attention to the hole. It can only be assumed that the Hu-Cat is trying to tell your real cat to look inside the hole and discover the hours of fun waiting inside. What the crack smokers failed to take into account when dreaming up this scheme is that cats will NEVER look at what you are pointing at, they will only look at your finger in wonderment: “look, the owner is shouting and her finger is extended, I bet it smells good.”. They also forgot that cats pretty much don’t look at pictures or follow even the simplest of instructions.
Here is where the pain begins. When you look at the side of this cat toy, you see a hole made up to look like a cave in a mountain. There is a pile of rocks next to the opening as though they had been moved there from in front of the opening. And there is the Swiss genetic mishap standing next to it. It is like some horrifying misinterpretation of the scene where the women go to check on Jesus’ body and discover that he is gone and now I have the tour guide from hell showing me ‘The actual site where Jesus was buried and resurrected’. Perhaps the Bible was mistranslated and Jesus was just trying to get a Toblerone bar and through a series of misunderstandings (probably on the part of the cats because we all know how they never listen and always overreact to things) Jesus is suddenly crucified and buried in the land of anonymous bank accounts and tasty cheese.

Dealing with goddammed insurance companies and the hellish underworld they create for you to enter when THEY make a simple billing error and decide that you need a referral from your doctor for the lab work done during an urgent care visit. The actual visit to urgent care is covered but someone somewhere decided that you should have gotten a referral beforehand for the lab work that was done in a semi-emergency manner during your visit. It doesnt matter that the lab work was done at the same urgent care clinic that you are visiting in your semi-emergency state and it doesn’t matter that the attending physician has referred you to the lab directly down the hall from where you are being examined. What is important is that you leave urgent care in mid-exam, drive to your primary physicians office and get a referral for the lab work you should have completed 2 hours before.
Of course in trying to fix this problem it moves from ‘Fuckin’-A’ status to ‘Cluster-Fuck’ status. I get to call the billing department 400,000 time, the records office 32,352 times and the insurance company 876 times. Not included in this count is the number of times I am transfered to someone who is fully incapable of helping me either due to their own incompetence, surly attitude or proximity to the Pod People Home Base.
Eventually, someone said “well this is stupid…. there I fixed it. Sorry about that”.
Sweet joy dampened my face and I began to think perhaps there is a higher power that truly does care about this seething ball of humanity. Perhaps I am drunk.