Hi there folks. How is this fine New Year for you? It is good for me. We are having a lot of snow...as I think you are. So, I am just staying inside and sleeping and meditating. Watching TV.

Now. For this column, you are going to have to follow me. You know how some books start out “It was a dark and rainy night.” Or, “I was born in a log cabin.” Well? When you read this, you spark your brain up and get ready to concentrate. You need to do this with my story today.

It was dark. The scene was quiet. There was a soft night light. On the bed was my condo. My condo is like a rectangular box...imagine that. With a hole in each end. Made of sturdy material. i crawl in and sleep. It is warm and quiet.

I was sleeping. Next to mama. The condo sits right up on the bed. Near her. And, as I said, I was cuddled in it. Warm. Asleep. My head toward the window...the back side of the condo...my tail curled up on the front side, where mama sleeps.

You all remember my mama, right? She blows up pies, falls on the floor, chases taxis all over Pittsburgh trying to find a beer...my mama is funny. She is interesting. Nothing is every boring around mama.

Well, suddenly I heard this scream. She grabbed my tail and began pulling it out of its socket. She yelled…”CALLIE...CALLIE” and she began to shake my butt and my tail like a rag. Like she does when she is laughing.

She shook me until my teeth almost fell out. I got cross-eyed. My ears flattened and my whiskers curled up. And this time? She was pulling my tail! Why would she pull my tail in the middle of the night?

She pulled me right out of my condo. Pulled me. Dragged me. I tried to cling to the top of the condo by digging my claws into it, but she yanked too hard. I only had one eye open. I was sound asleep. And she started blubbering. And she began to explain. She woke up to check on me and In the dark...with my tail all curled up, she thought it was my face!!! And, my tail was not breathing!

She thought I was dead!! And she had put her ear up to my tail and felt no breath. She stared in the dark trying to find my eyes and ears. I guess she thought they were all squished up somewhere that she could not see them.

Anyway...as I said, she yanked me by the tail and dragged me out of my condo. She shook me. My head almost fell off. I didn’t know what I had done! Or if the house was on fire. Or, if she had blown up another pie! I was still in a sleep stupor. How would you like to be yanked out of bed in the middle of the night by your tail?

Anyway, she hugged me so tight I could not breath. She squashed me. Kissed me on the top of my ears. She almost killed me by hugging me. I tried to struggle, but I could not. She was so grateful that I was alive.

Then, after about 15 minutes of squishing my face and hugging my body, she shoved me back into the hole of my condo...and told me to go to sleep.

I was not sleepy. Not anymore!

One whisker was twisted up from being smashed. I was afraid to go back to sleep with my tail curled up so I let it hang out of the hole in the front so if she woke up again, she would see it was a tail hanging out, not a face.

No moral this time. I'm too busy keeping an eye on my hindquarters to write one. Which reminds me. Mama always says that politicians are useless for anything except guarding their own butts. Which I never understood until now, and I don't know what politicians are, but I feel great empathy for them.

And I can help them, too - I now have the perfect solution, from my own personal experience. So listen up, politicians, here it is: Just quit putting your butts in people's faces, and go back to your condos and sleep for a long time. Everything will get better if you do that, trust me."