I don’t know if I will finish this or not, so read at your own risk.
Based on a true story but slightly dramatized like a Lifetime movie.
All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Except for the cat’s.
John gave the screwdriver a final turn and tested the hose. The drain line for the new garbage disposal was firmly in place. Yep, not going anywhere.
He plugged the garbage disposal in and nodded to Ava. “Go ahead.”
Ava turned the faucet on and hit the switch. The garbage disposal purred into life.
“You’re the best, Dad.”
At fifteen, Ava cooked dinner once a week and cleaned the kitchen twice a week, for which she received weekly allowance. Currently, that allowance was being saved for a school trip to New York. A working garbage disposal was very high on his oldest daughter’s priority list.
Ava turned off the disposal and shut off the water. Her gaze snagged on the Band-Aid on his finger. “Did you cut yourself?”
He hid a scowl. The technical term for his problem was vasovagal syncope. He had no problem with blood 9 out of 10 times. But that tenth time, his blood pressure dropped, his heart slowed, the world grew dark, and he took a dive wherever he was. The issue was hereditary. His father had to have blood drawn lying in the examination bed because he would faint damn near every time.
At 6 feet 4 inches and 240 lbs, when John fell, he fell hard. He couldn’t blame his wife and three daughters for treating him like a precious glass statue every time he came near a tool or a blade, but it did get tiresome.
“It’s fine. It was a scratch and I put a Bad-Aid on it.”
Ava opened her mouth.
A piercing squeal rang somewhere deep within the house. A pack of eight-year-old girls sprinted into the kitchen, yelling nonsense and for some reason wrapped in long garlands of fake flowers. They dashed about the island, with Isabella in the lead, and stampeded back into the family room.
He looked at Ava.
“No clue,” she said. “If you put enough little kids together, they become feral.”
“Your mom will be home any minute. Can you please go in there and make sure they are all in one piece?”
Ava heaved a sigh and started toward the family room. “If I don’t come back…”
“The world will know of your noble sacrifice.”
“You are supposed to promise to avenge me, Dad.”
“That too.”
She headed to the living room. John got up, washed his hands, and wiped down the water around the sink with a paper towel. Watching seven 3rd graders wasn’t the plan. The plan was to finish the report, but Laura had a last-minute client.
John draped the kitchen towel over the island. Three years ago, he had a stable job, they had a nice cushion in savings, and Laura’s hair cutting was a part-time thing. She did it because she enjoyed it, and because it brought it some extra money. Then Isabella needed emergency surgery. The economy stumbled, his entire department was eliminated, and nobody seemed to be hiring. Suddenly, his wife’s side gig became their primary paycheck.
He’d started his own consulting business, not because he wanted to but because he had no choice. Money began trickling in, at first sporadic, then more even. This latest job was for the state workforce commission. They were looking for a data scientist full time. It would be a dream position, fully remote, benefits, insurance, $110 K per year. His report would be a foot-in-the door.
Laura had taken on more and more clients, trying to keep them afloat, and the salon owner, from whom she rented her styling space, had gotten progressively more difficult and passive aggressive. Yesterday his wife came in soaked in sweat again because the AC in the salon had gone out a week ago, and nobody was in a hurry to fix it. Laura had been trying to find a different place to rent in the same area to avoid losing her client list, but nothing had opened up.
He had to get her out of that salon…
John looked up. Lily was standing by the island. He almost jumped. His twelve-year-old was going through a goth-anime phase, and he never knew what she was going to look like. Today she wore a black tank top with a black frilly skirt. Her white hair – Laura had dyed it for her – was loose. Her face was deathly pale, her lips were black, and there was entirely too much black eyeshadow around her eyes. He’d been told it was called smoky eye. She looked a bit like a panda.
Also, her irises were red. Blood red.
“Are those contact lenses?” Please be contact lenses.
“Yes. I can’t find Tubbs.”
Somehow, in all of the chaos of their lives, they ended up fostering cats waiting for adoption. He wasn’t even sure how it had happened; it just did. Currently, there were six cats in the house. Of them, Tubbs was the fattest and the laziest. A typical British Shorthair, he was given up for adoption when his owner moved out of the country. Tubbs spent his days lounging about impersonating a grey, orange-eyed loaf of bread and yelling to be fed. He never went outside, even when the door was wide open. He never hid when guests came over. He simply couldn’t be bothered.
“Did you check on the dining room chairs?”
“Yes.”
“The bean bag in my office?”
“Yes.”
“The couch upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“The cat closet?” They had turned a small storage room into a cat exclusive space. Three of the more nervous cats were there right now, and Isabella had been warned to keep the guests out of there.
“He is nowhere, Dad.”
Something thumped in the family room, followed by excited shrieks. Well, it was unusually noisy. When it was noisy, most of their cats hid, usually on the chairs under the table. If he wasn’t in the dining room…
He crossed the kitchen and crouched by the breakfast table. Two pairs of glowing eyes greeted him. Lux and Gary. No Tubbs. Hmm.
John straightened and froze.
Outside the window, past the pool, a furry grey lump sat on top of the wooden fence.
John blinked. The lump was still there.
“Is that him on the fence?”
“Yes!”
On the other side of the fence lived two German Shepherds. They were friendly and sweet, and there was a cat in that house, but John didn’t want to take chances.
How the hell did he even get outside? Why was he on the fence? That cat had never climbed anything taller than a couch in his entire life.
“Lily, get the treat jar.”
She took off toward the pantry.
John opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the patio.
Tubbs shifted on the fence, rocking back and forth.
Don’t you jump. Don’t you do it.
The trick was to look like he wasn’t approaching the cat. John started on a diagonal course, moving slowly and looking straight ahead.
On the fence, Tubbs gave him the evil eye.
“What’s going on?” Ava asked behind him.
“Tubbs escaped,” Lily announced, brandishing the plastic jar with dry cat treats inside. “Do you want me to shake?”
“Not yet.”
John angled toward the fence. Tubbs rocked again but stayed where he was.
He chanced a glance at the house. Lily and Ava stood on the patio. Behind them, seven little faces were plastered to the kitchen windows. Everyone was watching.
Tubbs shifted. The rickety old fence quivered a little. They had needed to replace it years ago, but the price of lumber had shot up beyond all reason. Dropping $7K on this stretch of the fence wasn’t in the budget. Here is hoping it didn’t collapse under all that weight…
Don’t you cost me seven grand.
He was within six feet of the cat. John kept his voice calm. “Give it a shake.”
Lily shook the jar. The treats rattled.
Tubbs perked up, his big orange eyes wide like dollar coins.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!” Lily called.
Tubbs swiveled.
“Treat time!” Ava announced in a sing-song voice. “It’s treat time!”
Tubbs scooted around, listing on the fence like a ship in the storm.
“Yummy, yummy!” Ava said.
“Mmm, delicious treats! I’ll eat them all by myself.” Lily waved the jar.
Tubbs gathered himself for a mighty leap onto the grass. The fence board snapped under his weight with a crack. A jolt of adrenaline hit John, and he saw things unfold in excruciating clarity, as if the world had slowed down so he could take it all in.
A small chunk of the board broke free and tumbled to the ground.
Tubbs lost his balance, his leap aborted, and tried to flip his stout body to stay on the fence.
His hind leg slid into the space between the broken board and the one to the right.
Tubbs flopped down, suspended from the fence by his wedged leg.
The world restarted. Tubbs flailed on the fence, upside down, screaming for his life.
Damn it!
John lunged and grabbed the cat. Tubbs writhed in his arms, claws out, all of his seventeen pounds caught in blinding panic. John clamped the cat to him and desperately tried to free the wedged paw.
With a terrified yowl, Tubbs sank his fangs into the heel of John’s left palm. Pain lanced his hand. John swore.
“Stay still, you little shit!”
The smell hit him, a metallic, horrible smell that squirmed through him, bringing nausea in its wake.
He looked down.
His hand was drenched in bright red. It was all over the cat, his wrist, and running down his forearm.
So much blood.
I like! Thank you for the serials, they make my week!
It’s just one snippet of a story for now 🙂, not a new serial.
(But I like how smooth we are about it 🤣)
For now…so hope still exists!
Smooth like butter lol
like a criminal undercover…
oh wait, were we not doing BTS lyrics? 🙂
It’s the worst when cats do things like that 😭
My cat got stuck like that in my office chair when I tried to gently push her off of me and she resisted and flipped out. It was as scary as it was stupid 🙃 She fine, I’m fine, but why are cats??
I also had a student who learned he had the vasovagal reaction when I was teaching a class about the circulatory system. Of course he ran into the hallway to faint so I had no idea what happened until after class, when the biology office asked if I knew why my student had passed out in front of their door.
A random story from House Andrews always makes my day!
Uh oh. Tubbs is about to be smushed! Poor kitty.
I didn’t know there was a name for this, the blood thing. One of my sisters has it.
When we were all still at home, one of the littles managed to knock a window jam such that it fell on her hand. She’d been eating peanut butter out of the jar so her hands were covered in peanut butter. This sister was the closest to the screams. She ran and got the 3 year old, got her skinned and bleeding hand out of the window.
SO MUCH BLOOD! MIXED WITH BROWN STICKY STUFF! My sister grabbed the little and ran thru the house. She made it from the bedroom thru the living room and dining room and saw our friend in the kitchen just responding to the scream in the kitchen door and she forward passed the kid to our friend, who, in an amazing catch worthy of the NFL, fielded the 40lbs of screaming child as my sister hit the floor.
We washed and bandaged the kid’s hands and took my sister-who-fainted to the ER (as it was the first time this had happened). She fainted again when they did a blood draw. She’s fainted every time since. She fainted when her oldest got caught up between two fighting dogs and managed to get a bite on her face that required stitches. Fortunately my mom was there for that one. She says she’s gotten better. Last time she got the kid to the emergency room (by requiring them to wrap their cut had in a beach towel so she couldn’t see the blood) before fainting (when they unwrapped the hand).
vasovagal syncope. That’s my sister.
(My little sister in the story still eats peanut butter out of the jar but now she uses a spoon. Usually several spoons because she eats peanut butter when her blood glucose is dropping and it reminds her of my step-dad, because he’s the one who taught them that straight peanut butter was delicious.)
A spoonful of peanut butter dipped into chocolate chips is my guiltiest of pleasures.
Almond butter, caramel sauce and semi-sweet chocolate!
+1000 (except, honestly, no guilt)
Oops, reply for chunky peanut butter and chocolate chips. But the addition of caramel sauce sounds really good 🙂
I keep a small jar of chunky peanut butter specifically for dipping raw carrots into. This is separate from the large jar of creamy PB which supplies a critical ingredient for my morning oatmeal.
Thank you so much for the morning chuckle! Oh, that Tubbs…
Love a good fat cat story
“If you put enough little kids together, they become feral.” #truth #chaosgenerators
Also, #germfactories.
I love it!
We had a cat named Chubbs, a female calico version of Tubbs. She moved so little that she swiveled her head once and scared a friend of mine who had been convinced she was stuffed. She also would have done an ungainly maneuver on the fence!
Thank you for the snippet! I heart Tubbs, and am on pins and needles wondering what will happen next. 🙂
/thump
Yeah, I know that feeling.
I don’t have an actual emotional response to blood. It doesn’t bother conscious me.
My lizard brain, on the other, thinks we’re ABOUT TO DIE and, inexplicably, thinks that if we just blue-screen out, that’ll fix the problem.
Maybe it’s like an opossum response? Like a fainting goat? I donno. It’s not my favorite. But yeah, John’s about to hit the sod.
Poor John.
The trials and tribulations of cats and humans. Thanks for the snippet! 🙂
This was a fun read with my breakfast. I could read more!
Anything you write grabs me and hangs on – until I finish it. 🙁
Thanks for another slice of somebody’s life…
Even if this is all there is, it made my morning 🙂 Thank you!
What a fun story and perfect cliffhanger! Made my day, thanks 😊
Is it possible to re-post Maggie snippets ?
For re-read while we wait for the book to release.
Not at the moment 🙂
It really says something about how wonderful your writing is that I deeply care about this family just from this little bit.
Yes! Exactly! This was so good. Thanks HA!
+1
This was a nice surprise! Thank you!
Thank you! Great way to start my day!
For clarity amongst the horde, vasovagal syncope is a catch-all for conditions that cause a person to faint. Sight of blood is one. In my case it is short, intense pain. When the doctors can’t isolate a specific cause other than an abrupt drop in blood pressure, they call it vasovagal syncope.
Oooo, interesting, thanks!
Just got diagnosed with this too.
For me it’s temperature based. I could be sitting down and get a hot flash and the next thing I’m on the floor. That and rapid movement will get me every time.
Thank you for a new serial! Of course we will read it.
Fun story!
I’m not affected by blood & gore, having spent nearly 20yrs as an open heart recovery rm nurse ( ICU). But I learned to carry the ammonia caps because we had MEN faint on a reg basis when they first saw their loved one after surgery. Actually I also strategically stood behind them to catch so they didn’t bonk their head. Never had a woman faint, probably due to the trials raising kids.
I love how you make the characters real in my mind. I can totally see all of this unfolding along with the hysterically funny dialogue. You make even snippets a treat to read. Thank you.
Wow! Here’s hoping for more. 😀
Love this! Hope you have the time and energy for more! Thank you!
oh no Poor guy. I have a friend at work who suffers from this. I only found out when I have a first aid call out to her.
My husband has the vasovagal thing? we found out when he was hungover that vomiting can trigger it….so can working out too hard. I will never forget finding him passed out on the bathroom floor. I thought he was dying. Then the ER was just like nope, hungover but healthy. Couldn’t decide to be angry or grateful.
Heheheheh. I can relate, except for there being six cats. Noooooo. Frankly, two was one too many. A fascinating little family there, too, this should be fun!
I’m ok with blood. As long as it isn’t mine.
My husband has it with needles. I took him in because he was having a severe allergic reaction to the sap from a Chinese Elm he was cutting down. He need a shot of Benedryl or Epinephrine. The Doctor brought out the needle and he crashed. He is 6’4″ and about 260-280 then.
Cats, fathers and daughters’ stories are the best. I hope this turns into something in the future after Wilmington and I&M and BH. 🐈🙏
So so many cats in my life and various scars thereby.
But the one this story reminds me of is when I was trying to medicate a normally docile foster cat who panicked while I was holding him and bit me. I let him go and stood up, and was stupefied to look down and see a 10 pound cat hanging off my arm by his teeth. I had to lower him until his feet hit the floor before he would let go and run away.
It was years ago but I still have two clear puncture scars on the inside of my forearm and two on the outside. Not a lot of bleeding, and no infection, but I was very very lucky that he didn’t hit any nerve, tendon or a blood vessels.
Oh I love it! So true to life, poor Tubbs and poor John! The things we do for our cats. 🐈
Omg!! So bad, so, so bad. It’s like hands over the eyes but split the fingers just enough so you can watch bc you can’t not watch no matter how bad bc you need to know.
I am good with anyone’s blood even my own. I have a problem with needles. specifically shot needles. I think of them or see them and want to put my hands on my shoulders to protect the veins in my elbows.
Amazing as always. Thank you! Cats being cats. 🐈⬛
I have vasovagal syndrome, and it’s no fun. Forget donating blood, you wake up in the ambulance. Because your heart rate goes to zero and the poor blood techs absolutely freak out. Worst place of all for this to happen is a doctors office. In a hospital. When I came to, I heard a voice say “Okay, he’s coming around. His BP is up to 25 over 10.” UP TO! Bad words, bad words, bad words. I couldn’t speak so I mentally said them. I was put on an ambulance gurney, taken down the elevator, rolled out to the ambulance for a 45 second freakin’ ride (the radio chatter was at least pretty funny) to the ER. Which they could have just rolled me to directly from the office wing that’s attached to the hospital! Sigh.
Took me 4 hours and $400 to escape and diverted three attempts to take my blood. Seriously. First was a very pretty nurse. Nope. Next was a large hulking young man. Hell no. Next was an MD. He let me go.
The Red Cross bus told my family member they could lean him back when he donated so he could still donate while passing out.
Me to loved one – or maybe you stop donating blood?
Aww. As a fellow foster cat mom and also currently struggling finding a full-time job in my expertise, this one hits close to home. Hope the Dad turns out ok. The cat will be fine.
Please do not end this story here. Finish when you have more brain power.
🍪🫖I give you virtual tea and cookies.
OMG. Such a wonderful surprise, thank you!
Ready for more….whenever you can…
I love it!!! I would DEFINITELY read this. I love that it seems like a normal suburban story. I already love all the characters (poor John). I love the banter with the kids. Are they also running in a mini daycare? My son would love this too, I’ll show it to him when he gets back from school
oh wow! everything you create!
ohhh this was so fun
Fun story! Poor cat, poor dad, hope it all turns out ok!!
I had that weird thing happen a couple times in h.s. – everything turned yellow and I went deaf, and then landed on the floor. Our family doctor said “adolescent growth anomaly”, so since he wasn’t worried and it had a description, I wasn’t worried either. Freaked out a couple teachers, though….
So invested!! Save John, save Tubbs!
Young man fresh out of the army (WWII Europe), goes to college. He answers a call for blood donors up at the hospital. Young woman draws the donation and he faints on her. That was how my parents met.
Ahh, what a great family story!
Oh god. This is me with the b-word. Literally had to put my head between my knees after reading this snippet. I can visualize things too well.
As invested as I am in this family already, I may have to pass on any future installments. Pass on, or pass out.
Thank you for the snippet! I look forward to the rest of the story, if we’re lucky. I knew a guy who had the same issue with hypodermic needles. When he got shots, he’d look at the needle in his arm and slide right onto the floor. This guy was around 6’3″ and 220lb, a solidly muscled farm boy. The other guys thought it was hilarious, but he was big enough that he didn’t come in for too much teasing.
My daughter had orthostatic hypotension. If she changed position too quickly, say from lying down to standing, her blood pressure would drop and she’d faint. The pediatrician said some kids can’t even stand up to answer a question in class. She also had what we later found out was a glycogen storage issue, where if she didn’t eat enough the night before – because of the distraction of playing with friends and not stopping to eat, generally – she’d be lying on the floor in the hall in the morning, pale and unresponsive. Orange juice cut 50/50 with water would revive her nicely. It’s amazing how many physiological quirks can cause a person to faint.
My son had orthostatic hypotension in high school. He would get dizzy everytime he stood up to change classes. Happened 6-7 times a day for a year or 2 and he never told us! Said he thought it was normal.
We found out when we found him passed out in the bathroom. Got up from toilet and down he went.
O_O We don’t need to know everything, but that was information you could have used earlier.
I enjoyed reading this and would love to read more!
That made me laugh… thank you!
Yikes, that’s quite the cliffhanger! Thank you for the unexpected snippet, which made my afternoon 🙂
I was having a nice time reading this unexpected treat when my own fat kitty decided he needed to jump up to investigate for treats (none suitable for kitties) and dislodge my phone which I later extracted from under his big floofy round butt. He would probably worship Tubbs.
Lights out John, hopefully no squished puss, lovely snippet to start the day, thanks guys.
Owwww. One of my cats jumped off of a footlocker that had handles; his foot slipped and he ended up hanging upside down with his leg stuck in the handle. As I approached to help him, he whipped around and sank his fangs in to the top of my foot. I had to pry his jaws apart to free my foot. I got a blanket (which I *knew* I should have done before approaching a terrified cat), threw it over him, and unhooked his leg. I washed the blood off my foot, stuck a band-aid on it, then took him to the vet; he was fine. 3 hours later I had to take myself to the ER because my foot had swollen to half again its normal size (sigh).
So there is a name for it, vasovagal syncope. I have a close relative who needs medical help taking blood tests. I thought it was just a qwerk.
What a great time for a Dad story with Father’s Day just around the corner!
I can’t wait to find out why Tubbs moved his lard tush just to sit on the fence? And I wonder if dad survived Tubbs falling on him, lol.
Tubbs did it on purpose.
There’s going to be a hidden plot.
There always is with cats – they move in mysterious ways of which we cannot what. (What what is it? And is that even the saying, cos I just tried googling it and I think I’m misquoting a nonexistent thing here. Google says no-one is whatting anything. I blame it being 2:16am)
Basically you can love cats, but you can’t trust them. Not like dogs 😉
Goodnight everyone, I’m delusional and getting up in three hours.
It’s a “wot”, meaning “to know”, Middle English etymology. (Thanks Terry Pratchett for the spelling, Wiktionary for the definition and etymology.) Your saying sounds familiar to me, although I haven’t heard the different parts combined quite that way before, and I couldn’t find it on Google either – I got too many results for “world of tanks” instead of “wot”!
Aha, if it’s been through the mighty Tezza then it makes sense that I heard of it. And very apt with the glorious 25th almost upon us. Thanks for the info, sometimes I don’t know what I know.
my cousin faints at the sight of blood or needles too. We were watching my brothers cat when he was overseas in the army and she disappeared for two days. We finally heard her meowing, she’d climbed the neighbors tree and got on their garage roof and couldn’t figure out how to get down
Delightful! Thx!
Hope all is going well everything else you are juggling!
now that would be a cliff hanger, eh? lol
Ooh! Good cliffhanger ending but I did note “Part 1” in the title. 😄🤞
What a great surprise read…thank you! Good timing too: I spent the day chasing our 1.5 year old twin sibling kitties and trying (failing) to keep them out of mischief.
Today the boy kitty kept insisting on tearing up paper and scattering it everywhere. I still can’t figure out where he’s finding all the paper he’s ripping up….I’m hoping it’s just an old magazine. I guess I should just be glad he’s not eating all of the confetti!
Also today, the girl kitty discovered that if she sits in back of me (on the back of the sofa)my ponytail is a fun new toy she can bat around and try to eat! It’s all fun and games until the murder mittens miss the ponytail and almost catch me instead! 🙄
Cats…gotta love them! I do love our two. They are very mischievous, but also very funny and sweet. Never a dull moment! 🥰💕💕
Based on a true story? Poor John!
My beloved (boyfriend/roommate/husband) had that reaction to blood … his own or any one else’s. First time, he was a teenager and had cut himself carving a stick. He said that he didn’t think anything much about it, clamped his other hand over the cut and went downstairs to the bathroom and then looked at it. His mother heard “Mommmmm!”, and a thud.
thank you for the snippet. we’ll all sit on that wobbly fence like tubs, waiting to see if the snippet treat jar will be shaken again:)
Oh dear.
I love it!
We had a cat named Chubbs, a female calico version of Tubbs. She moved so little that she swiveled her head once and scared a friend of mine who had been convinced she was stuffed. She also would have done an ungainly maneuver on the fence!
I know it is a lot of work, but could you please finish the Tubbs story? It really would be appreciated.
love this
love this story already!! ❤️
Thank you for this snippet!!
Everything you write is my new favorite!
Oh, wow! That’s a whole story right there, but I hope it spawns some follow up. If it doesn’t, it is a treasure of masterful writing, character building…and I love the cat. (Ok, I usually love cats.) Also, the MC…so relatable. Just about everyone has had financial problems lately — or at least just about everyone I know. Can’t wait for the mystery project. Just keep on doing what you do. Take care of your health. Whatever you write, I’ll read it. 🙂
Timmmmbbbbeeeerrrrr!?
Love the story. Many thanks and hoping for more sometime.
Oh, boy. Quite the intro!
Please finish it…. Soon..😊
We had a large dog jump our chain link fence to get to our “in heat” toy poodle. We walked to her (we did not want puppies, but she was being shown and had to be intact until we were done). He panicked, jumped the fence, and had his rear leg slip down between the chain link and the top rail. He was hanging from the fence and screaming. What a nightmare. We did not want to be bit, but we wanted to help him. He freed himself before we got to across the yard to him. He lay on the neighbor’s yard for a few minutes before getting up and trotting home.
I can only imagine trying to free a cat in the same circumstances would be a nightmare.
Good lord I can’t wait to see how it ends.
I love it! Thank you for sharing!!
A wonderful way to start my stay-cation 💗
Oooh the tension! Very nice. I don’t read many male pov because I find them kind of flat. HA is the dependable exception, your male pov always give a rich internal life to the character as well as telling us what’s happening. Best wishes fromCA!
every little thing you do is magic
now I’m wondering if John fainted, did he get the job, was the a/c fixed, why was Tubbs out on the fence, so many questions, so intrigued
thanks for today’s snippet, these characters & storyline are beautifully written and I am glad to have read it even if it is never finished
I would read House Andrews narrate a colonoscopy. This was a master class in short form! How do they turn the mundane into something so compelling? I love the non-ending- it still feels so complete.
Does the cat live?
The cat will be entirely ok, no trigger warning needed 🙂
So relatable, unfortunately LOL! I hope Tubbs gets free and John is able to stay upright! Thanks for the snippet. 💜
Thank you for sharing. Now I want to know what happens next. Will you be sharing?
Ooh! I really like this family, they just grabbed my heart! Too funny about the cat, very realistic about the family finances and I felt like I was there watching! More please HA!
I know how hectic your life is, so even if you don’t have a chance to continue this, I appreciate that you shared it with us. Your storytelling is so amazing, it always sucks me in immediately. You really have a gift. Thank you for brightening my day, I hope your family has an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend!
Feels like a cliffhanger to me…
Great story.
John about to go down. Tubbs has done it now!
A delightful snippet. Thank you for sharing it!
Ok – I realize I read this at my own risk… but now I’m thinking John is going “timber” and I hope he manages to avoid the $7k crashed fence and he’ll be ok. If the fence does goes down, maybe when they replace it they decide to dig into the ground to even it out so the new fence can be level and find something nice buried in the ground that pays for the fence and also enables Laura to open her own salon…. 😉 LOL (Although that might be a stretch for an event based on real events)
On a side note, I had my cat once take a swipe at my sewing machine while I was using it. I was sewing Christmas presents late at night and trying to be inconspicuous. I’d been sewing for over an hour and she was quietly keeping me company. Suddenly she sat up, struck out and yowled! She woke the whole house and scared me senseless! I got her paw’s claw unstuck and she was fine, but I had some nasty scratches and had to re-do that particular bean bag. I’m pretty sure that the “curiosity killed the cat” saying is well earned. How could she manage to get her claw stuck under the presser foot?
Oh nooo kitty!
Loaves should not climb fences.
Great 😌 story start
Now you have to keep John from loosing it and the girls from hysteria….
I am hooked. Please continue this story!
You guys are the best! Totally invested based on a snippet. HA can brings it again!
I, however, am abysmal on the very small screen.
Aaaahhhhhh!!!
love the story!
i fainted in high school, in front of the whole class. turns out i’m hypoglycemic and have to be careful to eat regularly, even if its just a tiny little snack like a couple crackers. there are always emergency snacks stuffed in my purse, and i always bring some water and a snack *just in case* when i leave the house. because my body doesn’t care if plans get delayed an hour or two, either i eat now or i’m going down. but after the first time i fainted, i started to recognize the signs that i’m gonna faint and can sit down before i fall down, or if i’m really lucky, shovel some food in me and not go down at all.
“I don’t know if I will finish this or not, so read at your own risk.”
Heehee. The jokes on HA. There is no way a partial story can be posted to a Horde, no matter how fluffy, without instant demands for more, More, MORE!
I read this warning and instantly thought the warning should have been turned in the other direction… ‘post at your own risk’
I read it, of course, warnings not withstanding, and of course now I want more. But I am so grateful for the lovely little domestic scene that I can’t even be mad if thats all were gonna get. And, just like some others have said, theres an odd sense of completion to the story despite ending on a cliffhanger. I think that speaks volumes to the talent of HA, but also to the experience they have in writing serials. One of their posts commented on the challenge of writing serials, how each weeks bit had to be (in essence) a whole story, yet still be just a part of the story. I think this bit today defines that perfectly!
Yay! Love it! thanks so much! hope everyone is well and safe
House Andrews writes it and we will read it and always want more! Thanks for the story. Hope y’all are doing well.
My 12 year old is in a goth anime phase, so I’m totally feeling this.
I have inherited my mother’s two large, lazy cats. One pees on the floor because the litter box is not clean enough/he wants to go out/it’s Thursday/the sky is up. They eat prescription kibble and only use expensive corn cat litter. I have never brushed so much kitty fur and my eyes sting from allergies.
One cat keeps busting out the screened windows to escape. It will soon be summer and I have no a/c, so this will be interesting. I feel this story. These kitty boys will continue to be spoiled and loved, but oh my!
perfect. love the glow in the dark bandaids
Oooooo! A new shortie! Thank you!
I have vasovagal syncope too (though it isn’t always triggered by the sight of blood – its unpredictable). I also have unusually low blood pressure that makes giving blood take a really long time. I stopped trying decades ago. The last time I tried, I passed out and came to surrounded by people, with one one of the techs yelling that they couldn’t get a pulse. Turned out they were trying to check my pulse on the arm that still had the rubber band tied around it. But it was very disconcerting for a few seconds.