Correspondence File: 1/11/08

Dear Coat Manufacturers (Everywhere):

For the love of Pete, will you please make coats with well-sewn buttons? I mean, honestly.
Listen, I know you can't possibly imagine how many times a person can get out of their car and actually HOOK the button on the inside of the driver's door, nor could you anticipate when someone (such as myself) might buy a coat that just(barely)fits and wear the goddamn thing anyway, because you feel funky and cool in it, even though the simple act of taking a sip of coffee some morning might snap the back buttoned thing off in its tracks, but fergodsake, I am a repellent to buttons over here, and if the 2 year old in your sweatshop can't sew a button tightly you should imprison her whole family.

Because I never remember where I put them for safekeeping,
Salome

p.s. When I die, I will be remembered as the lady that had "many random buttons in schizophrenic proliferation among personal belongings." And it will be all your fault. Please call Larry King and explain my life.

Dear Unfathomable Multi-Locale Breakout,

We've already been through this. Listen, sebum glands. I've had it. If you freak the fuck out three days before an important meeting ONE MORE TIME.....I'm going to plunge my face into a bath of pure glycol. I KNOW it is an important meeting. I was up until 3am last night, wasn't I? I'm well aware of the general all-purpose FREAKOUT going on in my brain. I would expect YOU of all body processes to give me some support. You must be friends with the Sudden-Unexplained-Alarming-Bloat. I hope you're proud of yourself. Big Important Meeting meets Fat Teenager with Lack of Sleep Twitch. Nice.

Alarmingly Using The CAPS LOCK,
Salome

Dear Pet Products Store Catered to Soft Hearts Like Me,

Do you really have to be so expensive? Listen, I'm not so infatuated that I don't know that all the products I buy are because I think a domesticated animal is a human family member. But listen, they are, she is, and I CARE. If they need me, I AM HERE. Even though I have the most pampered and coddled cats since Egypt, I still look for ways to liquidate my savings. But $42 EACH for the pheromone thing that MIGHT make Lucy stop stalking everything in the house and Leo stop peeing on my dirty laundry? That is outrageous. The new brush I bought because their old brush is, well, old? Highway Robbery. $10 a month per cat for the Prozac that will allow these freakazoids to just FUCKING CHILL FOR A MOMENT WITH ALL THE DRAMA, COULD WE PLEASE? Unbelievable. You are sucking me dry.

When I Die, I Want to Come Back As My Cat,
Salome

Dear Finny,

My dear. My darling boy. You are still gone. I know you're not coming back. And I can just about type this without breaking open like the fury and pain of the sea when it hits the shore with intent to kill and spatters into mist. Just about. I am profound with the lack of you. I was at Petco tonight, honey. At the place where the cats who need homes are, my heart raced and my spirits soared, if only just to find you. If only just to see you now, seven long and heartbreaking months, and scoop you up and say FINALLY. Finally, honey you're home, and everything that happened we will laugh about, at night when you and I curl up in bed and we are mom and boy. Today I gave your favorite toy to the stray that my heart wouldn't let me hold out on. She liked it, but not like you did. She won't bring me the felt lightning bolt with the bell I painstakingly sewed on it, drop it in my lap to say, "Here. Throw this, I feel like playing. I feel like chasing this and bringing it back to you so you can throw it again and then we'll be having fun together." I cried about you on New Year's Eve. I had cold medicine and then tequila and then champagne and all of a sudden I was all red-face and snot, crying to Lakshmi about you. You are just a cat, I know, but I am just a human, and you brought my life so much light. When you left, or died, or were taken, joy just stopped for me. I am trying to coax it back, but this house is filthy with memories of you. I can't go in the garden, it breaks my heart. I can't stop stopping in my tracks when something reminds me of you, and it is like you just went missing. I can't let you go, little man, my heart won't let me.

Be Safe and Please Don't Ever Forget That I Love You, That I Always Did and Always Will,
Mom