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February 4, 2003

 

Dog and Cat Destroy a Relationship

JANUARY 3, 2003: Mandy Silverton had no idea when she left for work that her life would totally change because of a cat.  On her way to work, she heard an advertisement on the radio for a new café across town from where she worked.  For lunch, she decided to give the new café a try, so she got in her car and drove through a residential neighborhood, supposedly a shortcut through town, so that she could be back in time.  Suddenly, a dog races out in the street, Mandy swerved causing a chain reaction of collisions.  The final blow landed when 23 year old delivery driver, Corey Harris, came racing around the corner, not knowing there was a huge pile-up of cars.  Trying to avoid the wreck, he turned the wheel, and ended up putting the front of his car through the corner of a nearby house.  The house lost structural stability and the roof collapsed.

Police and EMTs arrived on the scene.  Mandy was helped out of her car.  The EMT instructed her to just sit and try to stay calm while they checked her for injuries.  She explained the accident to the cops.  Meanwhile, the emergency crew went into the collapsed house to find a young, naked couple pinned together under the debris; the man passed out and the woman screaming.  Cops tried to call the emergency number in the man’s wallet, but there was no answer.  The man was brought to his senses, checked for serious injuries and instructed to wait a while before trying to drive his car in the event that he might pass out again.  The house was not safe, so the woman was checked into a motel until repairs could be made.

Back to Mandy, as she sat waiting for an officer to give her a ride home, she heard her cell phone ringing in the car.  She had been told not to go near the wreck until it had been declared safe, so she did not answer the phone.  The new crew was covering the whole, crazy thing.  She tried not to be noticed.  Finally, a police officer drove her to her house.  She called work and explained why she had not been back in time, and spent the rest of the day canceling birthday plans, because she would have to go to work on her birthday this week, because she’d already missed work from the wreck.

Bill Silverton arrived home surprised to find his wife already there.  Mandy told Bill about the wreck, which shocked him, causing him to say the only thing that he could think of: “How weird, there was a really bad wreck…near my office, too.  I was held up in traffic.”  Things were okay for a while.  Then the evening news came on TV.

“Quick, honey, the wreck is on TV!” the Mandy shouted.  Bill came in to try to distract his wife from watching the footage.  It didn’t work.  Mandy noticed Bills car parked at one of the houses up the street.

“No, that’s not my car.  I was at work all day.  I’m sure I’m not the only one with that kind of car,” Bill said.

The dog that had caused the wreck was barking at something in the car.  Through the open driver’s window, the frazzled tail of a cat swayed back and forth and disappeared in the back seat.  Mandy got a clever idea, and decided to check the car for cat hair.  She instead found the entire cat and four kittens.  Thinking quick again, Bill said, “Well, you caught me.  I was there today getting the cat for your birthday and I wanted to surprise you with it, but the people I got it from didn’t tell me it was pregnant.”  Feeling much better about it all, as she had a love for animals, Mandy gathered the newborn kittens in her shirt and bought them and the tired mother in the house.  She got in the door just in time to catch the end of the news report.  The house that had been struck by the car was on and a hysterical woman was being pulled out of the house.

“She was really upset,” Bill explained.  Then the camera went back to the house to show the EMTs carrying a naked man out of the house.  Mandy recognized the man even with TV censors covering up his eyes and groin.  Her jaw dropped.

Needless to say, Bill is no longer living with Mandy. The cat and five kittens are her roommates now.  Bill lives across town in a motel with his mistress, looking for a new job (because he lost his job when his boss saw the news and learned he was not sick that day) and thinking up baby names, because due to the roof collapsing he was unable to remove himself at the last moment.

 

DCI staff members have learned a lot from this story.  We’ve spent a good deal of time trying to pinpoint a moral to be taken from this story.  Several were reached.  These included:

“Always use protection.”

“Make sure your sideshow is Pro-Choice.”

“Carry insurance.”

“Lunch break is a bad time to try new things, because you never know how long you’ll be out or what could happen.”

“If a cat is running, watch out for the dog.”

“Don’t leave your car windows down in a neighborhood you shouldn’t be in.”

 

If you have an idea for a better moral of this story, send it in to DCI.