.... where family is the source of humor!

Camping Trip Souvenir by Carol Wells

Most people, when bringing home a souvenir, usually show off a little trinket like an ashtray, a miniature statue, picture book, or a charm for a necklace or bracelet. I think my parents would not have minded something like that instead of what I did take home from one trip.

My parents and some other people from my hometown enjoyed going to a local campground on the weekends - just to relax. One weekend, when I was around 10 in age, a childhood pal and I found a stray tomcat.

Tammy and I carried this cat back to our campsites. While it eagerly enjoyed a can of tuna, we realized that nether of us knew if our parents would allow us to keep the cat.

Tammy suggested that if we agreed to share the cat, therefore any responsibilities attached to it, that our parents would find this mature - on our part - and be agreeable. A fair split - with her taking care of the back half and me tending to the front.

Things did not go as planned. Tammy's parents immediately said "No." She pouted but they remained firm by refusing to agree that our plan to share the cat sounded remotely mature.

It was my turn to try. Mom and Dad sat in the trailer, listening to me explain how we found the cat and already started to take care of it (by feeding it). I went on to say how it really would not be my cat but Tammy's and my cat since we had already divvied up the care of the cat. I thought this bit of information would have my parents feeling I had to honor such an arrangement - in other words, let me keep the cat.

Mom shook her head, commenting about how she did not like cats. Dad wore this facial expression of "Why me?" He was stuck in the middle - back up Mom or give in to my petulant pleading look while I hugged this ugly stray cat close to my chest.

Dad and Mom finally agreed but only after I shared that Tammy and I already fed the cat a can of tuna. As much as my mother disliked cats, she did not feel it would be fair to tease the cat with food then leave it high and dry. The only catch to taking the cat home is that Dad didn't want me to try to treat it like a housecat, since no one knew how long the cat had been living outdoors, and that I tried to keep the cat away from my mother when possible.

Tammy and I did not know that when folks called a cat a tomcat that it generally meant "male cat". We were ignorant about that thing anyway - on how to tell the difference, that is. Anyway, we decided upon the name of Tiger Lily Sam Samantha to cover both genders. We thought this was a highly creative name but, in the end, it did not matter, as the cat remained known as Tom.

After the day my parents and I took the cat home, Tammy's role in the care of Tom dwindled quickly down to her asking me a couple of times at school about how the cat was doing. Not one bag of litter ever came from her way for her half of the cat. My mother liked to comment every so often about Tammy picking the right end of the cat … I did not get the joke until a few years later though.

Tom and our family dog, Kinky, did not hit it off at first. Kinky, unknowing cats did not like dogs, wanted to play with Tom. Tom, knowing that cats did not like dogs, sharply hinted to Kinky that the answer was "No." Since my parents did not allow either animal to sleep in the house, they shared the garage and this sleeping arrangement probably helped them to eventually become playmates.

Mom and Tom, on the other hand, continued to have a love-hate relationship. She swore up and down that she did not like him. Personally, between you, me, and the fence post, Tom would have been to one dense cat to not sense my mother's dislike of cats. I also think Tom enjoyed teasing my mother just to see what her reaction would be like.

I say that because every time my mother went to take a bath, Tom would figure out a way to get into the bathroom and look at her blankly for a few seconds before lying down beside the sub and start washing himself too. Splashing of water did not phase this cat - he would just at her as if to say "And? So?" Then he would resume washing himself as my mother, still in the bathtub, would holler for either me or Dad to go in and remove the cat from the bathroom - and we had better been within hearing range or else I got a worse earful about "that arrogant cat."

No, not another souvenir
No, no no, no, souvenir
-- Paul McCartney Souvenic

Humor Is Relative thanks Cay Dickson, from the Houston Chronicle, for the compliment!

Souvenirs tie us to our memories and to certain uncomfortable deeper feelings.....The word souvenir, of course, means memory and comes, originally, from the Latin verb subvenire, meaning to come into the mind.
-- Laurel Blossom, Tchotchke schlock Things Magazine (Summer 1999)

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-~ Peter Schaffer

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My father, years ago, returned from some trip with a bloody plastic donkey which dispensed cigarettes from its rear end. Just a hint as to where I inherited my couth and culture!
-- Sheila Dundee news:alt.quotations May 2006