aiming for (financial) slug-cess

I befriended a feral cat once who had spent her life in the forest without human interaction. I was worried about her because she had a paw damaged from an old injury and was emaciated but obviously nursing kittens that were hidden away somewhere. It took me weeks of putting out food and sitting across the yard every evening for her to trust me even a little and when she decided we were friends and she expected dinner every night she started coming to my door and trying to call for me in the evening, but she didn’t meow. Why would she? Cats only meow naturally as kittens when their vocal chords/ears aren’t fully developed, adult cats communicate with vocalizations that aren’t audible to humans. She probably tried making noises I couldn’t hear to call me but ended up sticking to the one I always responded to- a horrible yowling growl that she had made at me when we first encountered each other in the forest. Except once we were friends she would make this noise while purring and rubbing affectionately against a nearby tree or the porch railing (because she didn’t want to touch me yet). This understandably freaked my family members out but I was touched that she had taken the time to find a way to basically yell FUCK OFF in an affectionate way.

Fast forward to when she finally trusts me enough to bring her hidden kittens out of the forest to me, long story short I gained their trust and put them in this big pen, that I had previously used to keep chickens in, so they’d be safe and to keep her from having another litter. Except she was already secretly pregnant again! (Fix your pets, guys, they make SO many babies) and ended up having her new babies in this pen. I kept my distance, sitting on the outside once they were born until she seemed comfortable enough to let me come inside. The kittens were a bit wild, hissing viscously at me as soon as they opened their eyes, but they warmed up to me. There were four of them and soon they all wanted to be the center of attention during the twice daily play sessions. I’d be playing with one and another would meow insistently behind me and I’d immediately answer them and give them love, teaching them that humans could be friends that answer their needs- making them adoptable once they were weaned. Mama cat (Artie) would just watch me play with them, and I guess she was doing some thinking because one day when they were about a month old I was playing with them and one meowed behind me. I was confused because I hadn’t realized there was a kitten behind me and when I turned, there wasn’t. The only cat there was Artie looking at me really intensely. I turned back around to the kittens and I heard the meow again, I turned back to Artie and responded in the way I always did with the kittens “yes baby?” And she meowed again in an exact imitation of her kittens! After that she would.not.shut.up. It was like she had cracked some kind of code, meowing for attention and snacks and just to say hi. Her two older kittens, the ones she’d had in the forest, had never meowed at me either but started to once they saw how I responded to their mom. and I find it endlessly fascinating because before that it had never occurred to me that cats only meow at humans because they were taught by other cats to keep meowing past kittenhood because that’s the best way to get a human’s attention.

OK

final one

for all the marbles,

this one doesn't have an illustration bc i think it was just a kids novel but i haven't been able to find ANYTHING about it on my occasional internet queries:

kids is staying with his (grandmother?) in the woods and she warns him not to look a fox in the eyes bc they're tricksy and will swap places with you. obviously that's the first thing the little boy does and gets body snatched by a fox who uhhhh proceeds to pig out with his new little boy human hands and the boy has to trick the fox into looking him in the eyes again to switch back...

David Shiner

John Gilkey

Emmett Kelly

Tweedy

Facuno Gimenez

on the names of ACTUAL

clowns instead maybe

well every time i've called, the new representative has been like "i'm so sorry, but there's no ticket by that number. i have no record of you ever calling about this. i'll start a ticket for you."

finally, the fifth time i nearly burst into tears of frustration and i said "i don't want you to start a ticket for me, because it will be the sixth ticket created for this same issue. every week, one of your colleagues tells me they'll create a a new ticket for me, and then nothing happens."

they said, "i'm sorry but i have no record of those tickets existing." and i was like i KNOW. but they doooooo what is happening.

finally i got transferred to a supervisor's supervisor.

if you've ever worked in online customer service, you know that when a customer calls with a problem, you create a "ticket" that puts that issue into the system. if you can't resolve it, it goes into a ticket queue, where other people with the ability to resolve it select it, put it into their personal working queue, and resolve it.

well after 30 minutes of searching, this supervisor tells me, dumbfounded, that she's discovered a completely unique queue she's never seen before, where my tickets have been going somehow. a pocket universe queue that no one has access to or can edit or select from, not even her. she has no idea what's happening. she's like "yes, here are all your tickets, and no one can open them or comment on them or resolve them.....this is crazy......" and it's JUST my tickets in there. no one else's. of tens of thousands of customers.

all professionalism fell by the wayside. i told her i've worked with those queues before and also found that totally wild. she was like "what the hell is going on...." and talked me through everything she was seeing and how gobsmacked she was. we were both like "this is one for the books truly"

tells me she's going to have to bring this up above herself because this is a really big error on like, a coding level, that she has no idea how to resolve. tells me she will personally call me back tomorrow to update me.

four days pass with no word.

i call customer service again. random agent. explain the entire situation, including that last bit.

agent says "i'm sorry but i have no record of those tickets existing. i'll have to start a ticket for you. rest assured, it will be resolved."

i said, "no it won't be. it never will be. because they're in the special queue."