You ever get the look? You know what I am talking about here, that look you got the first time in your life when you were a kid and your parents were upset with you? When your spouse saw you do something really stooooopid or is a bit put out with you? The way your boss looks at you when the report is late and you don’t have what it is that he wants?
So that is what this post is about.
The look … And Cats.
One of the first jobs I ever had in life was at a place called “Starlight Manufacturing” and it was a cabinet shop in the San Francisco Bay Area that made custom cabinet and pre-hung fabricated doors. My official title in all of this as I remember it was gopher.
I was a teen-age gopher, sounds like one of those terrible Michael Landon B-Movies out of Hollywood doesn’t it? Briefly I will now offer up my job title, such as it was: I was told what it was, where it was, and then I was to “go for it.” Not all that hard a concept for a sixteen year old kid to grasp.
Each and every morning, around ten A.M. a truck would arrive on the site, and the building would slowly empty out into the parking lot for a mid-morning snack and coffee break. Everyone hailed the arrival of what we affectionately referred to as the “Gee-Dunk Wagon or the Roach Coach.” This was a small truck that was filled with sugary delights, cold sandwiches, hot coffee and dairy products.
I most always opted for the small bottle of chocolate milk and an egg salad sandwich. I am a HUGE fan of egg salad sandwiches, even to this day.
Every morning, promptly at the same time, the truck would show up, the operator, a big robust woman named Sally, would open up the side partions and everyone would gather around and order up their snack or particular sinful unhealthy treat. After purchasing our confectionary what-evers, we would walk about twenty feet away and sit down on a stack of lumber that was being stored in the parking lot.
As I was just a kid at the time, I was mostly relegated to “listening to what is going on” when you are sixteen you don’t really have a whole lot to add to the mix. This might be the first time in life that I learned the concept of that in order to become a better listener, you have to simply have a genuine desire to do so. So I would sip on my chocolate milk and munch on my sandwich and listen to what the guys in the shop had to say as they sat on this pile of lumber and talked.
One day in particular, we are all sitting on this stack of lumber and this old alley cat comes walking down thru the yard. Slow and pronounced his arrival on the scene could not be missed. This cat, carried with him not only an air of authority but a very profound appearance of a veteran of more than one late night encounter with another mixed breed street veteran behind someone’s house in the alley.
This cat believe it or not, was like the Rambo of cats. His left ear had a big chunk missing, his right eye was swollen shut and his body in general seemed to be missing a lot of fur in several places, not to mention his noticeable limp.
Well, I hate to say this, but it was somewhat amusing, for one reason or another, every guy on that stack of lumber, to a man, started to laugh at this cat.
The cat abruptly stopped dead in his tracks, turned and looked at us and with a very deliberate stare. The kind of bone-chilling stare that produces fear in an animal or a man for that matter. And the look was nothing short of “I can handle your business boys, and I am here to back it up.” And believe it or not, every man on that stack of lumber immediately stopped laughing at that old beat up cat.
Dead silence.
The cat stared at us for a moment in time, and then as if satisfied that everyone thing was again copacetic in his world, he walked off. I then turned to the guy sitting next to me, his name was Hal. A rugged individual, Ex-Marine WWII, a man of hardy stock indeed. One of those powerful people in life, that just somehow commands respect, no one in the shop gave any guff to Hal. A chiseled Marine vet, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, this guy was one of the first people I learned to show respect to as a kid.
I looked at him and I said, “Hey Hal? How come you stopped laughing at that cat, when he stared us all down.”
He smiled a big smile (rare indeed) and he said, “I dunno kid, he just had that look about him.”
Have a good one.
OOO
Today’s Chuckle for the Day: CrackerBoy
