Some Saturday Nonsense

The Unusual Suspects


When my cat,
Hanna Karenina Barbera, died,
I was out walking the dog, Sit,
And Curiosity proved
To have an iron-clad alibi,
So I was forced to round up
The unusual suspects.

On a carton of eggs,
I used the best techniques
I’ve gleaned from assiduously
Tivo-ing The Closer,
But they wouldn’t crack.

With a deft change of clothes
I managed to single-handedly
Good cop/bad cop the salt and pepper shakers
But I couldn’t get anything out of them.

When I cast aspersions at the blender
She immediately called her lawyer,
The can opener, which made me think
She was the culprit
And for a while she got all mixed up in her story
But eventually the stepladder stood up for her
And admitted the two of them had been
Fooling around in the broom closet
At the time of Hanna’s demise
(needless to say, the spatula went ballistic).

The curtains opened up
And admitted their jealousy of Hanna,
But they swore their innocence,
And who am I to doubt my curtains?
I’m just a bachelor, after all.

I roughed up a couple of throw rugs
And knew they were lying—as usual—
When they told me they were studying
For their GMATs at the time,
But in the end they just seemed too lazy
To be killers.

Eventually I decided to sift for clues.
I snatched some hairballs away from
The frolicking dust bunnies and
Cleveland Heights CSI-ed them
Under my 1.75 reading glasses,
But saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The catnip bean bags didn’t smell or taste
Funny, and when I regained my senses
I grabbed my pail and shovel
And headed for the litter box,
Where I almost simultaneously
Shat and peed my pants.

There, clumped but distinct,
writ small but legibly
(oh Hanna Karenina Barbera, you were
so agile and polite) was this message:
“Apathy’s got the best of me.”

I was crestfallen.
A little more investigating and sure enough,
I found my candy dish filled with Valium (Valia?)
Had been ransacked
And two empty airplane Vodka bottles
Had been ditched behind Hanna’s favorite
Clawed coffee table leg.

There you have it:
The most unusual suspect of all,
Apathy killed my cat.

I really need to get another life.

Pere Ubu-George Had a Hat