Skitter and I click. From the first time we met at the dog rescue in December of 2013, Skitter and I felt a kinship with each other’s peculiarities. I think we must have recognized each other’s raggedy edges. Her previous mistreatment and my constant bipolar rapids somehow recognized each other, and we formed a connection that has functioned to the betterment of both of us. Suzanne and Rowan recognized it happen that day too. That’s a sweet and sappy story, but it’s also true. Today, however, actual mind-reading was involved going on between The Skit and I.
While I was filling up the recycling can, I got a song stuck in my head. I could not shut it off. And it was completely out of nowhere. Worse, it was a smarmy tune from the 70’s! It was Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.” I haven’t heard or thought of the song in decades. I stood staring into the recycling can, trying to figure out what was in there that could have possibly set off that song in my mind. There was nothing I could see. I left the garage and went upstairs to wash a load of face masks for the week, and that song kept playing in my head. I turned on other music to drown it out, but no—my life was still getting lit up by Debby Boone’s voice between my ears, over and over. Aaaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhh! It was becoming painful to my brain. I thought: How can the repetition of such a syrupy sweet song cause an amount of irritation which makes me want to wretch and say swear words at the same time?
I went downstairs and poured myself a stiff drink of watermelon-flavored sparkling water, then sat down by Skitter, who had been nowhere around me and my house chores. Skitter—as you can see here—had clearly used her telepathic powers to hear the song that was stuck in my head, and she had tried to rescue me by wrapping herself in the candy corn Halloween lights to send me a message: I light up her life. It, of course, caused me to laugh so hard I forgot all about the stoopid Debby Boone song. Skitter and I have been singing new Bruce Springsteen songs together ever since the dastardly Debby Boone tune flew the proverbial coop of my noggin.
BTW I’m not sure if that was a tall tale or a tall “tail.” I guess it depends on whether I wrote it or Skitter did.