The Itinerary of the Internet Cat
Michael Finley
Internet. "People peering for hours into nothing," was how he
characterized it, "and getting nothing in reply."
I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. And as evidence I offer the tale of
the Internet cat.
It begins in a brick house way in countryside outside River Falls,
Wisconsin. Outside is a field of tattered cornstalks, bowed with snow.
Inside, the house is quiet, except for one room, which emits a
constant stream of peeps, squeaks and other sound effects.
No, it's not the bathroom. This is where Deb Enloe, a smallish woman
with an assortment of physical complaints that tend to keep her
housebound, mans her computer keyboard. Deb (online name "Merfuff") is
online, as she is much of every waking day, and the Internet is
serving up the world for her.
To get a handle on Deb (http://www.pressenter.com/~merfuff/), think
enthusiasm, then multiply by eleven. She loves her favorite soap
opera, "One Life to Live." She loves -- in the heart of Packerland, no
less, and in the same house with Packer fan and husband Richard -- the
San Francisco 49ers, and has erected a shrine to Joe Montana behind
her TV. She loves to write. And she loves animals. Oh, how she loves
animals.
Listen to the keyclicks, then, and see how these disparate elements
converge.
For years Deb has made daily visits to a soap opera fan site called
The Cat House Mercury Players "One Life to Live" Guestbook. It gets
its name (everything in this story has multiple names) from the old
Orson Wells theater company, and from Caitlin, the Cat House
webmistress. It is the wide latitude Caitlin allows at her Guestbook
site that permits outrageous digressions and off-topic
subconversations, including one about a little lost kitty, to develop.
And so on to the cat. One of the people Deb chats with is Anita, based
in Reva, Virginia. Another webfriend is Kassandra, based in Bryan,
Ohio. A third is Ariel, who makes her physical abode in Madison,
Wisconsin.
One day, in chat mode, Anita mentioned that a real cat, the kind that
purrs and has a tail, had arrived the night before, cold and hungry,
at her Virginia door. It was a nice cat, but Anita, alas, was allergic
to cats.
When Anita mentioned the cat (temporary name "Miss Kitty") in chat,
Deb leapt a powerful, intuitive leap. She decided in an instant that
she wanted more than anything in the world to adopt Miss Kitty, and
keep her warm and fed on her lap in the brick house in Wisconsin.
But 1,217 miles separated Deb and cat. And Deb is in no shape to
drive.
So who should come to the rescue but the members of the Mercury
Players. Anita, Kassandra, and Ariel put their heads together and came
up with this plan and itinerary:
Anita, with husband Gary (his actual name), toy poodle Susie (Miss
Kitty's best friend), and cat Miss Kitty would leave Reva very early
Friday, March 5 by car.
The foursome crossed into West Virginia at Martinsburg, and rumbled on
into Maryland, through the Cumberland Gap, on to Morgantown, WV and
north to Pittsburgh. From there they commandeered the Pennsylvania and
Ohio turnpikes and drove till they disembarked at Bryan, Ohio.
Total miles Anita and Gary drove the cat, to give to someone they had
never met: 550 miles.
Kassandra had never met Anita. Neither had ever met Deb, either. Her
(Kassandra's) assignment was to take Miss Kitty the next 445 miles of
the journey, across Indiana via the turnpike, up through the Chicago
Loop, and on to Madison, Wisconsin, where she sought out Ariel - whom
Kassandra and Anita had also never met.
Ariel and Kassandra and Miss Kitty together made the final leg of the
trip across the Wisconsin prairie to the brick house amid the tattered
corn.
Throughout this extraordinary journey, Miss Kitty sat calm and uncaged
on a folded up coat in the back seat.
And when they arrived at the brick house, and Miss Kitty was
presented, smiles abounded, except on the serene, tiger-striped face
of the creature who started out lost in real space and wound up
uniting four people who had known each other in virtual space for
years but had never actually locked eyes.
The reunion was over all too soon. But a reminder remained of the
power of friendship, which could traverse half a continent in the name
of a cold, lonely creature's instinct for survival. The cat's, not
Deb's.
Miss Kitty's name has since been changed to Whyspory Mooch Montana
Keeton Cat. "Whyspory" is an acronym for seven favorite 49er players.
"Mooch" is the nickname for 49ers coach Steve Mariucci, formerly with
the Green Bay Packers. "Montana" - well if you have to ask, this
story's really not for you. "Keeton" evidently is a word that somehow
reminds Deb of kitten.
But you don't need to know all this. All you need to hear is the sound
the cat makes on her new mistress' lap, as she (Deb) types out her
daily messages to friends.
It is the sound all cats make in the calmness of their bliss. It is
the sound of friendship at its perfect timbre, of cars speeding by, of
wipers slapping away slush in the dark. It is the murmuring hum of the
living word fervent.
"The Itinerary of the Internet Cat"
by Michael Finley
Copyright © 1998 by Michael Finley
Mike wrote about Deb Enloe once before, which can be read, along with
all Mike's books and essays, at http://www.
mfinley.com/articles/cyberfriend.htm
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Linda Wiley
whisk(p)er to the end of the tale! It's just too adorable and so like
internet friends. :-)
May God Bless All,
Michael Finley <mfinl...@skypoint.com> wrote in article
<36eeb4ef...@news.skypoint.com>...
JAMES CASEY
Michael Finley wrote in message <36eeb4ef...@news.skypoint.com>...
>An acquaintance rolled his eyes when I told him I write about the
>Internet. "People peering for hours into nothing," was how he
>characterized it, "and getting nothing in reply."
>
Really Enjoyed Your Little Tale!!!!! Jamie C.