Well, I want everybody to know ( because if you don't toot your own horn nobody else is going to toot it for you) that AATH has officially gone above and beyond the call of duty....or even doody. Cat doody.

It's like this...

...and you can file this story under "you think you have problems". I have a new client I'll call Cat Lady. I don't think she would mind. She calls herself "a cat lady" She is no where near a record holder for cats in a house...she only has 7. Friends Rick & Rainey Ten-Cats, Cat Rescuers Extrodenaire, have...you guessed it! - 10 cats.

Cat Lady is recoving from a very serious illness. She didn't tell me what it was, but I am almost sure it was some form of cancer. She and her husband bought a spacious two level home on a nice piece of land a few years ago, and immediately she got sick. So they never even really unpacked everything...they just lived from day to day as best they could with her illness. She got well enough to drive by herself in November, but she is still by no means well enough to work, and she is only "able bodied" by the most narrow of definitions. No sooner did she get back the ability to drive than her husband left her! They'd been married over 20 years! What a guy!

So, not surprisingly, she needs a little help around the house. This was my second day at her place...basically doing floors. Cat Lady was working along with me, sorting the recycles from the trash, cleaning out the cat boxes, and deciding where she wanted some boxes now that she had somebody ( me ) to help her move things. Some of the smaller boxes she was toting around to new homes by herself. Just as I was finishing up for the day, she realized she had lost her eyeglasses.

Well, I'm usually pretty good at finding things. It isn't usually any special talent: it's because I personally am a little absent minded and often mislay things myself. Having done this for years, I have learned that it is almost never productive to run around the house, looking for the car keys in the freezer, while screaming, "Ah! Dammit! I'm late again and I can't find my keys/cell phone/ inhaler/ shoes / underwear / handbag / watch / rubber snake...." or WHATEVER. In fact, that usually makes things worse. Instead, I sit down and ask myself "When was the last time I know I had *whatever*? And what did I do since then?" Sometimes, just sitting down and thinking about *whatever* causes it to pop into my mind that I slipped it into a pocket or tossed it into the glove box or something.

So, when somebody else loses something, I try to get them to do that. But, if they are the run-around-look-in-the-freezer type, I can sometimes do it on their behalf, by remembering where THEY were the last time I saw them have *whatever* and about 90% of the time it's close by. If not, look in the bathroom. Stuff falls out of pockets, out of handbags, etc in bathrooms. I don't know why, but it's true.

More rarely still, sometimes I can get "the winkle" on a lost object. A picture will come into my mind of where *whatever* is...and sometimes it's there, or nearby.

Anyhow, it rapidly became apparent that Cat Lady's eye glasses were not just mislaid, but well and truly lost. And since she has 7 cats, it was entirely possible that one of them batted them under some piece of furniture. Did I mention that this is a really large house?

We searched the laundry room, the garage, the part of the yard where she had been. I searched the bathroom with great care, got down on my hands and knees and looked under the bed and under other furniture pieces. We found 8 missing cat toys, 4 unrelated socks, and water damage in the basement, but no eyeglasses. Desperate, I sat down to try to get "the winkle" and was rewarded by an image of eyeglasses on a crowded desk in the office. I went in, and there they were....only these were eyeglass FRAMES - no lenses. Not only did I locate that pair of frames, but I found 3 more that way! "The Winkle" is a very ineffecient way of communicating with the Universe. It's like I send out a signel and get back "kinda sorta".

"Tea, the only thing I can think of is they must have fallen in the cat litter. The used litter I have all bagged up."

"Oh, that's not good." I said, "I hope that's not true."

"No more so than me!" Cat Lady said. "I don't know what to do. I have to look...but all that dust...I'll be sick for sure."

"I'll do it." I said.

"Oh, no way! I can't ask you to do that! There's turds in there!"

"Yeah, well, that's why I figured you changed the litter." I smiled. "I've got a pair of gloves. We really have looked everywhere else."

"I don't believe this! But I really can't see without them. And that dust really is bad for me."

"Okay. Just remember, if anybody asks about my service, to tell them I go beyond the call of doody....or answer the call of doody, or something."

And, Friends, I went through every single bag of that used cat litter, knowing that those glasses weren't in there. And they weren't!!

"I keep thinking...." I said, on our 30th track around the living room, "that you had them up until the time you brought a box up and headed towards the office, but I didn't see what box it was, because those other boxes were stacked up. Did you move this one?"

"Yeah, I did pick that up from the basement."

And I reached in the box and there they were! Black framed glasses inside a box with a black waffle iron.

Another satisfied customer! Thank God! I've GOT to go take a shower right now!