Cat in a Box FINISHED STORY

Cat in a Box ©

By Michael Casey

You find with children that when they are very young sometimes they enjoy the packaging more than the toy itself. Well let me tell you, cats are no different. Totoro our cat is more dog than cat, she’ll fetch a scrunched up Aldi till receipt and return it to your feet, if I had a small ball she would no doubt do the same with that. Aldi feeds  the family and provides fun for our cat when she gets to chase and play with the till receipt.

We finally got a new living room carpet, and as a precaution I bought another cat toy to keep her from scratching the new carpet. She spends most of her time upstairs but when she is roaming all over the house she does admire the furniture, which is a posh way of saying she tries to scratch it. Then scolded by us she leaps on top of our fridge freezer which is about 2 metres tall, or 6 feet 6 if you use normal measures. I have a new fans in Venezuela and Kuwait so I have to use metric in my stories for their benefit, hello to Latvia too if you are reading this the latest story.

So while I was out shopping I stopped by the pet store in the market, high up on a shelf, higher than the top shelf for magazines in a newsagents I spotted a cat scratcher. If Totoro were with me she could have jumped up and knocked it down to me. Instead I had to go on tip toes and reach, I’m not tiny either, stretching is a pain for me as all my scar tissue hurts if I stretch, both my legs and on my chest where I have my pirate scar.

So I bought the scratcher and brought it home, do any of you mix up bought and brought? Lots of people do when they speak, if English is your 2^nd language it can really confuse, see the former Esol English Teacher in me coming out. So I came home and Totoro was delighted to play with the receipt for the cat scratcher. I took it out the box and clipped it together, it’s an arch with what looks like giant loo brush material on a base for the cat to scratch. Plus you insert something called catnip it’s like skunk/cannabis but for cats. No its not drugs before I get the RSPCA or Humane Society on my back, not to mention the drugs squad. Catnip is something cats go mad for, they will dig and scratch for it, on the cat scratcher, and NOT on your furniture or brand new carpet.

So much for the theory, our cat, our Totoro, did have a little go but as she is part retriever dog, she just ignored it and may have gone upstairs to sleep on or under one of the beds, just like Goldilocks.

So I gave her the box to play with, this was more pleasing to her, she dived in and forced the other side open. In and out like a jack in the box, half in and half out. I then had inspiration I threw the till receipt into the box, that was perfect or should I say purrfect, Totoro was delighted. She played the box like a pinball machine, knocking the paper back and forth and through the box. She dived in and out of the box, she was a pinball wizard, Elton John could have even have written a song about her.

Later when she had finished I hid the box behind our piano so that we could use it another day. This morning we got a bit more rope in the post to tie to the old scratch post, we used it like a skipping rope stretched the whole length of house upstairs from bedroom to bedroom along the landing. Totoro was not very good at Double Dutch if I’ve remembered the name of that skipping game, but she was good at chewing her new 15metres of rope. My wife wondered what we were all up to, so I told her I’d bought it for her, 50 Shades of Michael.

Later after breakfast I decided to get the box out and give Totoro more fun, only my wife had tidied it up, it was in the recycle bin, sometimes mums are no fun at all. I still have the rope though….

Still a Child at Heart

Still a Child at Heart ©
By Michael Casey

I have been called a big kid, but I take it as a compliment, it was when I went out to work, now I’m a hausfrau and full time undiscovered writer but then they’d laugh at me and say I was a big kid. Why should I care, it proves I have a young outlook, my body may look 95 and sometimes it feels that way with all my pain, but otherwise, but otherwise, I am 20 in my head, and my Birth Certificate splits the difference.

I go out and buy sweets, mainly for my two daughters, but I have their leftovers, and they introduce me to strange things like strawberry shoelaces and 1001 variants of chocolate. Girls know their chocolate just as a sommelier knows his wife sorry I mean wine, and a greengrocer knows his onions. When you have children they improve your knowledge of sweets, I am nearer in age to a grandfather than a father as I have a young wife. It is a cross I have to carry.

So you are dispatched out into the rain and told to buy this and that from the sweet shop, it’s on the left of the lotto display just above your ankle, in a bright green or yellow pack, but don’t buy the red version. So obviously I come home with the red pack, greeted with howls of disapproval, until we open it and discover their new best favourite ever for chews. It’s dangerous being a dad, daughters will lynch you if you bring the wrong sweets home.

My own dad used to bring home cheese and onion crisps when he returned from his weekend trip to the pub, I am told it must be Walkers, nothing to do with that footballer, they don’t even know who he is, it’s just trial and error. Now I would be on trial if I erred and made and error of judgement and picked the wrong crisps. Though cheap crisp things are ok if they are with the spicy dip from Aldi.

There is an etiquette for sweets and savouries, and you are in deep deep trouble if you get anything wrong, children are like a hanging jury, eager to stretch your neck should you buy the wrong thing. So any of you out there planning a family, spend those nine months learning everything there is to know about sweets, it is an investment in your own mental health.

As we have a Polish Deli and general store by us I sometimes sample their wares, I stand there looking at the pictures, as I’ll never be clever enough to read Polish, and if the picture is nice, then I’ll but their sweets. The tastes are different as are Chinese and Korean snacks which we also have in our house, remember my wife is from Shanghai. So you dive in and you can make some great discoveries, those Polish snacks are great, I don’t know what it says on the packaging but they really do hit the spot.
Polish coca cola is great too as it comes in 2.25 litre bottles and is 50p cheaper than the real thing, ditto for Sprite and Tango, Poles are big people so they need that bit extra. This means me and my small daughter burp and belch so loud that the Poles stand on their doorstep laughing at us, its Santa again they say, because I look like Santa with my hair.

I could go on about all the different sweets, but your teeth will rot just by listening to it. I do buy Colgate six packs at a time from Aldi, but be careful where you store your toothpaste. When I am in dire need for my Movelate pain killer I scream for my daughter to bring it to me, and she rushes to bring the pain killer to me. Only she brings Colgate to me instead, my arthritis would smell nice but the pain would still be there if I spread it on my joints. So always store the tooth paste far from your pain killer.

Its my Right

It’s My Right ©
By Michael Casey

It’s my right to own a gun, cos I’m a MAN
It’s my right to shoot and hunt and be a MAN
Cos I am a MAN and it’s my RIGHT
It’s my right to have enough ammo to invade Panama
It’s my right to have as many weapons as the Police Force
It’s my right to use my gun as I like
It’s my right to take my weapon to the Library and to Church
It’s my right to be a MAN with a gun because I CAN
It was his right to go into a school and kill and maim
It was his right to go into a movie theatre and kill and maim
It was his right, it was his right, it was his right, it was his right
It was their right to scream in fear and pain, to piss their pants with fear
It was their right to die and go into the darkness of death because of his right
It was their right to have their bodies broken and brown away
It was their right to be dead and unrecognisable to their loved ones
It was their right to die before having even lived
It was their right to die without knowing why
It was their right to die without even having time to cry
It was their right to die without even saying goodbye to mum and dad
It was his right to own a gun because he was a MAN it was his right
Now only the undertaker is busy, the undertaker is crying
The undertaker takes the bodies away, the undertaker takes the bodies away
The undertaker is crying, the undertaker is crying
The undertaker hasn’t got enough coffins, there are never enough coffins
The undertaker hasn’t got enough coffins, there are never enough coffins
So which is more important the right to bear arms, or the right to bear a coffin


****** I wrote this 8 months ago at the time of yet another slaughter, now we have the Orlando massacre,
all I can say is Love is Love  so don't kill because they are gay

Pyjama Game

Pyjama Game ©

By Michael Casey

No I’m not going to write about Doris Day, I’m going to talk about pyjamas or lack of them. I got rid of pyjamas 30 years ago when I got my own house, I could walk around naked now that I wasn’t living at home, I was living in my own home. I toss and turn a lot when in bed, I’m like a chicken on a spit or a kebab  gently turning until well done on all sides. My favourite sleeping position was on my belly with my bum in the air, perfect for parking a bicycle if you remember the old  Billy Connolly joke.

Pyjamas are restrictive, so throwing them away was such a relief, besides they always gave way in the crotch. However if you walk around the house naked you can frighten the neighbours, some even called a zoo once as I’m very hairy, they thought one of the primates had escaped. You think I’m joking, but if you were my lover you’d buy a razor first before indulging in the pleasures of the flesh. Tom Jones had knickers thrown at him, I’d just have Gillette held up.

Fast forward to marriage and children and then pyjamas or a dressing gown at least had to be bought and worn. You can see from the photos attached to my writing that I still have one very old dressing gown, I wear it as I sit here and talk to you, it’s not writing it’s talking, I hope you can spot the difference. As I write I listening to Andre Bocelli I needed something soothing after today’s news, I write to amuse and sooth just as he sings.

So I have to wear pyjamas especially if the mother in law  is visiting from Shanghai, the Bear Necessities may be a good song from the Jungle Book, but she does not need to see  my jungle or my bare anything, not in this life or any. So if I have to wear PJs as they are called nowadays then I’ll be different, I’ll wear women’s PJs or rather very very fat women’s PJs, they have such nice patterns. Once I get back to bed I can throw them off but around the house so as not to frighten the family or the little old lady  over the road with the telescope or is it microscope  then PJs will be worn.

The postman is very diplomatic as I open the door in my pyjamas, funny place to have a door, in your pyjamas, but if Eric Morcambe  can use that old joke then so can I. The alternative would be to allow the postman to see my wrecking ball, and I am no Miley Cyrus, so I just open the door in my pyjamas, and he sees a very grown man, 17stones of a man wearing white pyjamas with rain deer on them, that’s the bottoms, as for the top which is a very tight fit, 46inch plus, a rose flower pattern everywhere, are there no 46 inch women anywhere? So the postman keeps  his eyes averted and hands me a parcel, I’ll have to give him something at Christmas, maybe a pair of women’s PJs.

Lounging around the house all day in PJs is very liberating, not as much fun as being naked, I think I’ll have to be a nudist in Japan in future, anyway its liberating because you are all relaxed, like being in bed without being in bed. Wasn’t the Jewish guy in Sex and the City a daytime nudist, you know the one who married one of the girls. Anyway try it for yourself, but make sure you double lock the door and close any curtains, the last thing you want is your mother in law coming in and catching you all in the nude.  

Shanghai tradition is that you spend all day in your slobs, or PJs then only when you go out  do you put your street clothes on, so if you come around our house it’s like watching  Boat People, all dressed from a charity shop, a very bad charity shop. Then when the wife puts on her makeup and the kids follow her it’s like Disney just sprinkled fairy dust on them all, I follow on looking like Baloo the Bear. I suppose it’s God’s sense of humour.

Outside the home, which is Chinese English, my wife with girls in tow stop traffic and should be modelling, in fact my wife works for a children’s fashion retailer, even producing videos for the website. But when they come home they look like refugees again, as for me I never change I look like Baloo the Bear always.

So what should I say in conclusion, being a home nudist is very relaxing, especially if you have no kids or mother in laws to disturb you. I only stumbled on this life as my bathroom was downstairs and I was not going to wear a robe to go back upstairs to put my clothes on.  However its always best to hang loose, you never know when a Japanese girl might hand you a Gillette.

Many Nations

	Thanks to all the world wide visitors

don't forget my 10 books are on Amazon just look for my face, they are very affordable too.

www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com to HEAR 50 of my stories just scroll down. Angel Investor needed too for my teach English via humour idea

40 stories with 40 facing

page translations plus my audio in each book,

I've passed 750 stories now

United Kingdom
United States
Isle of Man
Portugal
Poland
Russia
Australia
Kuwait
Ukraine that's  all Michael Casey here in Birmingham still hoping to earn some money so I can move house and then pay for both my daughters to become Doctors and then buy them both a house and a car, that's if I live that long.

Cross Conversations

Cross Conversations ©

By Michael Casey

We all talk, we all have conversations, we even have cross conversations and  we also can have cross conversations. No I’m not stuttering, by cross conversations I mean cross conversations and not just cross conversations, we can even have cross cross conversations. Shall I explain?  A conversation is just that a conversation, a cross conversation can mean you are angry, so really it’s an argument and not a conversation at all. But a cross conversation is a cross purposes conversation, or two actual conversations weaving in and out.

I hope I’ve explained it simply for you, me and my sister used to regularly have cross conversations. We’d be at the family house and talking to dad in my case and to mum in her case, then we’d switch for 5 minutes before we’d jump in my sister’s car and we go home to our own homes. This was the case for years, it kind of stopped 20 years ago when mum died suddenly and dad nearly joined her 8 bare weeks later. Some of it is explained in Padre Pio and Me.

Now my sister would speak of this and that, and did I know old Mrs Smith had died, not the fat Mrs Smith from Winson Green down by the Prison, no the slim Mrs Smith from the city centre, the one who’d won the lottery and bought that flat by the canals. I would talk over her and tell her I had diarrhoea from a dodgy kebab I’d had on my way home from work, but it had tasted so good I’d promised myself another. Now I was disappointed where would I find the perfect kebab, we weren’t on the Internet back then maybe 25 to 30 years ago so finding a good kebab was all about trial and error, not to mention lots of toilet paper.

I did in fact nearly die in Paris, I was on a trip in 1998 and JC had said stay by the Gare Du Nord,  little did I know it as a red light area. So I went out and had a Chinese, I looked like a German Policeman in my leather jacket, I could hear people on the bus comment, Flic Almand, I knew enough French to understand. I had too much wine with my meal, and was tipsy on the Metto, I ended up at the Eiffel tower with a broken camera, so I was asking the girl in the box at the bottom of the Eiffel tower how I could I could fix the camera.

Anyways on the way home I had a kebab, they were like whole sheep on a spit, it was fabulous. Then I stumbled into to my kiosk of a hotel, next to a huge church on the corner with Film Blache shops outside, this means sex films, as skin is white after all. In the middle of the night I erupted like a fountain of filth, from both ends. My bathroom  was a wardrobe, without a lion nor a witch, but with a sink, toilet and shower all squeezed in. I spent forever in there, I thought I’d die, I swore I’d never eat a kebab again, then I saw reason and compromised, I’d never come to Paris again.

And I never have, Kebabs are more sacred so I have had those. In the morning I found a pharmacy and asked in my best French “avec vous des asprins” and I received a box which on opening had a tube inside which said “tamponee”. So obviously I was confused and wondered how as a male I’d use this asprins. Luckily inside the tube were extra stong mint size asprin. I put one in my mouth, only for it to turn me into a rabid dog. They were meant to dissolve in water, I just foamed at the mouth, on the street outside the pharmacy, next to the condom machine, which at first I had thought was a bubble gum machine. It is France after all, in UK such machines are hidden in the filth of gents toilets in pubs.

Now I just went off at a tangent then, the Corrs are singing “everybody is searching for intimacy” on my hifi as I talk to you, have they ever been to France I wonder.  So we used to have conversations at rapid fire, because we only had a few minutes together in the car before we got to our own home. It was a way of sharing our hopes and dreams and worries and supporting each other. To an outsider, to a fly on the wall it could be incomprehensible, and just as I typed that word the Corrs sing it, they actually sung comprehend, this is my life a rich pageant of nonsense.

I’m trying to have a straightforward life but God intervenes at cross purposes and just as I do X He decides Y is far better, but I am still alive after my triple heart bypass, which was it God turned into a quadruple, because it would be better for me. I only found only 6 months later that it was a quadruple, 4 grafts.

So as I talk to you I hear the tv in the other room and wonder what am I missing, so I have the Corrs, conversation in Mandarin and children’s laughter floating all around the house. Then Totoro our cat smiles at me from behind the chair in the window, it’s very off putting and could make me cross, but then I suppose it highlights what I was trying to talk about in the first place, which was cross talking, don’t be cross I’m finishing now.   

this is me in Malta 2013 I just wish I could go back, anybody got a spare bed at the Hilton?

Who's been reading my stuff

Who’s Been Reading My Stuff?©

By Michael Casey

Well tomorrow 8th June 2016 marks the end of my stuff being in the Daily Telegraph, it’s not as if I’m invited to write and paid as much as Boris, though my silver hair is far nicer than his, I use Aldi Tea Tree shampoo, perhaps he should. No, I write in the my telegraph  area, which will disappear overnight just as spilt beer does, and pee on the bathroom floor, I’m sure the cat does it. So it’s the end of an era, though I do write in two other places so I can still be found.

So after I write I check back to see if I have any visitors, and google even tells me where they are located. Today it was Australia and 13 from Isle of Man, so it got me wondering who could it possibly be? Who is it, could it be one of the Bee Gees? So I checked for famous people who live on the Isle of Man and up popped one of the Bee Gees, the last living one that is. So I must have a Bee Gee fan, singing staying alive as he reads my stuff. Yes Really.  Ok, that’s a big stretch, but you never know, you never know.

Then I discovered that Jeremy Clarkson lived on Isle of Man, that’s a big stretch, or rather he is a big stretch just how does he fit into the cars, I’m sure they take the bottom of the seats out so he can fit in, or even saw a hole out the bottom, so his bottom scrapes on the road beneath the car. That would explain his facial expressions, and he’s always droning on about ride and suspension, wouldn’t you if your bum burnt more rubber than the tires. Or do they coat his undercarriage with something to lesson fiction as he test drives the cars, maybe a kind of KY gel for motorists, or motoring journalists?

Then I thought it must be something to do with cats, as I have put Totoro our family cat in some of my pieces, maybe it’s a cat lover, in search of a tail or is it tale? I won’t say the obvious but you are all thinking it. Go to confession immediately. Then I thought it could be Fr. George whom I mentioned at the end of Face Values my previous post, I spotted that there are Catholics on the Isle of Man, part of Liverpool diocese, so Fr. George could stumbled over me.

Ukraine popped up too, so obviously it must be the billionaire candy man reading my stuff, he just adores my stories. Really though it’s either hackers or porn sites stumbling over me, Ukraine is full of them. Though with my luck it’s probably Putin people thinking I’m Leslie Nielsen and wanting my autograph. For my birthday at Pinsent Masons in the print room, large posters of him were placed on the windows, but they were 6 weeks out.

Then Portugal seem to like reading my stuff so it must be retired football managers  and retired rich people gazing at my photo, and even reading a few words. I put a photo with each piece of writing to identify me as he writer and sole copyright holder. My writing still gets lifted so I remove it after a couple of weeks and add new material, but still the Far East borrows my stuff.

So as you see the whole world reads my stuff, I just wish they went to Amazon and bought a few ebooks on any of the Amazon national sites, here’s just one.

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0  

So my imagination soars, hope springs eternal and so on, I even had Malaysia looking recently, anybody in Antarctica or the Space Station not busy with science they can always pass by. I did of course have the Man on the Moon look at my stuff, he even left a comment.  Literary agents are even rarer than Clangers, just whistle and they never ever come.