You’ve seen the ads. Attractive young people, slipping their sleek new vehicles into gear, careening around sharp mountain curves or downtown city streets. What fun they’re having, when their cars can go from zero to 60 in under three seconds!

Of course there’s the flip side. Roughly 46,000 people in the U.S. die in traffic accidents annually. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for people under 30.

And yet it is speed and daring that automakers promote, and those little tiny disclaimers at the bottom of the screen noting that “the course is closed,” and “the cars are operated by professional drivers,” are ludicrous.

An article in Bloomberg titled “Traffic crashes are getting worse. Car ads are part of the problem,” reporter Danny Harris pointed out that “marketing speed, power and reckless driving as a selling point for cars is part of a longstanding advertising tradition for automakers.”

Note that in 2022 the auto industry spent over $17 billion on advertising. Currently, an average automobile weighs a little over 4,000 pounds. Weight combined with  high rates of speed can produce horrific carnage. So the question is should car manufactures be treated like other companies that produce dangerous products.

“The U.S. has a substantial history of affecting how industries, especially those with harmful products, market their goods,” Harris wrote. “Advertisements for cigarettes were banned from American radio and television by an act of Congress in 1971. Billboard ads for cigarettes, including cartoon advertisements that target children, like Joe Camel, were banned in 1998 as part of a settlement. The alcohol industry has developed its own standards for self-regulation— a model the car industry could also follow.”

If the car makers cared, they’d find other ways to sell their vehicles. But they won’t, because speed sells. But let’s not put all the blame on the auto industry. How about Hollywood with its endless movie car chases and the Fast & Furious franchise which spouts the message that you’re only cool if you drive recklessly and fast?

That message is being heard loud and clear by teen drivers. In 2020, 2,800 teens were killed and about 227,000 were injured in the U.S. in auto accidents. The majority of these dangerous drivers are boys, especially those 16 to 19, who are three times more likely to die on the road than female drivers of the same age.

One of my sons was sucked into the street-racing world when he was young. Luckily, he was caught before anyone was hurt. That such a smart young man would think speeding on city streets was a fine idea is frightening.

I grieve for parents who get that visit from the police. And I’m angry at the stupidity. We know young people don’t always make the best decisions, so perhaps it’s way past the time for auto companies and film makers to stop promoting dangerous driving as something glamorous, as opposed to what might easily be a tragic end to a short life.

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This is not an easy time to be a teacher. Practically every day there are news stories about what’s going on in classrooms nationwide, accounts that are rather ridiculous.

As a teacher of 20 years, the idea that my peers are pedophiles “grooming” children, that they are spreading their “radical agendas”, and that they’re teaching students to hate themselves for who they are is not only insulting but hurtful.

Once upon a time, teachers were respected, as was the occupation itself. The job was considered a calling, like nursing or religious ministry. Today we live in a world where many believe that horrid, old saying: Those who can’t do teach. (It pains me to even write those words.)

I had many jobs prior to becoming a teacher at 45, which included being a sportscaster and reporter, as well as an amateur sports official for 40 years. My world was chronically stressful. I was in the public eye daily and when I made mistakes, I was frequently called out. The attacks were sometimes personal. On occasion, I was accompanied to my car by police officers concerned for my safety.

And still, teaching was the toughest job I’ve ever had. I spent 20 years in a Title I school where the vast majority of my students lived in poverty, a place where drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, hunger, hopelessness, and gangs ruled. My job was to give them hope in a future they couldn’t see. Some didn’t believe they’d live to be 20.

For our students to become healthy world citizens, we teachers had to help them acquire important skills beyond the basic core subjects of math, science, history, and English. Communication skills especially are paramount to building strong relationships and making good empathetic decisions. But there’s a problem. Getting along with others, assertivenessis, and problem solving-skills are part of what’s referred to as Social Emotional Learning. For reasons I can’t fathom, SEL is now a dirty phrase. How can teaching a child to be resilient and self-assured be a bad thing?

When I researched the subject what came up was baffling. Somehow SEL became linked to another educational acronym, CRT, which stands for Critical Race Theory. Before I go any further, understand that there are no elementary or secondary schools in the country teaching CRT. Zero! Zilch! None! That’s because the class was designed for college students, primarily those in law schools. CRT studies involve using “sociology to explain social, political, and legal structures and power distribution…focusing on the concept of race, and experiences of racism.”

This idea has been so twisted that parents believe educators are teaching children to hate who they are because of past history. If you’re a White child, you must carry the sins of 19^th century slave owners on your back. If you’re family hails from Germany, you are responsible for the evils of the Holocaust. (While I’d like to think those who oppose CRT care equally about the feelings of Black and Brown children, I doubt that’s the case.)

Since I taught history for a brief spell, I can tell you I never saw or sensed any student who seemed to feel uncomfortable learning about bleak eras in our past. So you can imagine that recent legislation has me confused. At least eight states now have laws about how any subject involving race can be taught, laws that say students can never be made to feel guilt or discomfort because of who they are.  I believe these laws are completely unnecessary, because the last thing teachers want is make children uncomfortable.

I’m not saying here that all educators are perfect. Like every vocation, some get it wrong. But I’d stake all I have on the idea that the vast majority of teachers only want their students to become happy, healthy, productive citizens. To reach that lofty goal, we must teach kids to understand both themselves and the past. To do that they need empathy, understanding, and a feeling of self-worth.

Someone please tell me how these lessons can be anything but positive.

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I found myself in a bit of a pickle recently. I had to attend a wedding. A formal wedding! Dressing up meant I had to make nice with things like shoes and lingerie, neither of which I’ve ever gotten along with.

“I only have one dress,” I said to my sweetie pie.

“So wear that one.”

“Then I’ll have to wear heels!”

Shoes have been the bane of my existence all my life. I was born with a crooked left foot, and a while back I suffered a severely broken leg, one that required extensive surgery. It took eight months for me to learn to walk properly again, so you can imagine the idea of donning heels had me apprehensive.

“Just wear your cowboy boots.”

“We’re not going line dancing. And the bride has been pretty specific that this is a formal affair.” In fact the young woman in question—who I’d never met—actually sent invitations suggesting a proper color palette for guests’ attire, and my purple dress was not one of the requested shades. I sensed that the combination of that dress and my boots might make the bride swoon.

I fretted over the upcoming affair, wondering if I might get away with wearing nice pants. I checked into whether slacks would be a serious fashion faux pax, and to my surprise I discovered that it is permissible for women to wear pants to a formal wedding, which meant my pretty, black tooled cowboy boots would work, as well. (I live in Arizona. Things are a bit different here, so trust me on this.)

I pulled together a black jacket, nice pants, and a sheer black shirt, but then frowned. Clearly, I needed appropriate undergarments. But when I searched my drawers, I discovered that my daughter had appropriated my one dressy bra. Okay. My only bra. Since I’m a child of the 70s, I’d tossed that torturous device when I was 16. It wasn’t until I was 51 and a teacher that anyone seemed to notice.

“You can’t do that in front of your students,” a fellow teacher said.

“Do what?” I was perplexed.

“You have to wear a bra?”

“Why?” I looked down. Several layers of fabric separated my bits from the world. “I’m old enough to be their grandmother. They won’t even notice.”

But I was wrong. I caught numerous boys checking me out, so I started wearing sports bras, which still bugged me, but which were not as uncomfortable as a regular brassiere. But a sports bra wouldn’t cut it for a formal wedding, not even in Arizona.

So I traipsed off to a lingerie store in a swanky mall. Since I’m not a fancy type, I appeared in that realm of delicates in a black sweatshirt bearing a cowboy and running horses, black leggings, and sneakers. Two white-haired women stared at me.

“I need a bra.”

One focused on my chest. “What size?

“Um…I don’t know.”

They appraised me as if I was something they’d discovered in a petri dish. And yet, after whipping out a tape measure and assessing me from multiple angles, one woman walked me to a dressing room and handed me a single bra.

Now, I’ve been in dressing rooms strewn with bras left behind by frustrated shoppers. Finding the proper fit can be a grueling affair, still I put it on without question.

A short time later the woman reappeared at the door as I faced myself in the mirror. “Turn around.”

I did.

Raise your hands in the air.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Bend over.”

I was perplexed, but did as she ordered.

“It’s perfect.”

And she was right! I wondered if she’d been bestowed with a master’s degree in bra-fitting, but didn’t ask. “It doesn’t hurt!” I smiled, and she pointed out the structural supports and special fabric with such intensity that I imagined NASA engineers must have designed the thing.

I was so delighted, I bought two.

As for the wedding, all went well.

And nobody said a thing about my boots.

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I’m guessing you had a shower today. Or maybe a bath. Perhaps you’re a person who bathes daily.

It’s here where I confess that I do not.

Now don’t get all judgmental, because there’s a perfectly good reason I let a few days go by before stepping into the shower. And I have the medical community on my side.

“Showering every day may be a habit, but unless you’re grimy or sweaty, you may not need to bathe more than a few times a week,” said the good doctors at WebMD.

I know! Surprising. Especially since I remember the days, back when I was still involved with sports on a regular basis, when I was known to lather up twice a day, but it seems doing so was bad for my health.

“Washing removes healthy oil and bacteria from your skin, so bathing too often could cause dry, itchy skin and allow bad bacteria to enter through cracked skin.”

That I live in the Sonoran Desert—one of the driest places in the U.S.—also adds to the bathing conundrum. Since the skin of desert dwellers is already quite crispy, adding a daily shower to the mix means there isn’t enough moisturizer in the world to keep us from scratching our flesh off.

I will now put on my history teacher hat.

In ancient times, bathing was a communal operation. One massive construction, the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan that encompassed 880 square feet, dates back about 5,000 years. Then the Greeks came along and invented the shower, because of all those sleek athletes heading to gymnasiums, the name for which comes from the word “gymnós” which means, you guessed it, naked. Back then sporting folks practiced and competed au naturel, so their bits no doubt needing a bit of soaping up at the end of the day. Jump ahead to Medieval times and bathing had mostly disappeared, with the exception of the very rich who were known, on occasion, to throw dinner parties in baths, where food was placed on boards situated over the water. However, when the Black Plague appeared people developed hyper aversions to bathing, because they believed the illness could sneak through their pores and that dirt on one’s skin would block the bubonic bugs from entering one’s system. Even into the late 1800s doctors didn’t bother washing their hands before surgery. But a bathing resurgence occurred in the 1900s when the Saturday night soak became popular with the whole family jumping in and out of the same tub of water to scrub away a week’s worth of grime. Ewwww!

Which brings us to today, where daily bathing is the norm, something we should reconsider. According to WebMD, “When you expose your body to normal dirt and bacteria, it actually helps strengthen your immune system.”

As a desert dweller, there’s also a conservation issue to consider, because showering can waste a lot of water. So, while I’m certainly not suggesting you stop bathing, perhaps you might think about the frequency with which you step into all that lovely water.

To bathe or not bathe? Something to consider.

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We’ve had an abundance of rain in my beautiful desert recently—a rarity in this part of the world—and it’s now wildflower season, something the local chamber of commerce pumps up every year to out-of-state visitors. Don’t get me wrong. Our wild flowers are lovely, especially following a wet winter, but let’s call those plants what they really are. Weeds!

There are various definitions of  weeds: plants that were not sewn in a particular location or plants that produce abundant seeds or simply plants that grow where you don’t want them to. But does that mean said plants are not worthwhile?

I remember as a child growing up in New Jersey the annual ritual that had me on my knees in the yard every spring pulling dandelions under my dad’s watchful eye. Apparently those small yellow flowers that turned into delightful, fluffy-white seed balls one could blow into the wind were the worst weed that could invade that lush greenness, a plant that I later learned can be eaten and used as a medicinal for arthritis and intestinal issues, heart and liver diseases, jaundice and gallstones, but that still became the bane of suburban yard owners everywhere.

But here’s the thing. A weed is actually no different from any other green, growing thing. It’s just how they’re perceived. Humans, for reasons I can’t quite ascertain, seem to feel the need to organize things into respectable little areas, designed to present order and uniformity. Having gone out and conquered the planet, we apparently feel compelled to eliminate anything considered remotely wild.

But I’m rebelling against that idea, and not just because my yard is currently a mass of weeds. You see, I have science on my side. I read that weeds help prevent soil erosion, act as fertilizer, and attract pollinators—bees, butterflies and hummingbirds—creatures without which our diverse diet of nuts, fruits, and vegetables would be severely diminished.

In the interest of unbiased journalism, I searched for the other side of the story, the real reason there are so many weed haters out there. I found data claiming weeds can carry diseases, alter the pH of the soil, and use more water than native plant species. But on closer inspection that information was often forwarded by those in the lawn-care industry, which made my old reporter’s brain twitch a bit.

Are my weeds unsightly? I don’t think so, but lawn purists might disagree. Still, I’ve decided to let my “flowers” grow and attract those all-important birds, bugs, and butterflies. Then, when they’ve served their pollinating purpose and our desert sun has scorched them to dust, I’ll thank them for their environmental service and pay someone to harvest what’s left. (Sorry, Dad. My weed-pulling days are long behind me.)

P.S.

Got a letter from the city. “It has been observed there is grass/weeds above six inches scattered in the front yard.” I was given ten days to rectify the situation. I expected a fight, so I put on my Eco Annie Superhero suit and explained that I let the weeds grow intentionally to help our environment thrive. And you know what? The kind man on the phone understood and gave me a few more weeks when I promised to cut everything down after the blooms were spent. Isn’t that nice? I feel better about the planet already!

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Those of us who’ve had the great privilege of having pets in our families understand the joy these creatures give us. I have been incredibly fortunate over my life to have cared for myriad animals that delighted me—even when they misbehaved—and which comforted me when I was sad.

The problem, of course, is that their lifespans are so much shorter than ours, which necessitates tough decisions for those of us who love them. I should be used to that special room at the vet by now, but it never gets easier.

I just said goodbye to my dear cat Westin, one of the most endearing animals I’ve ever met. Westin’s life was difficult. He was deaf and had severe allergies that necessitated monthly shots and daily medication. Whenever I was asked if I’d like a receipt from the vet, I always said I didn’t want to know the price of his medical care. I’m pretty sure Westin cost more than the 50 or so animals I’ve tended to over the years put together. But he was such a joy, that I always smiled when I handed over my credit card.

The vet made it clear that Westin would not live a normal kitty lifespan as eventually the medications would take their toll. Westin was eight and he died peacefully surrounded by those who loved him.

In his honor, I thought I’d share the story I wrote about the day we brought Westin home.

A cat, a boy, a bond

There was nothing extraordinary about the cat that stared at me from the pages of my local newspaper. He was black. Gold eyes. His name was Westin. He’d been at the Humane Society way too long. His $20 price tag a clear indication that if he did not find a home soon, well…

I called my son Troy to come look at the picture. I told him about Westin. “Should we go get him?” I asked. His eyes lit up.

Within the hour we bounded through the door at the shelter, waving the newspaper article. “We’re here for Westin.” We grinned at the receptionist. A woman standing nearby frowned. I pointed at the picture again, wondering at her odd reaction.

“The story did not tell you everything,” she said, leading us toward a glassed-in enclosure, a place called the Campus for Compassion, where hard-to-adopt animals are placed for one last push to find them a forever home.

My son and I glimpsed Westin briefly through a large window as the woman ushered us through a doorway, around a corner, and through another door.  We somehow missed the sign that would have tipped us off that Westin was no ordinary kitty. The woman escorted us into the tidy room scattered with cat toys and shelves ascending one wall, where Westin quickly displayed his climbing skills. I sat on a small couch. Westin stared at me, then bounded into my lap.

“You get acquainted. I’ll get Westin’s records.” She left, closing the door behind her.

A short time later, a young volunteer appeared, bearing a thick folder.

“Where did he come from?” I asked as Westin head-butted my hand for the rub.

“He was one of thirty cats found abandoned in a hotel room,” she said. “We named them all after hotels.”

The thought that there were kitties nearby named Radisson, Hilton, Sheraton, and Howard Johnson made me want to laugh. Perhaps she read my mind.

“They’re all gone. They’ve been adopted. Westin is the only one left.”

I stared at the cat, now happily ensconced in my son’s lap. “Why?”

“Westin is sick.”

Troy and and I simultaneously stared at the cat, who appeared quite healthy and happy.

“When he came to us, he had lost a lot of his hair. We almost put him down. The vets here did a lot of testing and, well, Westin is deaf and has horrible allergies. He’s on daily medication and will be for the rest of his life. He has to be fed special food that’s about $60 a bag. I’ll leave you two to think about it,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. “He’s been here a long time.”

“It’s a lot of money,” I said when my son and I were alone. “And a lot of responsibility.” We already had four cats and a cattle dog.

When the volunteer came back, I asked if anyone else had ever wanted to adopt Westin.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Until they found out about his problems.”

The boy with the blue eyes stroked Westin’s head. “He’s just like me, Mom. No one wanted me either.”

I stared at the ground. Troy is my third son. All of my boys spent time in the foster care system, before entering my life when they were teenagers, having been shuttled between group facilities and foster homes too many times to count, clearly understanding that there didn’t seem to be any families that wanted them.

Of course, we took Westin home. I can’t say it hasn’t been a struggle. Westin suffered a ruptured ear drum and only wants to eat food that he’s allergic to. Still, he gets along fine with the other animals and is under the watchful eye of our vet. We are hoping that, someday, he can go without the daily doses of medication and the special expensive food. In the meantime, Troy takes care of Westin. They seem to have an understanding.

Today, I’m sad, which I know from experience is to be expected. There’s a small hole in my heart that hurts. But I know eventually that space will fill in. Joy will take its place. Joy that I had the pleasure of knowing Westin. And perhaps a small piece of rainbow will lodge in my heart, color and light left behind from the moment Westin mounted the storied Rainbow Bridge.

Five years ago, Westin was featured on the Arizona Humane Society’s Pets on Parade.

You can watch the video here.

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All I wanted was a cracker: a Triscuit to be precise.

But  I…couldn’t…open…the… package! Which had me saying all kinds of impolite things as I wrestled with the plastic bag inside the hermetically sealed cardboard box that had already tried my patience.

But it’s not just crackers that have me irritated. There’s the pet food bags that come with a string one just needs to pull and voilà the kibble bag is opened. But the thing rarely works, which has me reaching for a bone-handled camping knife I now keep on hand so I might stab those bags open. Then there are the drink containers which require me to fiddle with tiny plastic tabs that periodically break off leaving the cap useless. And let’s not forget those seals inside the peanut butter jar where one must attempt to grasp a miniscule flap and pull. I suppose the manufacturers intend for the lid to come off in one pretty, round piece, but more often than not the cover just rips and I’m off to find that camping knife and the stabbing begins anew.

My frustration no doubt stems from the fact that I’m old enough to remember when opening packages was simple. Today, however, just about everything we buy is encased in practically indestructible plastic clamshells and blister packs, shrink wrap and cling film. And though manufacturers insist their products are easy to open, we know they’re not.

I blame it all on the Tylenol Killer, a still unknown person who thought it would be just fine to lace acetaminophen capsules with cyanide back in 1982. Seven people died. And just like that, food and drug packaging changed. While I don’t generally believe in the death penalty, in this case I’d volunteer to push that plunger filled with potassium chloride, if only we could find the perp.

So you know, I’m not the only one complaining. There’s actually a name for this “syndrome.” It’s called wrap rage, which is defined as “the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open packaging, particularly some heat-sealed plastic blister packs and clamshells.”

The thing is, it’s not like all this iron-clad packaging has made us safer. In fact, a British study revealed about 60,000 people suffer injuries annually that require hospital treatment—6,000 in the U.S. alone—because of their herculean attempts to open packages. The reason for these wounds is because, as I’ve already mentioned, we get frustrated and resort to dangerous implements—razors, box cutters, scissors, ice picks, and even bone-handled camping knives— in our efforts to open containers.

I looked for tips on how to deal with wrap rage, but I didn’t find much except that you should “never hold the item between your legs to stabilize it.” One wonders why that particular situation stands out, but I don’t want to think about it.

How can we avoid wrap rage? Next time you’re hungry try a banana or an apple. But since we can’t completely dodge impenetrable packaging, always have your bone-handled camping knife nearby.

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Most of us understand that people should not be discriminated against because of who they are. In fact, there are hate laws protecting people against bigotry based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.

But there is one big category missing. How about discrimination based on age? (There is, of course, a law banning ageism in the workplace, but here I’m talking about the social implications of the issue.)

Ageism is generally understood to be a dislike that focuses on older adults. But why? Shouldn’t mature people be respected for the wisdom they’ve acquired over their long lives, knowledge that if shared can help younger folks be happier and more successful?

Asian, Native American, and Indian cultures, among others, respect their elders and, in fact, celebrate older adults. But venerating the elderly seems almost nonexistent in the U.S. The question is why. Some of this attitude—as is the case with most prejudice—is based on stereotypes. Older people are considered slow workers, poor drivers, hard of hearing, unable to embrace new technologies, and generally weak and unattractive. Ugh!

Now I’m not saying older people don’t also harbor ageist attitudes against the young. As a Baby Boomer, I’m embarrassed when my peers mumble derisively about the “younger generation.” I want to yell, “Don’t you remember when our parents said the same things about us? How they didn’t like our clothes and hair and music and political views?” Still, while agism can go both ways, today it generally tilts toward the denigration of the elderly.

I ran into this problem after teaching a course in sports reporting at Arizona State University. At the end of the semester, students are encouraged to rate their instructors and one comment hit me hard. “Next time ASU hires someone to teach sports reporting, they should hire someone younger!” I was 67. That I’d worked as a sports reporter and anchor at five TV stations both locally and nationally, including a stint at ESPN where I anchored SportsCenter, and had been a print reporter for three magazines and three newspapers, did nothing to up my stock. It was only my age that mattered. (It might have been my gender, too, but that’s for another time.)

I thought about that critique for a while and then recalled something I did back in my forties. I’d been sent to interview a woman who was a competitive swimmer. She was 64 and I remember gushing about how amazing it was that she was still swimming “at her age.” She was kind and polite, but there was a look on her face, bemusement perhaps, that I didn’t understand at the time. Later, when I turned 64 and was still swimming laps, I finally understood. She didn’t feel old or act old, and yet I’d labeled her that way.

I know we can do better, and I think a good way to do that would be more social mixing of the generations. I was fortunate in my youth to have several older friends. One in particular stands out. Alice was my rocking buddy. We met when she was in her seventies and I was in my thirties. I would head out into the Arizona desert with Alice where we wandered along wild washes, hiked up and down mountains, and frequently got lost in our quest for mineral specimens. We were still at it when Alice was approaching 90. I never thought of her as old. Ever!

Getting to know one another is the key, I think.  So, let’s not allow stereotypes to get in the way of what might become a beautiful friendship.

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I have a few requests.

My sweetie pie and I have been dealing with a lot of your appointments lately. Many involve his mom, who’s in her late eighties and has dementia, but he and I also sometimes run back and forth see you.

I mention this because, nice as you are, some things you do are bugging me. First, what’s with all the texts, e-mails, and calls beginning the week before my scheduled appointment? “This is a reminder! You have an appointment!” These messages come almost daily, as if you’re already accusing me of forgetting to appear. Though, when you consider the number of medical appointment no-shows—roughly 18% of scheduled appointments are missed nationwide—I can see your point.  Still, the constant barage of notifications gets tiresome.

The other thing that annoys me is the time of my appointments. As I no longer have to use an alarm clock—Ain’t retirement grand?—I rarely schedule appointments before noon, if I have a choice. I pick my times carefully to coincide with other plans. But then come the texts, e-mails, and calls asking me to arrive 30 minutes before my scheduled appointment. If I pick a 1:00 PM appointment time, doesn’t that mean I’d like to be there at 1:00 PM? If I wanted to be there at 12:30, I would have said so. I realize you want us to fill out endless paperwork, but I’d rather you just schedule me for the time you want me to appear.

Finally, it would be nice if I got to see you at my actual appointment time, especially if I’ve been kind enough to show up 30 minutes ahead of schedule. There’s something grating about arriving early only to have to wait long past our arranged meeting time. While I do understand that emergencies happen, I think sometimes you’re just overbooked.

Don’t get me wrong. I realize your time is valuable. But so is mine. Note that I’m truly grateful to be able to visit you when I’m in need and my complaints are nothing personal, still time is the most important thing we have. And, since we never know when our time will be up, wouldn’t it be nice if we could all manage it wisely?

Sincerely,

Anne Montgomery

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I love my cats, but sometimes I wonder if they love me back. Cats are not generally like dogs, who wear their hearts on their sleeves, if they had them. Those wagging tails and loving gazes usually get the point across.

But cats’ feelings are often harder to discern.

Take for example the morning I smelled gas in my home. That rotten-egg stink was emanating from the kitchen and I was surprised to see one of the burner nobs was on. Swearing silently at whichever kid left the thing on, I switched it off. But then it happened again, and this time I caught sight of one of my cats cruising atop the stove, teetering on the edge for no reason I could ascertain. He stopped and stared at me like he’d been caught committing a crime.

“I think the cats are turning on the stove,” I said to my sweetie pie.

“Why would they do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think they’re trying to kill us?” He looked up from his phone.

“Why would they? They have a pretty cushy life here.”

As I didn’t want to die in my sleep of asphyxiation, I ordered a box of nob covers, the kind people with toddlers use to keep those little fingers from turning on the stove. Sometimes, when people visit they stare at those nobs, as if wondering whether I’ve squirreled away a three-year old somewhere. At which point I explain that my cats binged watched all six seasons of The Sopranos with us and perhaps picked up some very bad ideas.

I started to feel better about my feline friends, until they began smashing stuff. I heard a crash late one night, bolted from bed, and rushed to the kitchen. Both of my black cats sat placidly and stared at me, ignoring the shattered plate, now a stream of colorful shards spread across the tile floor. I considered going all detective inspector on them—we watch a lot of British murder mysteries—but it was clear they wouldn’t talk. So, while swearing under my breath and considering whether they’d fixated on the time Tony took a baseball bat to Angie’s new Cadillac, I cleaned up the mess and placed a heavy blue teapot in the spot where the plate had resided.

Two weeks later, while we were watching TV, said pot suffered the same sad fate as the plate. Again, my kitties were stone-faced. They plopped together into a chair and groomed one another as if I wasn’t even there, cheeky creatures.

Then there are the Kitty Olympic Games. At night, both my boys zoom around the house leaping on and over anything they can find as if practicing for some kind of kitty steeplechase. Somehow they mange to knock over my recliner on a regular basis.

Since I was interested in their feline motivation, I googled “What’s in a cat’s mind?” and almost 120 million results appeared, so it seems I’m not the only one wondering what’s going on inside their little noggins. I checked a few of those links and came to the conclusion that nobody really knows.

But I did find this: Humans domesticated cats about 10,000 years ago in what is today the Middle East to keep rodent populations at bay. But about a decade ago scientists discovered that your kitty is only half domesticated, which means our little bundles of fluff are in fact half wild and remain “predatory hunting mammals.”

That said, maybe letting them watch The Sopranos was a bad idea.

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