Knackered Gets Elected with Benzos

   Hey there.  Knackered here. The Knackered canine received his annual birthday greeting from the city last week.  It comes every year.  Its purpose is always the same.  He’ll soon be illegal.  

   The poor guy’s license has expired once again.  Knackered will pay up, of course, but he has mixed feelings about the whole thing.  After all, cat owners seem to get a free pass.

   It’s been a while since a cat lived in the Knackered household, so he’s not sure what kind of tax revenue they haul in. 

   There seems to be two separate varieties of them in the hood.  There are book store cats and back door cats.  

   Book store cats live in homes, have owners and can usually be seen sleeping in windows.  Back door cats may or may not belong to anybody.  

   Most of the ones living nearby are ‘off the grid’.  They get fed by kindly folk from the back porch, but rarely go into people’s homes.  

   During the day (and most loudly at night) they run amok. Some disappear for a time, only to pop up again a week or two later.  It’s a mystery as to just what’s up with them.  

   They’re quite friendly and are usually just looking for a place to curl up in the sun.  In spite of that, there seems to be a ‘pack’ of them that have formed a gang of some kind, led by the black cat next door.

   These have ‘attitude’ and like to terrorize stuff.  They’ll run through the yard, scrambling over fences and giving you ‘the side eye’ if you dare to mess with them.  

   Some prefer to spend their time sleeping on the hood of your car while the engine is still warm. On such occasions, It’s best to leave them be and find a different way to your next destination. 

  Once in a while a rogue invader will show up to challenge the turf. Much like the lone gunslingers of the old west, they call out the local hooligan and make quick business of them before moving on into the night.  

   The cat of Knackerd’s youth defied all description.  Much like Houdini, he escaped from the locked and ‘sealed’ garage the first night home as a kitten.  He cavorted anywhere he wanted, but always came home at night.

   The one exception being the night of the one and only hurricane to ever hit the area.  While trees toppled and roofs blew off, he found a hidy hole and was sitting on the back porch looking for food the next morning.  

   His sole worst deed occurred when Knackered was running for class office in junior year.  A carefully designed and painted campaign sign was drying on the basement floor.  It spanned the area, destined for a high wall in the school cafeteria.  

   ‘Tom’ sat on the floor and watched the entire procedure with interest.  While it was drying he walked to the corner and christened it by peeing all over the spot. 

   Knackered had no time to repair the damage and the sign was erected the following day. It received many positive comments and numerous questions about the yellow stain. 

   Knackered never told, but his friends still elected him. Of course they did.