perils of a chain smoker

woman hears about an old feeder in the neighbourhood who chain smokes with cats in the apartment. apparently she will not open a single window in the apartment for a variety of reasons.

this news comes from *Wendy* who knows her from their nightly rounds to feed strays. she wants the woman to mesh up the old feeder’s windows to let in a little air for the cats. that is the easy part. convincing the old feeder is quite another matter.

for a start, the old feeder sounds like your typical hardnosed, mistrustful, paranoid, cranky old woman. when wendy brought up the issue to her, she burned her bridges and slammed the door on her long time friend. and then there is wendy herself, who is working herself into a relapse. she is extremely agitated, constantly calling and smsing the woman to belabour her few circular points. i. "the cats are going to die" ii. "the old feeder is crazy" iii. "you must help" iv. "the cats are going to die" v. "the old feeder is crazy"... you get the picture.

there is no walking away from this, of course. what is the worst that can happen? the old feeder will wreck the door slamming it and wendy will scream blue murder that the woman did not follow her precise instructions to the tee. can't be worse than not trying.


even without smoke, we can't imagine closing a single window at our place!