Greetings folks! Stubbo, the Cat With No Paws, here. You might remember me from the 20th Century. I was ubiquitous in my prime, but things got a little sketchy there for a while. I was freeze-dried and sent to the Great Lakes region for storage while Nirvana was still a thing, but that’s another story for another day. I’ve come out of retirement to offer some Public Service Announcements to help my peeps (that would be you, dear readers) retain their sanity during this period when we are all avoiding each other like the plague (literally) and seeing a little more of the insides of our humble abodes than we ever imagined possible. Lesson one for retaining your marbles under stress: Avoid falling down the proverbial rabbit hole! For example, don’t overthink words and their relationships to other words. Case in point, the common terms, “air” and “hair.” While they are only one letter away from being the same word, they are two distinct entities. One permeates our entire planet and makes life feasible, while the other keeps us glued to our mirrors and fidgety. If you let your mind wander, however, and dwell on all the terms and phrases that are associated with both words, for no apparent rational reason, you could go stark raving mad. Let me explain. An “airline” is a conglomerate of flying vessels that move people and cats (and some other, lesser creatures) from one location to another, or a conduit that moves air from point A to point B, while a “hairline” is a demarcation between ones curly locks and forehead or a thin fracture that hurts like the dickens yet leaves a bone fairly serviceable. An “air band, ” is a group of silly humans who pretend to play instruments they don’t possess while a “hairband” is a large plastic clip used to ornament and compartmentalize tresses. An “air layer” is an atmospheric concept in which different molecular compositions are found at different altitudes and temperatures, while a “hair layer” (usually referred to as “hair layering”) is a fashion statement achieved with the help of clever barbers and stylists. Visuals might help:

It can be hard to keep physically fit when you are limited to walking from the kitchen to the bedroom, to the living room and then back to the kitchen, for exercise. It can be just as difficult to maintain a firm grip on a sound mind. To stay clear headed and keep your thought processes healthy, it is essential to provide a wide variety of stimuli to your traumatized noggin. Dwelling on something as trivial as why in the god forsaken world two seemingly unrelated words appear to be joined at the hip could drive one into the lunatic fringe. Did some early linguist have a thing about these two words, create a few rudimentary connections and then pass the project down through successive generations? Hmmm, it makes you wonder. I mean, why should a grooming implement used to organize luxurious locks called a “hairbrush” and an artist’s devise used for spraying paint called an “airbrush” be universally recognized single word terms, with no other connection, for the love of Pete?! The same general consternation goes for “hairball,” which is a mass of fur that collects in a cat’s gut and is expelled on your favorite pair of shoes, and an “airball,” which is every pro basketball player’s most embarrassing moment (aim for the hoop next time, Lefty!). And don’t even get me started ruminating about why, why, why everyone and their uncle uses the terms “bad hair day” and “bad air day” whenever they look taciturn or feel a slight tinge of tightening in their chest and are completely oblivious to them being the commonest of phrases, distinguishable by one minuscule letter, that are otherwise totally, irrefutably unrelated. To illustrate:

You might be wondering how tenuous my grasp on mental stability is. After all, I’m a cat who is well over thirty human years-old and my existence is limited to the mischief a frisky feline can get into with four useless, furry stubs at the end of his stumpy appendages. A lesser critter might crack under the strain and become a tad cuckoo or downright screwy. Your average house pet would probably buckle under the weighty burden and devolve into a paroxysm of wacky, dotty, nutty lunacy. But me? Moi? This cat right here?? Okay, I have been know to succumb to occasional bouts of maniacal laughter, punctuated by animated spasms of nonsensical raving, but overall I manage to keep a balanced equilibrium… some days, anyway. If I could just quit obsessing on the fact that there is a machine under the house called an “air conditioner” that keeps the place cold in the summer, hot in the winter and plays hell with the amount of moisture I breathe, while there is a bottle of some viscous goo in the bathroom called “hair conditioner” that makes a thick mop easier to untangle. Or the fact that the aforementioned goo facilitates the propagation of “hair waves” that people with naturally straight hair find irresistible, while “air waves” pump so much music and human yammering into the place that the important things like birds tweeting, squirrels chittering and friends sharing news about recent kitten litters are practically drowned out.   And then there is something called “thin air,” which is where magicians send solid objects in a twinkling, right before your very eyes, while “thin hair” makes hats less snug and renders “airbrushes” more efficient than “hairbrushes” for the gent who wants to appear to be as shaggy now as he was a few years back. The following might add clarity:

Did I ever tell you about the police officers who were pressed into service back in the ‘60s to manage the throngs of folks clamoring to see the popular stage show featuring groovy, psychedelic music and a cast that bared all at one point? They were referred to as “Hair traffic controllers,” but that story will just have to wait. Right now it’s time for me to make some noise by my food dish and then find something expensive to nudge off a high shelf. Keep your wits about you and maybe I’ll be back again someday with another timely PSA.

Edwin Letcher

February 9, 2021