Our town has a cat man. He lives in a trailer and smokes a lot of weed. The cats who can’t take care of their kittens or want some help bring them to him. He feeds them, cares for them, socializes them, and then adopts them out. He is always surrounded by cats and kittens. If you want a kitten, you go to his trailer and ask to adopt one. He doesn’t charge anything; he just talks to you for a bit to make sure you’ll love the animal and take care of it.

He’s surrounded by books and video cassettes and always wears a big housecoat. He’s full of stories and will talk to you about cats, politics, music, movies, games, weed, or whatever it is. The trailer is cold and unlocked with a hole in the front door for the cats to come in and out. He always has them, though. They know to go to him.

I came to him today for a kitten because my foster kid is having a rough time. We are “borrowing” a kitten until he feels better, but I suspect the kitten will stay. We’ve named them Pizza Crust. Gender is unknown. Knowing the gender isn’t the cat man’s job. He is happy to “lend” Pizza Crust to us for as long as we need them. I mean, of course, he was happy to lend a kitten to help a child.

So, yeah, that’s our cat man. He’s the goat.

Our house backs up onto this tiny wooded area right next to the river. All manner of beasts love the river, even though it’s gross and barely even a creek where we are, so we get lots of critters around our backyard.

One day, my dad tells me he wants the lawn watered and to get the hose from the back. The hose is attached to this wall that is absolutely covered in greenery, and if it weren’t on the wrong side of the house, it would camouflage the entire wall.

Just as I’m reaching for the hose, I’m attacked! A bird has nested in the bush, and it’s decided I’m bothersome. Worse: it’s a blue jay. Those guys are vicious.

Figuring it would be better to be yelled at than get pecked to death, I go back inside to tell my dad I can’t get the hose as there’s a bird protecting its nest.

He stares at me, scoffs, and goes outside himself.

Just as he’s pulling the hose from the wall and wrapping it around his arm, another attack! And this time, it’s both birds! Maybe because I’m a tiny twelve-year-old and he’s much bigger than me, they thought he was a bigger threat? Who knows!

Because his arm is wrapped up in the hose, it takes him a minute to untangle himself with that arm, while the other arm is trying to protect his head and waving the birds off at the same time. It’s almost comical: a grown man who didn’t believe his child and is now paying the penalty, dancing around a three-foot square patch of semi-parched grass, while two small blue and gray missiles defend their young and themselves against this evil invader.

He finally gets himself out of the hose and rushes back into the house after being pecked several times.

The lawn does not get watered, and he avoids me for the rest of the day.

I work at an observatory. A school is visiting, and while the kids are having a great time, one of the chaperones seems like he doesn’t want to be there. I am assisting the astronomer.

Astronomer: “Now, Saturn’s rings are only a few million years old! That might seem old, but on an astronomical scale, that means they’re super young!”

Chaperone: “That’s complete horse-s***! Nothing out there is older than the Earth! God said so! ‘In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth!‘”

Astronomer: “Sir, please don’t use that language. I like to interpret that passage as saying the Heavens came first, and then the Earth. In that sense, regardless of how old you think the Earth is, the Heavens can be much, much older.”

Chaperone: “Oh, yeah?! Well, that’s what your science books tell you, but I only need one book!”

The other teachers are embarrassed and trying to shush the chaperone. Based on one extra embarrassed-looking child, he might be one of the parents.

Chaperone: “I knew this trip was a bad idea! We should take the kids back to the school.”

One of the teachers approaches the chaperone.

Teacher: “I’m not an astronomer, but I am pretty sure the world revolves around the sun, not you. Be quiet or leave.”

He was quiet, even during the part about the Big Bang happening thirteen billion years ago.

If you know anything about New Zealand, you should know about our birds. We have multiple smart, playful, and above all, CHEEKY birds. You probably have even heard of the one I’m about to talk about, the Kea, most often known for their love of taking apart cars.

At the nearest zoo to me, they have recently added a walk-through aviary with airlocks for this mischief-maker on wings. The zoo is partnered with our conservation department, and a lot of our natives are here for breeding purposes or (the little blue penguins) because they can’t be released due to injury.

During this visit, we watch the Kea carefully tear apart some enrichment for the treats within, and we listen to the keeper talk about their habits and their intelligence — considered to be on par with a three-year-old human.

A little later on, we come to look at them again, and now they’re being weighed! It is a hilarious scene, and we are delighted to be able to watch. We all notice that the keeper is taking down the notes on a heavily padded digital tablet.

Me: “Oh, wow. That’s a big case you have on that thing.”

Keeper: “Hah, no kidding. We need it. If I put this down for a second, these guys will go for it.”

The keeper showed us a few beak-marks on the edges, chuckling.

We continued to watch as she tried to coax one of the birds out of a spot it was napping in, and, as we humans do, put the tablet down for a split second on the surface beside her thigh.

INSTANTLY, a bird on the other side of the enclosure RACED across the floor, running over my friend’s foot, in order to grab the tablet.

No destruction was to be had, thankfully, but we still laugh at how eager that Kea was to get to their desired chaos.

Client: “I need your advice on something. I’m putting an event program together, and I want to include a speech from one of the speakers, but when I print it, the speech is small, blurry, and unreadable.”

Me: “Let me get some details. First, how long is this speech?”

Client: “It’s a two-page PDF.”

Me: “And I’m assuming the program is a regular eight-and-a-half-by-eleven folded in two?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “Is there other content on this program?”

Client: “Yes.”

Me: “You realize that fitting two pages of text into a space that is at most a quarter of a page will be next to impossible, right?”

Client: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, trust me.”

Client: “Oh. Well, what about this? What if I print the speech out and photocopy it with — wait for it — with the size reduction, onto the printed program? Would that work?”

Me: “No.”