Josh Gunderson's Blog

I Accidentally Taught a Drunk Woman What Red Bull Is

I had to suffer through the following interaction, and since I believe in spreading the wealth of my misery, I’m making it everyone else’s problem now. You’re welcome in advance.

As I write this, I’m currently on a solo cruise aboard Enchantment of the Seas. This trip has been planned for a while, but it’s also doubled as a much-needed mental reset because this year has been… a lot. Truly, Olympic-level weird.

To be clear, I wasn’t planning on writing at all during this cruise. I even promised myself I’d disconnect. But here I am, hunched over my laptop, because I realized I botched something for work and had to fix it before it went live on social media. So much for vacation mode.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I’m indoors instead of poolside—it’s because I am currently burnt to a crisp and peeling like a lizard mid-molt. Not a cute vibe.

Anyway…

Last night, I had what can only be described as one of the most ABSURD interactions of recent memory.

Some context: on my past two cruises, I haven’t bought the drink package because my Royal Caribbean loyalty status comes with four free drinks a day. Add to that the fun twist of being on new medication this year that absolutely does not play well with alcohol, and I’ve been living the refreshment package life. Translation: water, Red Bulls, and the occasional mocktail are my entire personality now.

So picture me, living my best low-key life in the Viking Crown Lounge—reading, sipping a single glass of wine, people-watching like a Victorian ghost. Before heading back to my cabin, I decide I want to grab a sugar-free Red Bull for the morning. The least chaotic place to do this is (ironically) the casino bar, and since I had to walk through anyway, it felt like fate.

I should’ve known better.

Here’s what happened:

Me: ordering like a normal human being “Can I please get a sugar-free Red Bull?”
Woman (very drunk, very loud, very ready to fight): “SUGAR-FREE RED BULL? WHAT THE HELL IS A SUGAR-FREE RED BULL? DID YOU JUST ORDER A SUGAR-FREE RED BULL?”
Me: tries the classic ignore-and-hope-it-goes-away approach
Woman: “Did you just order a sugar-free Red Bull? What is that? Is that a drink?”
Me (baffled): “It’s… it’s Red Bull.”
Woman: “So like a vodka Red Bull?”
Me: “No… it’s just Red Bull.”
Woman (turning to bartender like she’s cracking a Da Vinci Code): “If I ordered a sugar-free Red Bull, what would that be? I don’t want one, I just want to know.”
Bartender (already regretting his career path): “A… Red Bull.”
Woman (gasps as if she’s discovered fire): “So sugar-free Red Bull is just… code for Red Bull?”
Everyone within five feet: collective confusion intensifies
Bartender (hands me my drink like it’s cursed): “Here’s your Red Bull.”
Woman: “OH! It’s just a Red Bull!”
Everyone: …
Woman (to me, beaming): “Thanks to you, I learned something new today.”
Me: “I’m so proud of you.” walks away before bursting into flames

Reader, I swear on Turtle (my cat) that this exchange actually happened.

Was it funnier in person? Probably. But this morning, as I walked through the casino again, I saw the guy who had been standing next to me during the interaction. We happened to make eye contact and both couldn’t help but laugh as the memory came back to the both of us. So if nothing else, I can say I provided live entertainment for one stranger.

And now, thanks to this blog, I’ve made it your problem too.

I Got Stabbed on Friday the 13th (And I Liked It)

This month, I participated in a long-standing Friday the 13th tradition that, somehow, I’d managed to avoid in all my years on this Earth — and no, it didn’t involve a machete-wielding maniac or a cabin in the woods. Usually, my way of honoring the sacred horror holiday involves what I like to call a “Jason Voorhees mini-marathon,” which is just a fancy way of saying I watch exactly one of the movies and call it a night. Look, I’m festive but I’m also sleepy.

But 2025 had other plans.

Originally, my friend Victoria and I were going to celebrate the way any grown adults with corporate burnout and theme park passes do: with a trip to SeaWorld. Because nothing says “spooky Friday the 13th” like watching dolphins backflip for sardines. Plus, I had guest passes just rotting in my account like a neglected pumpkin.

Then Victoria sent me an Instagram post that changed everything: a local tattoo shop was doing Friday the 13th flash tattoos. She’d done one of these before. I hadn’t. I’d vaguely mentioned wanting to do it “someday” — but we’d agreed SeaWorld was the move.

Cue the dramatic twist.

New plan: we’re getting tattooed.

We foolishly believed this would be a breezy little side quest. Pop in, pick some ink, get stabbed a few times, and be out in time for late-night shenanigans (Victoria really thought we’d get tattoos and still make the drive to SeaWorld). Reality laughed in our faces. We arrived at 4:15 PM. What followed was an epic saga of waiting. Two hours to check in, choose our designs, and pay. Then five more hours of being tattoo-adjacent. Seven hours in total before one of us even touched a tattoo chair.

Did I complain? Weirdly… no. It was kind of awesome.

We made new friends in line, found a surprisingly decent dinner nearby, and somehow leapfrogged the group ahead of us for chair time (a Friday the 13th miracle). Sure, we ended up trading SeaWorld for shoulder cramps and questionable lighting, but it was one of those nights where chaos turns into memories.

Had we made no plans at all, I probably would’ve spent the evening alone on my couch, watching teens get murdered in the woods — again, festive but sleepy. SeaWorld would’ve been fun, but this? This was different. Messy, weird, and a little magical.

Would I do it again? Eh… probably not.

We theorized the summer crowd made things especially hectic. Next year has three Friday the 13ths — all during the school year — so maybe it’ll be less intense. Maybe.

Here’s a fun, totally non-essential fact: Every calendar year has at least one Friday the 13th, and the most it can have is three. The longest gap between them is 14 months. You’re welcome for this future trivia night win.

And if you’re wondering where this whole tattoo tradition came from, thank (or blame) artist Oliver Peck. Back in the ‘90s, he hosted a 24-hour Friday the 13th marathon, tattooing the number 13 on anyone brave enough to show up. It caught on. These days, shops across the country jump in on the action, and tattoo artists refer to it as “Black Friday” — but with more blood and fewer air fryers.

As someone who has been feeling a little boring lately (I prefer the term “mysteriously low-key”), this night was a welcome detour from my usual routine. I even walked away with two new tattoos. I’m still searching for a Florida artist I really click with — this shop wasn’t quite it — but the experience itself? Totally worth the plot twist.

Oh, You’re Travelling With A Crazy Person?

It feels like a whole other life when I think about how much I used to travel. Pre-pandemic, I was jetting all over the place just about every week. I was at the airport more than I was at home. Even when work slowed down, I was still all over the place. 

Right now I’m at the Dallas airport waiting for my (delayed) connecting flight to Seattle to begin my Alaskan adventure that has been over a year in the making. I’m also wondering how I used to put up with this as much as I did. 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and I loved that I got to explore the country for work. I just hate the general public.

But to get to the point-

I tend to avoid emergency exit rows when I fly. This isn’t out of a desire to avoid being responsible for other people’s lives but more because, when I fly, I want to get to my seat, put in my headphone and go to sleep. Being in an emergency exit row requires to remain aware of what is going on up until the flight attendant makes sure your competent enough to deal with saving everyone’s lives.

On today’s flight, I was one row ahead of the emergency exit row, wondering why my window seat was blatantly lacking a window. I’m talking, NOTHING. I would have accepted a sliver of a window but I got straight wall. Rude.

I only had my headphones in to avoid any “polite” conversation with my seatmates when the flight attendants spiel about the emergency exit row caught my attention and flashed me back to 2014, the last time I had sat in an exit row-

This was right before I moved to Florida and my mental patient of a mother was wanting to move to Georgia. I ended up flying down to Georgia with her, mostly because I am a travel agent in most people’s eyes. I fly a lot and therefore I am in charge of all travel plans.

We were seated in the emergency exit row on our flight down and it was right about here when I realized that there was a better than average chance that my mom was off her meds as she often did… does? Probably still does. Don’t know, don’t care. A nurse that is terrible at taking her crazy person drugs.

The flight attendant came by to do the normal “you’re in charge if shit hit the fan” speech and my mom decided this would be a fun time to mock the flight attendant by doing those stereotypical hand motions and acting like an all-around smart-ass, despite my silent pleas for her to knock it off.

The flight attendant, noticing this, stopped speaking and asked my mom if she would like to go over the safety speech. It wasn’t in a mean or cruel way, she was playing along with the joke.

But my mom is a toddler.

She immediately began pouting, suddenly pissed that the attention was on her despite her really doing everything she could to get all the attention on her.

When I say pouting, I need you to please imagine a grown ass woman in her 50’s, arms crossed, bottom lip sticking out, with a scowl on her face. 

She was doing that while I was wondering if it was too late to offer to be strapped to the wing of the plane for the duration of the flight which would have been a far more comfortable experience for me.

My mom was the last to be asked if she accepted the responsibility of exit row duties and let out a pouty “yes.” It was at this point that the flight attendant realized that she had inadvertently caused a grown woman to turn into a child and leaned in and apologized to her, explaining that she was joining in on the joke and didn’t mean to embarrass her.

This brought more attention to my mom and therefore increased the pouting.

This was going to be a long trip.

Which it was.

This was the winter where Georgia got hit with snow and ice and we ended up stuck there for a few extra days… because the universe hates me.

Needless to say, when it came to the flight home, I put us on opposite ends of the plane because between her acting like a child on the flight down, her being condescending and annoying as hell the entire trip, and then being stuck with her for a longer time than bargained for, I needed a break.

By the time we boarded the flight home, I was beyond done with her.

My favorite part of the trip, however, was the flight home, because when we were boarding, I got stopped when boarding the plane to let the first class flight attendant bring some drinks out of the galley. She asked me how I was doing and I said something along the lines of “I’m in 10A and I’ll be doing much better with about twenty of those after take-off,” indicating the bourbon on the rocks in her hand.

Without missing a beat, she said “Well, then you need to take this one” and handed me the glass, sending me along my way.

Needless to say, that was the last time I travelled with a member of my family again and, honestly, I try to avoid sitting with the person I’m travelling with if it can be avoided. Not because I’m afraid they’ll be off their meds, but because I need some quiet me-time, especially towards the end of a trip.

Another quick example comes, again, from travelling with my mother. We were flying home from Hawaii on a red eye, which I already have trouble sleeping on. When I did finally manage to fall asleep, it was when they were starting drink service. My mom felt it was important to wake me up to ask if I wanted anything.

Sleep. I wanted sleep.

I’m hoping now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I will no longer be triggered by Exit Row speeches.

Who needs therapy?

Straight From the Tortured Poets Department

Tomorrow, I release a book.

A poetry book.

No one is more surprised than me.

For most of my life, the idea of me publishing poetry was about as likely as the Sears Demon winning a Pulitzer. I sat through two semesters of poetry workshops in college, where the general consensus seemed to be: maybe stick to prose? While no one outright said I was bad at poetry, the subtext of every critique was clear enough.

It’s funny—when I wrote You’re Doing It Wrong, I summed up my college experience as COLLEGE IS BULLSHIT. And yet, here I am, dropping a poetry collection. Life’s weird.

It all started as a joke.

I began writing absurd little haikus for my job’s social media, just for fun. Then, I thought: Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I made an entire book of these? The idea floated in and out of my mind for a couple of years. Eventually, I got bored of haikus and started writing full-length, completely unhinged poems—leaning into themes of nostalgia, existential dread, and, of course, the cursed energy of shopping malls. The more I wrote, the more I realized how much I loved it.

I still didn’t think much would come of it. But then, a nagging thought hit me: Why not?

So, I did it.

And now, The Lamenting Mallrats Society is about to be unleashed upon the world.

This book is a time capsule of chaotic mall culture, corporate despair, and the ghosts (literal and metaphorical) that haunt our favorite consumerist spaces. Some poems are bizarre fever dreams. Others are sharp, emotional gut punches. A few are both.

For example:

“The escalator whispers secrets to those who listen.
I was not prepared.”

Or:

“Somewhere, the food court still smells like fries,
even though the fries are long gone.
Ghosts get hungry too.”

This book is strange. It is weirdly personal. It is, in a lot of ways, a culmination of everything I love about storytelling.

I’ve published before, but this one feels different. Maybe it’s the beginning of a new era. Maybe it’s just another chaotic project in a long line of chaotic projects. Either way, I’m excited to see what happens next.

So, if you’ve ever wandered an abandoned department store and wondered what memories still linger in the dust—this book might be for you.

The Lamenting Mallrats Society drops tomorrow. The ebook is available for preorder now, and the paperback will be up on release day. Grab a copy. Tell a friend. Share your thoughts.

And keep an eye out—I have plenty more nonsense up my sleeve.

My Author Bio is a Lie Brought to You by ADHD

I have no words to truly describe the absolute wild ride that has been 2025 so far, so I’m not going to even bother. Instead I’m going to quietly accept that it is somehow already March and just move on.

It is Sunday afternoon as I sit and write this. Sundays are typically my day to get things done around the house which usually means moving the same thing from room to room because I’m not sure where it goes and then ultimately returning it to where it originally was in absolute defeat.

I then randomly decided that it was ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that I patch two small holes in the wall of my bathroom where the towel rack had fallen out. That happened almost two years ago but NOW WAS THE TIME!

Then I decided I wanted to paint the wall. I didn’t do that today but I clearly needed about an hour or so to think about painting the wall and then finding decor to match the wall that I’m not going to paint until next weekend (maybe). 

This was all far more important than the original task of… whatever the hell I was doing.

Orange. I’m planning on painting the wall in my bathroom a nice Burnt Orange. 

I know you were wondering.

When it became clear that I was not going to be accomplishing what I had set out to do earlier, I wandered into the livingroom to find new things to move around. This is where I picked up a copy of “Urban Decay: A Zombie Horror Anthology” which just so happens to feature my short story “Still Hungry.”

I flipped to my story because it’s fun to see something I’ve written in a book. A nice reminder that I am a published author. Look at me go.

I flipped through some more and landed on my author bio which reads:

Josh Gunderson is an author, educator, blogger, podcaster, and cat dad. His acclaimed non-fiction works include You’re Doing It Wrong, a memoir that chronicles his life and career, andYour Digital Life: A Teen’s Guide to the Online World, a detailed exploration of the digital world and its challenges. In addition to these educational books, Josh writes regularly on his blog Avoiding Neverland (www.avoidingneverland.com), sharing insights on topics ranging from social media to his love of cruising. Recently, Josh has expanded his writing to include fiction, with a particular interest in horror.

It’s been three months since I’ve written in my blog making that line about regularly writing here A LIE.

Naturally, I need to remedy this immediately which meant sitting on the couch, putting something on the TV, opening my laptop and instantly getting invested in what I put on the TV.

Now that the credits are rolling, I’m actually writing.

I’ve been doing a lot of work around the house lately which mostly explains my absence. My weekends are usually either spent at work or doing something around the house. I’ve lived here nearly two years and never really actually settled in and I’m trying to accomplish that now.

I’m currently trying to figure out how the hell I managed to fit all of this crap that I own into my former apartment which was about 700 square feet. Now I’ve more than doubled my available space and there is still shit in boxes.

How the hell does that happen?

I’m also purging A LOT of stuff from my life. 

Which leads me to a question for everyone- what the hell do I do with my old yearbooks? I don’t particularly want them but it feels weird to throw them away. What happens when I want to look back on the note that reads, “I don’t really know you so have a great summer”? 

I was so fucking cool in high school.

I Was Enchanted To Meet You – Again

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I am on a cruise ship while I write these words. Even less surprising is that I’m sitting in the Schooner Bar on a cruise ship while I write these words. Some of my best writing has happened on cruise ships. 

But there’s something special about this ship. This Schooner Bar. 

This is the Schooner Bar where I completed my first book. Sure, a lot about it has likely changed since I sat with my green composition notebook (I have no idea why I remember what color the notebook was but here we are… but now I’m questioning if it was actually red. I might be getting old.)

When I booked this trip back in April, I was super excited to be back on Enchantment of the Seas since my love of cruising started on this ship. Enchantment wasn’t my first cruise but it definitely held better memories than my first cruise on Independence on the Seas back in 2015.

Note that it’s not the ship’s fault, it was the people I was with and the circumstances of the trip. I have nothing but love for Independence of the Seas. In 2022 I took 5 separate trips on Indy and had a blast each time. If I remember correctly, Independence was the ship I was supposed to be on back in 2020 for my birthday before the world went to hell in a handbasket.

Moral of the story is – I’m happy to be back.

I will say that I’ve done very little writing on this trip which is a first for me. Actually, this is the first time my laptop has see the light of day on this trip. I think the overall exhaustion of the past couple months has caught up with me and I truly needed to relax. I’ve ended up doing a whole lot of reading on this trip which isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. 

But even when I’m not actively writing, the ideas are usually flowing all around and through me and that hasn’t been the case this time around. My mind has been blank. Again, I think it’s the exhaustion. I didn’t realize just how tired I was until I stepped foot on the ship on Thanksgiving Day. 

I have drawn two conclusions from this:

1) I’m about to get sick. A weird thing to know but I had a feeling before I even set sail that it was coming. It has been weeks of non-stop nonsense and the overworking and overthinking is finally going to catch up to me. This usually happens when I go from a million miles an hour to nothing. My body will punish me for relaxing.

2) A writing slump is coming. Again, exhaustion has caught up with me and my brain isn’t pumping out weird ideas like it has been the past few months. Hell, my last cruise in September pumped out two short stories that have since been published (more on that later) and this trip I have taken a lot of naps. The plus side is, it means I’ll be blogging more which is my go-to move when the ideas slow down. I can’t think of ways to write about tortured characters so I’ll just write about my tortured self.

I’m also going to blame the fact that I though booking a cruise on a holiday would be fun. I definitely have more to say about this cruise in a later post but I’ll leave you with a little teaser: HOLY SHIT ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE MADDENING.

I’m fine.

It’s going to be fine.

Remember when this post started off as me reminiscing about writing my first book. Those were fun times.

There’s a couple sitting at the table where I did most of my writing on that trip. The wife is giving me weird looks but that’s pretty par for the course when you whip out a laptop on a cruise. I also keep staring at them. 

It’s a two way street lady.

A lot has changed in the almost 6 years since I last stepped foot on Enchantment of the Seas – some good the better, some for the worse. 

This is also my last cruise of the year so I’m feeling a bit wistful. 

I really don’t know what I set out to accomplish in the post but I know I’m going to stop writing now because there are two children running and screaming around the bar and the parents are doing nothing about it and I really don’t want to get in trouble for tripping a child.

It’s Like a Novel… But Shorter

Someone offered me adderall the other day and I’m starting to think I should have taken it. 

For legal reasons… that was a joke? I’ve never actually taken adderall but I’ve been told many times that I should be on it. 

Oh, what would my life be like if I was properly medicated?

It’s just me and my under-diagnosed mental illnesses against the world!

Moving on.

I’ve been writing up a storm lately but my attention has been all over the place and life has been throwing a lot at me lately (including, but not limited to, a fucking hurricane). I’m trying REALLY hard to have work/life balance and go out and do things while also trying to build a writing career while also working my job that actually pays the bills and… now I’m crying.

TO THE POINT JOSH!

On top of my many novels in progress, I’ve also been working on short stories and have been getting really into it. This all started when I wrote a post about my origin story as a writer (The Unhinged Ramblings of a Third Grader) and it got short stories stuck in my head.

And they wouldn’t leave.

So I started writing.

My plan, as of right now, is to release a collection of short stories in the near future made up of everything I’ve been working on.

I’ve also submitted a handful of them for consideration in upcoming anthologies (more on that soon!). 

I’m also considering sharing them here for anyone interested.

Maybe?

Listen, it’s 5am and I’m awake and writing this because the kitten woke me up and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. So here I am rambling online while he has fallen to sleep playing with Lemon’s tail and at this point my alarm is about to go off so…

I’m going to order a breakfast sandwich from UberEats.

The Elephant Bridge Mystery: Unraveling a Childhood Legend

The Elephant Bridge Mystery: Unraveling a Childhood Legend

JOSH’S NOTE: It wasn’t until I was done writing that I realized that this whole story was written far more cinematic than it needed to be. I’ve been doing a ton of writing lately and apparently it’s difficult to turn off “writer Josh” and switch to “chaotic blogger Josh.” We’ll suffer through it together.

“A circus train derailed here,” we had been told by a cousin or an aunt, not sure who at this point, we were provided this tidbit of information nearly 30 years ago so it’s hard to tell. It was enough to fascinate a young mind who couldn’t help but think of the circus cars sunken below the dark surface of the water. “It’s so deep, they just left everything there, the elephants, the tigers, the entire circus.” 

I can’t remember the last time I thought of that random factoid before the other day, but the memory of that story came crashing through my mind as I drove over The Floating Bridge in Lynn, Massachusetts on my way to Salem last week. It had been two years since I had been in Boston and likely over a decade since I had driven over this bridge. Why my brain chose this moment to bring it to the forefront of my mind, I have no idea. I have a weird brain like that. I made a mental note to ask my sister about the circus train when I saw her later that night.

The story, as it has been told, was back in the early 1900’s a circus train was coming through the area and something caused the train to derail, dumping the animals into the seemingly bottomless lake, dooming them to a watery grave.

We would be told that the lake was so deep that there was no recovery of the train and animals and they all still sat at the bottom of the lake to this day.

A quick glance at the area with adult eyes brought a lot of questions that my young mind couldn’t fathom, the spectacle and intrigue was enough, who needed answers?

The chaos of my afternoon led me to forget to ask the question until hours later when my sister and I were sitting on her couch, a few glasses of wine deep. The bridge and the lake popped into my head and I blurted it out before I could forget.

She remembered the story with great enthusiasm and it was at that moment that I learned that the bridge actually had a name, The Floating Bridge. I think we used to call it The Elephant Bridge.

“But is the story true?” I asked.

It was one of those things neither of us had ever questioned before and if he had, back in the day, the hunt for answers would have been futile in an age where the internet didn’t exist. (For those reading this at some unknown time, 30 years ago was the mid 1990’s and we didn’t have answers at our fingertips, this is part of the reason who took the word of adults who knew better… We now know this isn’t the case but please forgive us for being cave-people.)

Cue the furious googling.

ANSWERS!

Cue the history lesson.

The Floating Bridge was built in the early 1800’s as a part of the Salem Turnpike, the main highway from Boston to Salem. There was a legend that the lake was ‘bottomless’ and there was no technology available to drive piles into a bottomless lake. Instead, pontoons were constructed to float the plank deck. Over the years, the deck was repaired upon the planks of the original deck, making the bridge top heavy. 

When particularly heavy wagons would cross the bridge, it would sink to water level, making the crossing a terrifying event.

Here’s where the circus comes in.

True to the original story we had been told in our youth, a circus was making its way to Salem. The crossing was uneventful until the elephants stepped foot on the bridge. Just one foot because after that, they refused to cross the bridge.

Whether the elephants actually made it to Salem or not, I have no idea, but I now know that they are not at the bottom of that lake.

Sometime after we had first heard the story of the doomed circus train, The Floating Bridge was rebuilt and redesigned to be the bridge that I drove across over 30 years later. It would have been after we had moved to Lynn but I don’t ever remember the construction and I feel like it would have been noteworthy since it was the easiest and quickest way to get to our local WalMart. Then again, the annoyance of construction detours wouldn’t really interest a 10 year old so it’s likely I never noticed.

In the redesign and reconstruction, the bridge was still made to appear as if it was floating, despite now being made of concrete. I could only find the historical photos of the old floating bridge I assume because modern bridges are less interesting?

A small part of me is a bit disappointed that the story isn’t true to be completely honest. I’m not surprised that my aunt or my cousin or whoever told me the story had lied. 

Or maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe it was one of those stories that, over the course of nearly 100 years, gets twisted and turned to become a local urban legend. It was harder to debunk these things back then after all. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a story that’s still told to this day or if it has fallen off into the dark, dusty corner of a select few people’s minds. 

I also can’t help but wonder if the ability to immediately search for the answers to the universe has taken some of the wonder out of life. The way my sister’s face lit up as I brought this old memory to the forefront of her mind only to debunk the whole thing moments later. I think we were both disappointed.

So that’s the story. It’s a weird little mystery from my past that I haven’t thought of in forever and now I know way too much about it.

And now, so do you.

You’re welcome.

The Cat I Didn’t Expect, but Couldn’t Live Without: Remembering Burger

Full disclaimer, this was written over a month ago, back on September 18th. It took me this long to bring myself to finally post it. What’s funny (not ‘haha’ but ‘oh’), when I wrote my last blog post about bringing home Whiskey, the idea of all of my cats’ mortality came to mind and I damn near wrote about it but decided it was too morbid a thought to put out there in the world. Apparently, something inside of me knew more than I wanted to admit to myself and therefore the world. But here we are.

Here’s the original post from September 18th:

It was 4959 days ago that I walked into the Methuen MSPCA, on a mission to adopt the fattest, orangest cat I could find. The idea of a kitten hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d only ever known adult cats, and I was confident that this time would be no different. In fact, I had already set my sights on a chunky orange cat when my sister called me over.

There she was—tiny, adorable, and not at all what I had imagined. This tiny nugget, who would later be named Burger, was undeniably cute, but I wasn’t sure. Then she reached up, smacked my sister’s sunglasses clean off her face, and in that moment, I knew. That little sass told me everything I needed to know. The universe had intervened. She wasn’t the cat I went looking for, but she was absolutely the one I was meant to find.

For the next 4959 days, Burger was my ride or die. She was the sweetest, most loving cat I’ve ever had, despite the perpetual “resting bitch face” she carried so well. She was an absolute purr monster, and that stayed true right until the end.

4959 days. It feels like a big number when you write it out, but now it feels impossibly small. Too short. I’m selfish—of course, I want 4959 more. I want her with me forever. But the universe had other plans, and I find myself cursing it, sitting here with my heart shattered, trying to find words that will never do justice to just how much I loved my sassy little Burger Baby.

Losing her hurts in ways I can’t fully explain. Burger wasn’t just a cat. She was a constant, a force of pure, unfiltered love wrapped up in attitude and purrs. I know, wherever she is now, she’s giving them hell with that same sass that made me fall in love with her all those years ago.

Rest in peace, sweet Burger. My heart will always be a little emptier without you.

I’ve Graduated to Insane Cat Person (And Republicans Are Pissed)

Whelp, if I wasn’t on JD Vance’s birthday invite list, I certainly won’t be now. 

It would seem that the Republican Nominee for Vice President takes issue with single cat owners. Specifically, single cat ladies, but that wasn’t very inclusive of him. For I am single. I have zero human children. And I’m a man.

If I’m being real, I wasn’t ever going to be on any of that man’s invite lists but if he takes issue with single, childless people with cats, then I really wouldn’t want anything to do with him anyway. Frankly, I take great issue with anyone who doesn’t like cats. Or animals in general. 

Also, taking one good look at JD Vance, and I’m pretty certain no animals like him very much. My oldest cat, Burger, loves EVERYONE and I think she would hate his guts. 

It’s actually embarrassing that Vance is the first millennial nominated for higher office and he ISN’T childless. Way to represent our generation bro.

I really didn’t go into writing this post to get political but election season has ramped up and we’re in the thick of it now and Republicans came for single cat people and I’m not going to take that lightly.

So what was the point of this post? It’s to announce the new man in my life!

Nope, I’m still single.

I got a new kitten! Meet Whiskey:

For those keeping score, I’m now up to 4 cats. TAKE THAT REPUBLICANS!

Whiskey has now been in our lives for two weeks. The day he came home with me, I wasn’t really intending on adopting a cat. I knew that Seminole County Animal Services was having a “Kitten Shower.” They had been overrun with kittens and were having an adoption event for $5. It had popped up on social media and I shared it to my friends and left it at that.

The next day, Saturday morning, I was heading out to run errands and there was a dead cat in the road. It had been hit by a car and the sight of it absolutely broke my heart. So I canceled my trip to Target and headed to the Animal Services building.

I got there right before the event started and my heart was full to see there were so many people waiting to see the kittens. I was number 16 in line and the waiting began. Soon enough it was my turn.

Now, keeping in mind that my three cats are all female, I went in with the mindset of getting another female cat for continuity sake. But as the cat distribution system is want to do, fate had other plans.

As we walked into the space where the kittens were, I took a look around and tried to gauge the best candidates to come home with me. One of the volunteers spotted me and asked if I wanted to hold the kitten she was holding. This was a stupid question because, it’s a kitten, of course I want to hold it. How dare you ask such a thing.

She handed me this little guy and he immediately exploded into motorcycle mode with purring galore. Then he fell asleep in my arms.

Moral of the story. I now have 4 cats.

Two weeks in and I’m regretting not getting him a friend but at the same time, even I agree that living along with 5 cats might be excessive. 

Not to say I’m not considering it at this point.

Time will tell.

For now, enjoy more kitten pictures.