Do you smell that? It’s the scent of fall television! (It smells like Charlie Sheen.) All your favorite shows are back with brand-new episodes! Unless your favorite show was “Joan of Arcadia,” in which case you’ll be disappointed, not to mention a nerd. But the rest of us are excited!

Unfortunately, TV shows change over time. Rare is the series that’s as good in its later years as it was in the beginning. Everyone knows “The Simpsons,” while still generally funny, is nothing compared to its heyday. Fans of “Seinfeld” watched sadly as that show went downhill in its final seasons, culminating in a weirdly disappointing finale. And remember how “Cheers” began as a sitcom set in a bar in Boston, but by the end it was about a psychiatrist in Seattle? What was up with THAT?

HOW SOME CLASSIC SHOWS WENT DOWNHILL
– In the later years of “Little House on the Prairie,” Laura Ingalls Wilder left the town of Walnut Grove, Minn., and became a stripper in Minneapolis, dancing under the name “Half Pint.”

– The last few episodes of “I Love Lucy” were nothing more than 30-minute increments of Lucy stuffing chocolates in her mouth, a desperate attempt to relive the glory days of that one great episode.

– The last season of “Sanford and Son” didn’t star Redd Foxx, but rather the corpse of Redd Foxx, manipulated with wires and pulleys and voiced by an impersonator.

– When Gary Coleman stopped being adorable on “Diff’rent Strokes,” they replaced him with Webster.

– The final season of “The Twilight Zone” included episodes with these anti-climactic endings:
1. His grandmother, who he thought had been dead for 30 years, turns out to have been dead for 31 years, because he had the date wrong.

2. The effect of traveling back in time is that now, in the present, stop signs are more lavender than red.

3. The identity of the mysterious man who made unusual bargains with the hero and brought him wealth and fame but at some price is revealed to be Stephen Walstein, wealthy philanthropist.

4. The magic box that sends pictures through the air turns out to just be a TV.

– In the last episode of “Joan of Arcadia,” Joan went on medication that made her crazy visions go away.

Often, the reason a show takes a turn for the worse is that producers notice one element that seems especially popular, and they begin to overdo that element. Thus, we are able to predict…

HOW SOME CURRENT SHOWS WILL GO DOWNHILL

– Dr. House’s famed incivility on “House” will become so overdone that he will stop giving patients medication and simply stand at their bedside and mock them as they die. Perhaps he will also poke them with sticks.

– You like the wordy, fast-paced dialogue on “Gilmore Girls”? Then you’ll love the new format, where the soundtrack has been sped up to chipmunk levels, thus making room for even MORE talking. It’s like a tsunami of dialogue, right there in your living room!

– This season, each new episode of “Lost” will include three minutes of plot development accompanied by 57 minutes of flashbacks. By Season 3, the show will consist entirely of flashbacks, and the castaways’ current plight will only be referred to in the TV Guide episode previews.

– People love the bad auditions on “American Idol” so much that they’re going to make a switch: From now on, it’s the WORST singers who will win, not the best ones. And by “from now on,” I mean “they’ve already started, and her name is Carrie Underwood.” (Oh yeah. I went there.)

President Bush’s first response to Hurricane Katrina was the same as everyone else’s: He ignored it. Hurricanes hit the Southern states all the time in the summer, knocking mobile homes off their foundations and wheel-less El Dorados off their cinderblocks. It’s not newsworthy. In fact, it’s usually funny.

But when the severity of this particular storm became apparent, Bush’s reaction was again the same as everyone else’s: He developed a worried look on his face. After that, his response was different from yours and mine. While you and I sat around lazily and looked at images of destruction on TV, Bush got on an airplane and looked at those images from several hundred feet above them. The same as watching them on TV, I guess, but in high-definition.

Once he had seen the destruction from the sky, Bush immediately swung into inaction. Despite having proven with the Terri Schiavo case that he is perfectly capable of providing swift aid to people who are already dead, Bush was curiously slow to get adequate military and medical support to the Katrina disaster zone. The official word was that the roads were impassable — but Harry Connick Jr. was able to get to there, so why not the National Guard? (And why Harry Connick Jr.? Hadn’t those people suffered enough?)

The Department of Homeland Security, which Bush formed after 9/11 and into which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was folded, was slow, too. By all appearances, Homeland Security has been so focused on possible terrorist attacks that they forgot all about nature, and what a b-word she can be.

In Bush’s defense, we were all caught a little off-guard. As I mentioned, hardly a week goes by in the summer that some part of the South isn’t hit by a hurricane. It’s usually bad in one relatively small area, and FEMA and the Red Cross can handle it. Katrina was different, though. The hurricane itself was a doozy, but the breaching of New Orleans’ levees essentially added a second disaster on top of it. Maybe we can understand why, at first glance, the impact of the whole thing failed to register with the president. It’s so huge as to be incomprehensible. And though there are some who would put a joke here about how a lot of things are incomprehensible to President Bush, I am not one of them. (Not today, anyway.)

So that’s how Bush responded. Other people figured prominently, too, though. How did everyone else react?

Liberals: Blame Bush for not reacting sooner.

Ultra-liberals: Blame Bush for the hurricane itself.

Conservatives: Dance around for a while trying to figure out how everything Bush did or didn’t do was exactly right (also known as the Doctrine of Presidential Infallibility).

Ultra-conservatives: Blame it on our nation’s too-loose borders. (Who let this “Katrina” in the country in the first place?)

People named Katrina: Despair at being forever tainted, like people whose birthdays are Sept. 11.

’80s pop band Katrina & the Waves: Feel guilty about renewed prominence in people’s minds; plan reunion tour.

National Hurricane Center: Elect to start naming hurricanes after terrorists instead of regular people. (Next up: Hurricane Saddam; Hurricane al-Qaeda; Hurricane Pat Robertson.)

Whoever killed that Natalee girl in Aruba: Breathe sigh of relief that CNN has finally stopped covering that story 24/7.

Amidst all the urgent news, there were also some odd announcements, like the one that legendary blues singer Fats Domino, a New Orleans resident, had not been heard from and was feared dead. Later, this story was updated to indicate he was fine. WHEW. I know I slept a little easier that night, knowing Fats Domino was OK. To lose thousands of regular people is one thing, but if we’d had to deal with the loss of Fats Domino on top of all that … well, it might have been too much for this burdened nation to bear.

We also had The Washington Post reporting that “General Motors yesterday (Sept. 1) was already blaming Katrina in part for a 16 percent drop in sales in August,” even though Katrina didn’t strike until Aug. 29. Apparently General Motors usually does 16 percent of its business on the last days of the month, which is pretty procrastinatey of them. No wonder Japan’s got us beat.

Then there was the story in Salt Lake City’s Deseret Morning News about Katrina refugees being sent all over the country. “About 50 people were loaded onto a plane late Saturday, but when told they were going to Salt Lake City, nearly 20 people got off,” the story says, indicating another black eye for Utah, in that people would rather be homeless than go there.

And don’t forget the insane idiots! They emerge after a disaster like spiders out of an old sofa. Just after the hurricane, Columbia Christians for Life declared Katrina to be God’s method of destroying New Orleans’ five abortion clinics — which, if true, means God has gotten extremely sloppy in His old age, leveling hundreds of square miles of land when He only meant to hit five specific buildings. Since I have a good deal of faith in God’s aim, I have my doubts concerning Columbia Christians for Life’s explanation of the hurricane.

That is, I HAD my doubts, until I read their evidence. The group pointed out that a particular satellite photo of Katrina looks a lot like a picture of a baby in a womb. That’s all the convincing I needed, and if that isn’t enough for you, then it probably means you’re evil and sometimes you perform abortions just for fun.

There is surely a lot of blame to go around. Local and state officials should have had a better plan in place. Louisiana shouldn’t have wasted its federal levee-reinforcing dollars on candy and gum. Seeing that the local agencies had blown it, Bush should have ensured that his staff, including the Department of Homeland Security, sent help sooner. People who had the means to evacuate should have done so when they were told to. All those Southerners shouldn’t have lived so close to those abortion clinics. Everyone’s at fault somehow. Everyone except you and me, that is. And while we’re being smug in that knowledge, let’s all send a few dollars to the Red Cross, OK?

W007! 17’$ 71M3 F0R M0R3 QU3$710N$ & 4N$W3R$ W17# 7#3 P0PU74R “4$K 3R1[ $7UFF”!

Wow, I was even annoying myself there. In “Ask Eric Stuff,” people just like you, only dumber, ask Eric for advice. Since Eric is smart, he gives smart-aleck answers, thus continuing the circle of life. You can submit questions here. It’s fun and nutritious!

Dear Eric: Is it OK to be racist if you’re racist against your own race? — Anonymous
Dear “Anonymous” (if that is your real name): Yes, unless you’re Jewish, in which case you’d be an anti-Semite, and everyone knows that’s bad.

Dear Eric: When I woke up and found out that New Orleans is under 25 feet of water, my first thought was, “HA! Now my ex-fiancé won’t be able to go on his vacation and have fun without me!” On a scale of one to 10, how evil am I? — Suffering from Schadenfreude
Dear Shady Fries: Probably a 10, considering the reason he’s no longer your fiancé is that you made out with his 15-year-old mentally disabled girl cousin.

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: I want it shot out of a cannon at a Dodger game, unless that’s how I died in the first place, in which case I want the Dodgers to pay my family $50,000,000 in reparations.

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: I want it donated to science. If science doesn’t want it, then Goodwill.

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: I want it reassembled as best as possible and the hyenas who killed me hunted down and shot.

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: Nothing, you sicko! What did you have in mind?!

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: I want it dressed up and dragged around for purposes of comedy, a la “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

Dear Eric: What do you want done with your body when you die? — Barry in Boise
Dear Boyz: I want it propped up in a booth at the county fair under a sign that says, “Have your picture taken with the corpse of Eric D. Snider! $1,” with all the proceeds going to charity.

Dear Eric: Do you like children? — Sarah
Dear “Sarah”: Yes! Especially the children of cows. They’re delicious.

Dear Eric: I’m having trouble with my new digital camera. How can I tell if the camera is defective, or I’m just doing something wrong? — Digital Disaster Dame
Dear Damey: If the pictures are turning out blurry, the camera may be defective. If the pictures are turning out wet because you have put the camera in the bathtub, then you are doing something wrong.

Dear Eric: Should I get a housecat for my kids? — Indecisive in Indiana
Dear Indy: Whoa, whoa, friend! Slow down a minute! First get your kids back from Social Services, then we’ll talk about a cat.

Dear Eric: Why is it always so hot in Las Vegas? — Frying in Vegas
Dear Veggie: So Satan has someplace to send people who have been extra-EXTRA-bad.

Dear Eric: Will you ever give up on writing and find a different job? — Need to Pay the Bills
Dear Dad: I told you to quit using this e-mail address!

Dear Eric: How can I get my adult children to get jobs, grow up, and move out of the house? — Deadbeat Dependents Driving Me Destitute
Dear Mom: You too!

Dear Eric: Why do old people smell funny? — Young in Yelm
Dear Jung: They don’t just smell funny. They see and hear funny, too.

Dear Eric: How do I stop people from taking advantage of me? — Charity
Dear Chair: Send me $50 and I’ll explain how.

Dear Eric: Why is it that elephants can remember everything and I can’t? — Elephant Idis
Dear Ellie: You forget stuff because you’re too fat. No, wait, so are elephants. I don’t know, then.

When I was a kid, I would sometimes spend a week or so in the summer at my grandparents’ house, where my two maiden aunts also lived. Grandpa worked; one of the aunts slept all day; and my grandma and the other aunt watched soap operas from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., starting with “Ryan’s Hope” and ending with “General Hospital.”

Well, one day both ladies were going to be away from the house for some reason (I don’t know how, since neither of them could drive) during “One Life to Live,” so I stayed behind to jot down notes on what they had missed. Whether they asked me to do this or whether I suggested it, I don’t recall. But I remember enjoying the experience of trying to make sense of a show where I had no idea what was going on. It was fun.

I got to thinking about this recently when I read an article about falling soap opera viewership. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, 12 million people were watching “General Hospital” every day, and 30 million tuned in to see rapist Luke marry his victim Laura in 1981. Today, all nine daytime soaps COMBINED garner only about 25 million viewers, with the top-rated show, “The Young and the Restless,” getting only 4 million.

What’s more, viewership is steadily declining. “The Young and the Restless” has been at the top of the heap since 1988, yet has seen its ratings drop 25 percent in that time. One-fourth of its viewers are gone, yet it remains on top! Which means the other shows are faring even worse.

So how can a show attract new viewers? Soap operas require daily attendance. To convince someone to add a time commitment of five hours a week, you’d better be offering something compelling. Are the soaps doing that?

To find out, I watched “The Young and the Restless” last Monday, to see whether I would be hooked, or at least interested enough to tune in the next day. I took notes on the episode, much as I did for my grandma and my aunt, and I present them here as evidence.

* * * *

Sad music plays as an ill-looking woman shakily pours a glass of something then drops the glass, which shatters. She is comforted by a rugged, gray-haired man. He reminds her that she has been through something traumatic, and that such after-effects are to be expected. He does not mention what this event was, but I take his word for it that it was traumatic, if it causes glass-dropping.

A blond woman enters, inquiring as to the whereabouts of Nicholas. She either does not notice or does not care that she has interrupted a moment between Shaky Woman and Rugged Man. Rugged Man figured Nick would be at the courthouse, but Blond Woman says nope, she just came from there, and the verdict is about to be announced! (Apparently the courthouse is next door.)

Cut to an empty courtroom, where another blond woman (a lawyer, we are expected to believe), blandly attractive in appearance, sits at a table and writes things on a yellow legal pad (because she’s a lawyer, you know). Another woman, a brassy, don’t-mess-with-me type, barges in and says, “Christine, why did that coon take my son?” I curse myself for having missed Friday’s episode, wherein a raccoon apparently made off with this woman’s son. Christine replies, without looking up, “Because you wouldn’t stop talking to Daniel, and that’s not allowed.”

Then they talk about the case, whatever it was, and Christine asks Coon Woman if she knows where Sharon went. Coon Woman says that when it became apparent the judge was going to come back with a “not guilty” verdict, Sharon went off to “warn Nicholas.”

Recap: So far, Christine is looking for Sharon and Sharon is looking for Nicholas.

Cut to a man — Nicholas? The raccoon? — in a wooded area (well, a fake wooded area on a Los Angeles sound stage), digging a hole. He appears distressed. He is handsome the way all soap actors are, i.e., in a very soft, half-heartedly gay fashion. He looks like the type of soap actor who could take his shirt off at any moment. Is this Nicholas, digging his own grave, the consequence of the judge’s foretold “not guilty” verdict? That doesn’t make any sense. I contemplate it as the opening credits roll.

Two men in a house. One of them is about 30 and wears glasses; the second, younger, asks whether Glasses actually saw Sheila Carter in the mental facility. Glasses indicates yes, and that Sheila is completely insane, not to mention locked up, and so Lauren (whoever that is) has no need to fear. “Sheila Carter is locked up tighter than Hannibal Lecter,” Glasses says.

“That’s good,” replies Other Guy. “Because Hannibal Lecter escaped.”

This should be a punch line, but the music gets very serious, and Glasses gets a thoughtful look on his face. Apparently this show doesn’t “do” punch lines.

Cut to a young man named Scott asking someone named Brenda if she’ll go with him to visit his mom. Brenda looks like she could BE Scott’s mom. I don’t like the looks of these two.

Back in the courtroom, Coon Woman wonders aloud how Nicholas will react if — nay, WHEN — her son (the one abducted by raccoons) is found not guilty. Christine’s lawyer friend enters and sits with her. Two more people, a professional-looking black man and an old bejeweled matriarch, enter. They’re waiting for the verdict, too. The old woman is Kay, and she’s pretty sure Daniel is guilty. Daniel’s mom, Coon Woman, is like, “Nu-uh, I don’t think so.” They are interrupted by an officer of the court, who wants to speak to Christine privately. The others stand and pose melodramatically while the conversation takes place in a corner of the room, and we go to a commercial.

When we come back, Coon Woman is reading Christine’s body language to mean that it’s good news. Kay is not so sure, and she tells us, quite irrelevantly, that Daniel’s grandfather was once her husband, though if this old lady is like all the other old ladies on soap operas, she’s had about a dozen husbands. Also, the actress is probably 60 while her character should be about 110. Coon Woman, whose name we learn is Phyllis, points out that Kay is there supporting the Newmans and hence wants Daniel in prison. Evidently the Newmans are known for their pro-prison position where Daniel is concerned. But Daniel is innocent, Phyllis says. He wasn’t driving the car that night!

Everyone keeps talking about waiting to see what the judge says, and I wonder why a jury wasn’t involved in what was obviously a criminal proceeding.

Christine returns from her conversation with the court officer to report that the judge had a family emergency and had to leave. Apparently you can just DO that when you’re a judge. (“No, keep the guy in jail a while longer before I declare him innocent. I’ve got things to do.”) Phyllis is livid. “Did he tell the goon what the verdict is?” (Ah, GOON. Maybe she said “goon” before, too. I swear it sounded like “coon,” though. I even replayed it several times.) Christine says no, he did not tell the goon what the verdict is. “The judge will read it in court when he gets back. That’s how it works.” Actually, I think the way it works is that a jury reads the verdict, but whatever.

During this, the well-dressed black fellow pretends to talk on his cell phone in the background.

Phyllis hurries off, still assured her son is innocent, and Christine and her lawyer friend leave, too. Now elderly Kay and her well-dressed black friend, Neil, are alone in the courtroom. I wonder if he is her lawyer, or perhaps her lover. I cannot really picture these two hanging out in everyday life. She asks him about Lily, specifically, how is she?

Cut to … what? A Mexican cantina, maybe? There are deck chairs on which people in bathing suits sun themselves, and a nearby table where sit two women and a man. One of the women, quiet and forlorn, is Lily. In a dramatic moment, she indicates to the other lady that she does not want any more iced tea.

The man tells Lily to lighten up, and she says she just wants to go to the courthouse to be there with Daniel when the verdict is read. The guy tells her, “They wouldn’t let you through the front door.” Lily must be pretty hardcore, if they wouldn’t even let her enter a public building like a courthouse. Is she banned from the library too? She calls the man Damon, with the emphasis on the second syllable: Da-MON. This is not a real name. Who are these people?

Cut back to Glasses and Other Guy. Glasses, apparently having spent the last several moments mulling the Hannibal Lecter remark, says angrily, “Do me a favor, don’t ever joke about Sheila Carter being out on the loose again!” Other Guy asks what it was like coming face-to-face with the notorious Sheila. Glasses says it was disturbing, being that close to a “monster, someone who tormented someone I love.”

Glasses, whose name is now Mike, says Lauren was so relieved to learn that Sheila is safely locked up that she cried. Oh, and now she wants to go to the nuthouse, too, to see for herself. These seem like contradictory responses to me — “I’m so relieved! Thank goodness this is over!”/”I want to see for myself.” — but whatever. Other Guy doesn’t think it is a good idea, but what does he know? He’s just Mike’s houseboy or something.

Back to Scott and Brenda. If she’ll go with him to “Genoa City” (fake), it will solve everything. He can see his mom, and he and Brenda can get a lot of work done on their novel. Brenda says, modestly, that it’s HIS novel, not theirs. I gather that they have some kind of true-life story waiting to be told, apparently Brenda’s story, with Scott being merely the vessel to put it in writing. He gets her excited about the possibilities of publishing the account. I still don’t like the looks of them. I wish they weren’t on this show.

Cut back to the first scene, where Shaky Woman and Rugged Man are still sitting on the couch and Blond Woman (now known as Sharon) hangs up the phone, having just gotten the news about the judge being called away. She hasn’t seen Nicholas all day. He left court because he couldn’t stand hearing them talk about Cassie.

Cut to Nicholas, now finished digging whatever he was digging, entering his home and gazing longingly at a photo on the mantel. He has flashbacks: him and Sharon talking about adopting the girl in the photo (Cassie?), going to the school’s Daddy-Daughter Dance (where he half-jokingly tells Cassie HE wants to be the daughter, I kid you not), her telling him sometimes she’s afraid she’ll be left all alone. On this last flashback, he says he’ll never leave her: “You have my word on that.” The final sentence echoes as we return to the present.

Did Daniel kill Cassie? Is that what this is all about?

Back to the courtroom, where gaudy old Kay and Neil are talking about Lily. She’s had her troubles with the law, but it could have been worse, Neil says. Mainly he wants her — his daughter, evidently — to stay away from Daniel (who he thinks his guilty). Kay and Neil talk about Lily, and how she’s 17, and they grow up so fast, and so forth.

Back at the cantina/restaurant, Lily frets and still doesn’t want any more iced tea.

Back at Nicholas’ house, he has more flashbacks about Cassie, including some less-happy ones of her teenage rebellion. The flashbacks are like a tour of Nicholas’ facial hair through the years: goatee, jaw-line beard, clean-shaven, and so forth. In the present, he’s got a little chin-beard and mustache that don’t meet.

Phyllis barges into Nicholas’ house without knocking. He asks, not without cause, what the H she’s doing there. She tells him the verdict’s due to come in, and she wants to know, if Daniel is found innocent, will Nicholas be able to deal with that? In response, Nicholas goes to commercial.

Upon our return, Nicholas says there’s no way Daniel will be found not guilty. Phyllis says Daniel wasn’t driving the car, that yes, he might have been drunk, but he wasn’t driving. (Is Daniel underage? Is that why there’s no jury? Is this family court?) Phyllis softens a bit and tells Nicholas that the kind of justice he seeks — where Cassie is alive again — ain’t gonna happen. Plus, she says, she KNOWS Nicholas has evidence that he’s been hiding, evidence that would apparently exonerate Daniel.

Back to Scott and Brenda, blabbing about this story of theirs, and how he wants her to accompany him to Genoa City. She’s reluctant. It occurs to me that this episode is half-over, and these two are never going to leave the apartment they’ve been standing in the whole time.

We cut to Mike and his houseboy, another pair that seems destined to stand around all day. Apparently tired of discussing crazy Sheila Carter, Houseboy tells Mike that he (Mike) should be happy, because with the Sheila thing almost behind her, Lauren can now lighten up, and the wedding’s back on, and Lauren’s son will even be in attendance! Mike tells Houseboy (named Kevin now) that he’s thinking of asking Lauren to move in soon, before the wedding. This means Kevin would have to move out. I don’t know what Kevin and Mike’s relationship has been, but it sounds unsavory. “I’ve enjoyed having you here. I never thought it would work out as well as it has,” Mike says. On a dime, Kevin turns angry and says, “I can’t believe you’re kicking me out!” On that absurd note, we go to commercial.

Neil arrives at the cantina, joining his wife and Lily (his daughter) and DaMON (I don’t know who he is). They discuss the impending verdict, how Daniel either was or wasn’t driving that night, blah blah blah.

Across the room, Christine and her lawyer friend are eating lunch. Lawyer Friend says Christine did a bang-up job defending Daniel, but what they could have used was some solid evidence that Cassie was driving that night, not Daniel. (Ah-ha! They were together. I’d been assuming Daniel had run Cassie over.) Christine says, “Maybe there was no evidence, or maybe we found all there was to find, or maybe it doesn’t exist,” not realizing that the first and third options mean the same thing. (“Maybe there wasn’t any, or maybe we found it, or maybe there wasn’t any!”)

Back to Phyllis still pestering Nicholas. She mentions how Nicholas’ family threw her out of her house, and how Nicholas once fired her. She handled that, but she will NOT put up with Nicholas harassing Daniel after he’s found not guilty. A gal’s gotta draw the line somewhere.

More Shaky Woman and Rugged Man (named Victor), still sitting there, two more people who aren’t goin’ anywhere today. Sharon couldn’t care less that Shaky Woman is looking more and more ill as time goes on. She rambles about how Nick pulled away when Cassie died, and she doesn’t know how to reach him, and so forth. Maybe Nick pulled away because you talk too stinkin’ much, Sharon.

Commercial. Then, Neil orders a turkey wrap with extra mayo and tells Lily she may NOT go to the courthouse to hear the verdict. Lily appeals to DaMON, now being called DeVON, for help. Her parents won’t budge. Neil goes to make some phone calls, leaving me to wonder what will become of his turkey wrap.

Nicholas broods about the death of Cassie some more, Phyllis urges him to leave her son alone, and then Sharon comes home. She is surprised to see Nicholas there, even though it’s his home, too. Sharon’s presence doesn’t seem to faze her.

Oh! Kevin is Mike’s BROTHER. Turns out Kevin was kidding about being upset, a shameless ploy to create drama where there was none. (I never fell for it, by the way.) He says he’ll move out right away.

Now Brenda is saying she can’t leave for Genoa City after all, which means she and Scott have gone nowhere today, physically or conversationally.

With Sharon finally gone, Victor can get back to addressing Shaky Woman’s shakiness. But before he does, we cut to:

Sharon demanding to know where Nicholas wandered off to earlier. Before he can answer, we cut to:

Lily arguing with her mom. And then we pan over to:

Christine and Lawyer Friend at their table, where Christine realizes something about the case that she has to check out immediately. A clue? A piece of evidence? A raccoon? She dials her cell phone and the show ends.

* * * *

My findings? This show is boring.

No wonder soaps are losing viewers. A whole hour of “Young and the Restless,” and no evil twin, no presumed-dead person returning from the grave, no medical crisis, no sex. No sex! What kind of soap opera is this?

I was able to pick up on the major plot threads, mediocre though they were, but nothing compelled me to tune in the next day to see what happened next. And it wasn’t until I poked around on the Internet that I found out the REALLY interesting parts, like how “Brenda” that Scott was talking to is actually Sheila Carter — the one who’s supposed to be locked up like Hannibal Lecter! Who’s locked up in Sheila’s place, I don’t know. The real Brenda, probably. Now, THAT’S a good story! But you wouldn’t know it from watching this episode, where Scott and not-Brenda just stood around all day talking about nothing.

Not every episode can be a barn-burner, I realize, but on the other hand, how are you going to hook new viewers? Deciding to watch a soap opera is like joining a church. It’s a conscious decision. You think, “I’m missing something in my life. I remember gaining some satisfaction by [attending this church/watching this soap opera] as a young person. Perhaps I should return.” And so you have another look at whichever church/soap you used to frequent. You notice that most of the people are different (though a few old-timers are still there), but that the format and content are more or less the same as you remember them. And if the first time back isn’t especially fulfilling, you keep with it anyway, because hey, this stuff is important.

I’m doing OK without any soap operas in my life. (Church is still useful.) I have TiVo, and I have free time. But five hours a week? And not an evil twin in sight? Forget it, you young, restless people. If I wanted to spend my weekdays being bored, I’d get a job.

This week, I wanted to let all my readers know about an amazing historic find that has just come to my attention: “The Blog Cabin,” a Web-log kept by President Abraham Lincoln during the latter days of his presidency. Read it and be amazed at the depth of information now available to us about our 16th president, written in his own words and posted to his own Blogger account! (Entries are in reverse chronological order, of course, so start at the bottom and work your way up.)

Today’s column is about getting things notarized, and how it’s dumb.

After I was issued my $431 speeding ticket mere seconds after arriving in Oregon in June, my friend Rob (who is a cop) suggested I fight the ticket through a process called trial by affidavit. This is where, rather than driving all the way back to the city where the incident occurred — a journey that would surely result in my receiving another speeding ticket — I write a letter to the judge and say the things I would say if I were actually in his courtroom. Rob even offered to write a letter to accompany mine, where he would enumerate the errors in the citing officer’s procedure, explaining that if he, as a field-training officer, were to see one of his trainees write a ticket this carelessly, he would declare it unacceptable and shoot the trainee in the head, execution-style.

This seemed like a good idea to me. (Writing the letters, I mean.) Even if the judge were unyielding, at least I would have delayed my having to pay the $431 by a few weeks. There are prisoners who have been on Death Row for decades, putting off their punishment simply by continuing to file appeals. Perhaps I could avoid paying the $431 just as indefinitely.

Rob said that since I’m the professional writer, I should write my letter myself. I held that he should write the letter, on the grounds that he is a police officer and that I didn’t feel like it. He refused, saying he had to write his own letter and besides, he wasn’t the one who was speeding. I pointed out that even if he HAD been speeding, I bet he still wouldn’t have gotten a ticket, what with professional courtesy, and that the system is thus inherently unfair. He said I get to see free movies. I told him to quit throwing that in my face. We reached an impasse.

I wrote my letter as follows:

Dear Judge:

I do not wish to pay this $431 ticket. Please do not make me.

Love,
Eric

Rob deemed this letter wholly unacceptable and agreed to help me with the gist of what I should say, but that I should put it in my own words. I accepted these terms and typed up everything Rob told me, word-for-word. He wrote his own letter, too. I proofread his work, and we were nearly finished.

All that remained was for us to get the letters notarized, which you’ll recall is the topic of today’s column, i.e., that it’s dumb. We went to Washington Mutual, where Rob and I are both customers and where there are known to be notaries public lurking about.

Now, in case you have never dealt with a notary public — I was 30 before I ever did — I will explain how it works. Basically, you go to this person, this notary public, and you show him the document you intend to sign, and he watches you sign it, and then he puts a stamp on the document indicating that yep, sure enough, you signed it.

Occasionally, this sort of thing is useful. For example, when I divested myself of the condo I owned by handing it over to my parents, the bank that held the mortgage needed us to sign lots of documents, of course, and since no representatives from the bank were on hand to see us do it — everything was conducted by fax and FedEx — they wanted the documents notarized. That way, they’d have proof that it was my parents and myself who were actually doing all this, and not impostors.

Now, in the present instance, of writing to a judge to ask for clemency, the notarization process is somewhat less useful. Even if it were someone writing the judge merely pretending to be me — well, that would actually be OK. In fact, it would have been better, because it would have saved me from having to write the letter myself.

But anyway, what’s funny about notaries public is how seriously they take the whole thing. You have to be licensed, and you have a license number, and your stamp has your name and number on it, and you can have your license revoked. They don’t seem to realize the simplicity of their duty, which is to watch people sign their names.

To become a notary public, you must actually take a state-administered exam. I cannot imagine what this exam entails. The only skills necessary to being a notary, as far as I can tell, are that you must be capable of seeing, and also capable of putting a stamp on a piece of paper. You will immediately recognize that chimpanzees — literal, actual monkeys — can do these things with almost no training whatsoever.

STATE NOTARY EXAM

Question 1: Can you see?
Question 2: If someone were signing his or her name on a piece of paper in front of you, would you be able to watch this without turning away, being distracted, eating a banana, etc.?
Question 3: Do you have religious or personal beliefs that prevent you from applying rubber-stamped messages to documents?
Question 4: Do you want to be a notary public?
Question 5: Really? Why?

So Rob and I were at Washington Mutual, and we waited for one of the notaries to emerge from a back room. One eventually did so, a young man clearly no older than Rob or myself. We showed him our letters, and he said in order for him to notarize something, it must have a particular stamp on it, a stamp that has certain terminology about “the foregoing” and “solemnly swear,” with some herebys and wherefores and such. Many notaries have a stamp that says those things, which they affix to the document in addition to their own personalized notary stamp. But the bank did not have it, he said. Baffled, he called for backup.

Out came another notary, a woman this time, but just as youthful. She reiterated the first notary’s position, that the documents must bear these certain words. She even found a document that contained the terminology necessary — three or four sentences with a place for us to sign. All of this would need to be part of the letters before she could notarize them.

I asked, “Couldn’t we just take this” — indicating the sheet of paper she had produced, the one with the special terminology on it — “and staple a copy of it to each of the letters?”

“No, it needs to be part of the actual document.”

“Then couldn’t we rubber-cement it to the bottom of each of the letters, where there is plenty of extra space, and then photocopy the letters, thus producing new versions that have the special terminology as part of the actual documents?”

“No, I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“They have very specific rules about what we can and can’t notarize –”

“Are you telling me they actually covered this in notary class? They were like, ‘If anyone ever comes in with a document that doesn’t have the official notary language on it, you can NOT just stick the official notary language to the bottom of the document and then notarize it’? That seems awfully specific….”

“I’m sorry, we can’t do it.”

“Could we go home and, on the computer where we typed these letters in the first place, type in the official language at the bottom, then print out new copies and bring them down?”

“Yes.”

“How would that be different from just photocopying the official language onto the bottom right now?”

“Well, they have very specific rules about what we can and can’t notarize…”

Clearly we were getting nowhere. Clearly we had reached the point where the notary knew she had made a mistake — there would have been nothing wrong with photocopying the language onto the letters, as I’d suggested — but didn’t want to admit it. She was now hiding behind her office as a notary, declaring there to be arcane rules that did not actually exist, hoping we would give up and say, “Well, obviously the world of notarizing is foreign to us and we will take you at your word, good notary.”

Having no choice, we left the bank and returned home to type the official language onto the letters. I briefly considered going to Kinko’s and photocopying it onto the originals and getting the bank woman to notarize them before revealing that we had tricked her and had done exactly what she’d told us not to do, but I decided against it. For all I know, it’s against the law to deceive a notary.

I typed the fancy terminology exactly as it appeared in the sample the notary had given us, printed new copies of the letters, and Rob and I returned to the bank. These documents she gladly notarized, making small talk about the upcoming weekend as she did so. She did not acknowledge how silly the whole thing had been. And the proud tradition of notaries lives on.

Postscript: Nine days later, I received a form letter from the Baker County Justice Court indicating my correspondence had been received, examined, and ignored. I was ordered to pay $431 by Sept. 30 (two months after the original deadline, so at least part of my goal was achieved). In the space where the letter should have been signed, the judge had used a rubber stamp to apply his “signature.” Not only was the letter not notarized, it wasn’t even really signed. The system, as I mentioned, is inherently unfair.

I finally found a place to live in Portland, but it took a while. It’s so hard finding the right apartment. You find one that’s a great price, but it’s too small. Or it’s the perfect size, but it’s in the wrong part of town. Or it’s in a great location, but it’s built on an ancient Indian burial ground.

Foolishly, I thought that, being a single person living alone, I might be able to make do with a studio apartment. Many of the ads I read indicated their studios were “huge” and/or “spacious.” I soon learned that, as with so many things in life, this is a bald-faced lie. There is no such thing as a “huge” or “spacious” studio apartment. If it were truly huge or spacious, it would have been split into two rooms, thus making it a one-bedroom.

Of course, there is great variance in the sizes of one-bedrooms, too. In some cases, I think they have done what I just suggested, portioning off a tiny bit of space from a studio and calling it a “bedroom,” even though the only kind of bed that would fit in it is the bassinet of a dwarf’s baby.

Yet despite the many differences among all the apartments — carpet or hardwood, old-fashioned or modern, haunted or exorcised — I have found there to be many similarities, too. In fact, having been shown more than a dozen apartments by various landlords and managers, I have concluded that all of Portland’s apartments have the following things in common:

– Every apartment is in a really great neighborhood.

– Every apartment is close to everything.

– Every apartment has really great neighbors. It’s like a little community, really.

– Every apartment gets a lot of light.

Sometimes these statements are outrageously, obviously false, as when they tell me, “It gets a lot of light,” and I’m standing in the apartment at the time, and it’s mid-afternoon, and all the blinds are open, and I can see for myself that it gets no light. I want to ask, “Now, all this light that it gets: When does that happen? Does it cost extra?”

Everything costs extra when you’re renting an apartment. Many of them advertise “All utilities paid!,” but what they mean is, “All utilities paid except gas and electric!” They pay water, sewer and garbage, which are, I will admit, SOME utilities. But they are not ALL utilities. Furthermore, I’ve yet to find an apartment that doesn’t cover water, sewer and garbage for you. So quit advertising it; it’s not impressive.

They also charge you $30 or so for an “application fee.” And then some of them want another $50 once you’re approved for “sign-up costs.” Of course landlords have administrative costs, but doesn’t all that rent money they get every month cover them? Apparently not. Apparently that money goes right to the barbecue pit, where it is lit on fire. So the only way they can make any money is by charging you to apply there.

(This would not work in other areas of commerce. Imagine going to a Cold Stone Creamery and telling the youth behind the counter that you would like a Gotta-Have-It-sized combination of oatmeal-cookie-batter ice cream and smashed-up Butterfingers, and the teen tells you, “OK, there will be a $5 application fee, to see if we even want you as a customer, and if you are approved, the confection itself will cost another $3.95.” You would not remain a patron of Cold Stone Creamery for long after that, let me tell you!)

Many buildings have signs on them that say, “Apartment available,” with a phone number. Often, when I call those numbers and say, “I’m calling about the apartment,” I am told that despite the sign saying “Apartment available,” there are not, in fact, any apartments available. The sign is affixed to the building permanently, I guess. One time the conversation went as follows:

“Yes, I’m calling about the apartment for rent…?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any vacancies right now.”

“But I just walked past the building and saw the sign that said ‘Apartment available.'”

“Yeah, we don’t have anything right now.”

Not, “Oh, sorry, we should take that sign down,” or “Whoops, we just rented the last one.” Just “Yeah, we don’t have anything.” Like there’s nothing they can do about it. That sign on the building? An old gypsy put it there as a curse and it WON’T COME OFF!!!

I called the number listed for an apartment I’d seen advertised on Craigslist.org. I told the woman I was inquiring about the apartment for rent, and she said, “Have you driven past it?”

“Uh, no, I was hoping someone could show it to me. The inside and everything.”

“We actually ask that you drive past it first to see if it’s something you’d like, and then if it is, call us back and we’ll make an appointment to show it to you.”

“But how can I tell anything just by driving–”

“So give us a call once you’ve driven past it.”

I was stunned. How ugly must this place be? They were apparently very confident that once you’d seen the exterior, you wouldn’t even want to bother looking inside. I wasn’t going to play their games, though. I don’t care what a place looks like on the outside; it’s what’s inside that counts. (It’s the other way around with people, of course.) So I waited a few hours and called back. When the woman asked if I’d driven past it, I said, “Yes, and it’s very lovely.”

Turns out it was fairly hideous, but no worse than a lot of other places. The agent who wound up showing me the place reminded me, of course, that it was in a great neighborhood. The neighborhood was bland and anonymous, and all the signs on all the businesses were in Vietnamese. If I were a blind Vietnamese person, it would probably be a fantastic neighborhood. As a sighted American, however, it left a lot to be desired.

It can be soul-crushing, all this business of looking for an apartment. It really is like going on a series of blind dates. You know some basic information about the person, and their attributes sound appealing, and as you approach the first meeting you’re thinking, “Maybe this is it! Maybe this is The One!” And then you meet and it turns out they smell mildewy and have a tiny bathroom. And then you do it all over again with another place, and then another, and each time, your standards get lower. You think, “Well, it’s really expensive, and it’s too small, but it is in a nice part of town, and the view is OK, and I’m not getting any younger….” And finally you settle for something less than you deserve because everyone’s been pressuring you to find a place and you just want to be DONE with it, for crying out loud, and you’re glad it’s month-to-month with no lease because you’re already looking for something better, but you never get around to moving, and before you know it 20 years have passed and you’re still waking up to that same ugly floor tile every morning and by now you might as well just stay here because you don’t have the energy to look for anything else and then you die. Or so I’m told.

The place I finally chose is not in the exact part of town I wanted to live in — I was hoping for something where all the signs would be in Korean — but it’s good enough. It’s spacious and affordable and it has hardwood floors, which will be convenient if I ever need to kill, dismember and conceal an evil-eyed old man. Otherwise, it just means I have to sweep every day. But the important thing is, the search is over. And it actually does get a lot of light.

Day 8: It was a beautiful day, and my afternoon was free, so I took Demi to a park where they have a fenced-off section just for dogs to run around, leash-free. I figured he could use some exercise, as well as some socialization with other dogs. Whenever we pass another dog on our nightly walks, he gets very, very excited, and I realized it’s because he doesn’t get to hang out with other dogs very often.

The problem is, Demi is like a socially awkward home-schooled kid. At the dog park, he’d get so excited to see his fellow canines, but then become timid when actually approached by them. He was barking sporadically, too, as if unsure when to talk and when to listen. This dog definitely needs some friends, and quick, before he grows up completely maladjusted. We need to get him in a play group, or enter him in a dog show, or a race, or something.

Day 9: I found a picture of Walter on Rob’s computer. Why Rob takes pictures of his cats, I don’t know. Surely Rob leads a sad life. But I’m glad he does, because after printing off a copy of the picture, I had something to compare the cats at the animal shelter to.

So I returned again to the cattery and found mostly the same assortment that I saw two days ago, including the three or four that could have passed for Walter. None of them were him, though, as the picture proved.

It was good to know, though, because one of the sitcom-style solutions to the problem that I had devised was the one where I find a cat that looks just like Walter, bring him home, and hope Rob and Curtis don’t notice the difference. Surely one of these cats could be Walter’s doppelganger, if it came to that.

I was beginning to worry now — not about Walter’s safety, because I figured he’d just been adopted by another family (he wasn’t wearing a collar), but because I didn’t know how Rob and Curtis would take it.

“Welcome home! How was your vacation? Yeah? Oh, I bet. Sounds wonderful. Hey, listen…. Remember how you had those two cats? Right, well, I seem to have misplaced Walter. Well, that is to say, he misplaced himself. I don’t know where he is. Now, in my defense, I should say that Demi and Ethel — fully two-thirds of your pets — are still in custody and have been no trouble at all. Also, I should point out that you asked me to housesit, and the house itself is perfectly fine. My conscience as it pertains to the house per se is absolutely clean. But Walter, yes, he’s gone forever.”

I have some reason to believe they will not be devastated by the loss of Walter. Rob told me they have a policy of not spending unreasonable amounts of money on pets. They love them and everything, but they’re also realistic (and cheap), so Rob said if any of the animals gets injured or sick, I shouldn’t spend more than $150 to repair him or her. (He did not indicate whether the same cap applied to injuries or illnesses sustained by me personally.)

This led me to my second sitcom-style solution. If Walter doesn’t return before Rob and Curtis do, I’ll tell them he was hit by a car and it would have cost $151 to save his life. I’ll be very sad about it, and tell them it was a tough decision, but I knew it was for the best. Then, this being a sitcom, Walter will of course return, probably just as we’re holding the kitty memorial service. “I loved Walter so much!” Rob will be saying, in tears, and then Walter will meow from the back of the room. “I can almost hear him meowing right now!” (More meowing.) “There it is again, the sound of Walter living on in our hearts forever.” And then everyone realizes it IS Walter, and he’s not dead, and I have to pretend to be shocked. “Hallelujah!” I shout. “It’s a feline miracle! Walter is raised from the dead!” And then I have to come clean and confess I lost him and we all have a laugh and a hug but I think we learned a valuable lesson, too.

Day 10: I figured it wouldn’t kill me to mow the lawn, so I dragged the thing out of the garage to the back yard (which I’ve been watering every night, because wouldn’t you know it, Portland picked this week not to have any rain, the first such stretch since 1791). Then I discovered that when Curtis gave me this assignment, he had hidden another assignment inside of it: Before I could mow the lawn, I would have to get rid of the dog poop that was scattered across it. Nicely played, Curtis. Nicely played indeed.

I got a plastic bag and disposed of all the clumps. I found much of it even more manageable than the cat poop, because it had lain in the sun for several days and had turned hard and odorless. The more recent droppings were less pleasant, of course, and in that regard I’d have to say the experience with the cat box was preferable.

The fact that I now considered myself well-versed in the different kinds of animal droppings angered me.

Mowing the lawn did not, in fact, kill me. And it was only 10 times more arduous than using a vacuum cleaner, which means Rob’s assessment of it was not as exaggerated as I had thought it would be.

Day 11: I was standing out back watering the lawn tonight when who should come trotting along the fence but Walter! I was so astonished that I actually said his name out loud.

“Walter!” I said.

I stood there, agape, completely flabbergasted to see him. He was acting all nonchalant, like he hadn’t been gone for eight days. I set the hose down and very cautiously, meekly approached him, not wanting him to run off. I got him off the fence and hustled him inside, his meows of protest failing to move me. I told him he was a bad kitty for worrying me like that, but honestly, what does a cat care what I think of him?

Day 12: Everyone was mad at me today. Demi was outside and wanted in; the cats were inside and wanted out. Everyone was glaring and whimpering and meowing. Home was not a happy place.

And then Walter escaped again. I went out to get the mail and closed the door behind me. When I opened it again, mail in hand, Walter bolted, apparently having been sitting RIGHT THERE, waiting for his chance. I was quick this time, though, and I caught him before he got far. This made him even surlier than he had been.

Day 13: Walter clearly hates me. He recognizes me as the reason he can’t go outside, and whenever we cross paths in the house, he meows at me accusingly. When I’m sitting at the computer, he’ll stand near me and meow, repeatedly, incessantly. He is angry and indignant. It doesn’t help that I still won’t let him in my bedroom. Every morning, he wakes me up with his yelling and battering. He wants in my room, and I won’t let him. He wants outside, and I won’t let him. I am the one major obstacle between him and happiness. He loathes me. And I should mention, I’m not exactly a big fan of his, either.

Day 14: Walter stepped up his campaign of terror today. When I got up this morning and stepped out of my bedroom, there was Walter, and there was a pile of his poop, on the floor, not six feet from the litterbox. He had done it just to spite me. What’s remarkable is, this isn’t even the first time in my life that an animal has defecated as an act of defiance toward me. What is it about me? This crap is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Day 15: Rob and Curtis returned today. The pets were all present and accounted for, the house was in fine shape, the lawn had been mowed, the litterbox had been cleaned out regularly. I told them how I’d been so worried about Walter because he had disappeared for eight days, and Rob just laughed and said, “Yeah, he’ll do that.”

Day 1: I am housesitting for my friends Rob and Curtis, who are letting me stay rent-free in their suburban Hillsboro home for two months until I can move into my own apartment in Portland. They were very kind to suggest this arrangement, so I figured the least I could do is move here in time to housesit while they go to Europe for two weeks. Also, they did not give me a choice.

It shouldn’t be much of a job, though. I need to water the backyard lawn on days when it doesn’t rain — but, this being Portland, I assume it will rain every day. Rob said I’ll want to clean out the cats’ litterbox “every couple days” because of the smell, but clearly Rob has underestimated my ability to ignore unpleasant circumstances when doing so will eliminate work for me. Curtis said the lawn needs to be mowed every weekend, but I figure as long as it’s been mowed once before he returns, he’ll never know the difference. And it’s one of those push mowers, with no motor of any kind, and Rob said it’s like using a vacuum cleaner. Even given the fact that I immediately spotted this as an outrageous exaggeration, it still shouldn’t be very arduous.

Day 2: When I am alone in a house, I like to sleep with my bedroom door open. I can’t do that here, though. In fact, I can’t leave my door open at any time, because if I do the cats will go in and get their dander and catness all over my bed, and then I’ll have itchy eyes. Rob said the cats never go in the guest room anyway, but I doubt this, because every time I open the door, one of them tries to get in, as though this room is their favorite place in the world. Sometimes it’s Ethel, the sweeter, more passive female cat. But usually it’s Walter, the aggressive, loud-mouthed male. This morning he was so desperate to gain entry to the room that I was actually awakened by his incessant meowing, issued from his post just outside the door. Every few seconds, he would accent his pleading by banging his little paws against the door, which is light and flimsy and shakes when struck as if Walter had flung his entire body against it, which, for all I know, he had. When I open the door, I have to be ready to kick, too, to shoo Walter away long enough for me to shut it behind me.

Day 3: Rob and Curtis also have a dog, an adorable beagle named Demi. (It’s a long story, but no, he wasn’t named after Demi Moore. They do have a few things in common, though, such as being very attractive members of their species and having a fondness for licking themselves.) I love Demi. He is grotesquely stupid, but devoted beyond belief. If I’m downstairs watching TV, he’s on the floor next to me. If I go upstairs to use the computer, he runs ahead, turning around on the landing to make sure I’m still coming, then barging into the office, where he takes his spot on the floor behind me. When I get home at the end of the day and let him in from the backyard, he is obscenely delighted to see me, barking and jumping and licking me the way only my best friends do. We tell each other about our days, and then I pour food in his bowl, which he ignores in favor of begging for whatever I’m eating. It is the most agreeable relationship I have ever had.

Today it rained a lot, so Demi was not happy to be outside. He doesn’t like to get wet, I’ve noticed. When I take him on his walk every night around 10, he’ll avoid sidewalks that have been dampened by nearby sprinklers. I wonder how he ever gets bathed, then, and am glad Rob and Curtis did not include that task on their list of instructions, as it would have been one more chore for me to avoid doing.

Anyway, Demi whimpered and pressed his little face against the sliding glass door until I finally let him in at around 4, earlier than usual. Immediately, he began indicating he wanted to go for his nightly walk. I explained that not only was it too early for his nightly walk, but that the nightly walk was located in the same “outside” as the one where it was raining. He refused to see my reasoning, however, and persisted in his pleas for a walk. So I got my umbrella and took him for a walk, which he did not enjoy, what with the rain and all.

Day 4: I was told to keep both cats in the house at all times, presumably for their own good and not as a punishment for me. But today Walter escaped. It was when I opened the door to take Demi for his walk. Walter must have been lurking near the door, hiding, because as soon as the door was ajar, he rocketed through it like he was on fire. I had Demi’s leash to contend with, not to mention Demi’s dunderheaded exuberance and energy, and so was unable to pursue Walter for several seconds. By the time I did, he was gone, disappeared into the Oregon foliage. I figure he’ll come back. I mean, what kind of dumb cat doesn’t know where he lives?

In other news, tonight while I was working at the computer desk, Demi passed gas in his sleep. It was the vilest thing I had ever smelled. It had the regular scent of dog poo, but concentrated, as if packed in a spray can and then suddenly deployed all over the room. The window was open, yet the smell did not dissipate, nor did Demi even wake up. I told Demi that if he ever emitted such a stench again, we would have him put down.

Day 5: Walter has not returned. I’m not sure I would know it if he did, actually. It’s not like he can ring the doorbell. Wouldn’t he scratch at the door? Or sit outside and meow? That’s what our cat back home always did. But I have heard nothing from Walter. No calls, no letters, nothing.

I drove around our little Stepford-like neighborhood, looking for him, but I’m not sure what I expected. It seemed unlikely that he’d just be walking down the sidewalk, or waiting at a bus stop. (Where would a cat be going on a bus?!) Anyway, I didn’t see him.

Day 6: All right already, I cleaned out the litterbox. Despite the number of cats in the house having been reduced by 50 percent, the thing still managed to get pretty stinky pretty fast. That said, cleaning it wasn’t as gross as I had feared. There’s a little trowel with slots on the bottom that you use to pick up the clumps; the sand falls through the slots, leaving only the clumps, which are fairly solid and compact. Apparently we keep these cats (or, rather, this cat) on a high-fiber diet. I’m not saying I enjoyed it, just that it was bearable.

Day 7: I visited the local animal shelter today to see if Walter had turned up. I had a wide array of fears. My first fear was that he wouldn’t be there, and that I would have to tell Rob and Curtis, upon their return, that I had misplaced one of their cats. My second fear was that he WOULD be there, and that I would have to pay a lot of money to get him out of hock.

I was directed to a room called, for real, “the cattery,” where the stray cats are kept in individual cages. This room is also known as “the den of itchy eyes.” I planned on staying just long enough to see if Walter was there, but I soon discovered that 1) I didn’t know Walter very well and 2) my basic description of him — mostly black with some white areas — matches pretty much every cat ever produced. I knew Walter was a neutered male, though, so that eliminated the female and/or sexually virile members of the cattery. But there were still a few that might have been him. None of them were on Death Row yet, so I figured I had time to come back in a day or two with a photo, assuming I could find one. (Had Rob and Curtis taken their pets to the Sears portrait studio? I could not recall.)

While I was in the cattery with a woman who actually seemed to adore cats, who was probably preparing to embark on a career as a crazy old cat lady, an animal shelter employee poked his head in and said, “Can you guys stay in here for a minute with the door closed? We have a mean dog coming through.” I liked the fact that the technical, professional term for a mean dog is “mean dog.”

Thus quarantined, we watched through the glass as what was apparently a mean dog was led down the hall on a leash. I did not like being confined to the cattery with a lot of cats and a strange woman, but I did like the excitement of seeing a condemned criminal being escorted past us.

Unfortunately, I left the cattery and the animal shelter empty-handed. If Walter was there, I couldn’t pick him out of the lineup. And in another week, Rob and Curtis will be home, demanding to have all their possessions accounted for, and wanting to know if I’ve mowed the lawn.

TO BE CONTINUED…