How I feel.
Remember the column I told you about??? The Kevin Cowherd one? The guy who isn’t good-looking but has writing skills that pwn? (sorry, geek speak.)
Here comes the newsflash:
HE’S DISCONTINUING HIS COLUMN!
Nooooo… I must’ve got it wrong. He’s going to write a sports column for the Baltimore Sun? WHAT? The guy told us WAY too many times… He’s unfit! Sports and Kevin Cowherd have NOTHING in common!
Okay. This is how it all began.
Today, I had my BM Paper 2 exam. It ended at 10:15 am. So after that, all the Accounts girls took off to do their Accounts exam while the rest of us lazed around in class, talking, doing nonsense, almost anything that did not involve studying.
AND… reading the paper. Yeah, yeah, it was full of the American Idol news… LALALALA, Kris Allen won, another idol, woohoo.
And then, I saw Kevin’s column ( I was reading the paper with Felicia) and I “syor”ed the column to her lar.. She refused to read it, despite all my assurances that it was a good piece of writing and that his work was SO funny. She made an excuse that it didn’t have pictures. XD
After much persuasion, she agreed. Okay, I agree that the first few lines were a little boring, but I urged her to read on. Then she told me: Don’t wan. So boring one… Don’t wan to read dla…
So I said FINE. If you’re not gonna read it, I’ll read it to you. Then she called Sheema to listen to me yakyakyak a bedtime story and both of them propping up their chins on their elbows… So I began. As I was nearing the end the paragraph went like this.
“After 22 years as a features columnist…” I knew nothing good could come out of that. Besides, his column today was talking about some cat and that had nothing to do with it!
At this point, after noticing a change of the “storyline” , I began reading it out at top speed with my eyes nearly popping out of their sockets… I didn’t know if it was tears of laughter listening to Sheema and Felicia laugh their guts out or that I was really sad that Don’t Get Me Started was going to be no more. WHY end 22 years of humour writings that could make half the world smile? He says he wants a change of scenery and a change of topics.. You don’t like smiley people laughing at your humour column? You wanna go get something more serious? Because sports is NOT your style. But I bet you’ll make all the sporty people happy there. Not the laughing, smiley people. Unless they’re sports fans too.
After a while, I think I don’t feel so sad already. Okay. Final tribute. Let the master take centre stage.
I’m posting the article here for you guys to read. Because if I don’t you’ll never read it.
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By: Kevin Cowherd
I was not looking to take one last shot at cats before the new gig starts, but that’s what people will say.
People will say: “You never gave cats a chance. Now you’re sticking it to them one more time before you go off to do whatever.”
Which is not true. I’m simply telling a story here. It just happens to involve a cat. If it was about another animal, even a dog – which is always friendly – I’d write about that. Period.
In any event, the story begins on a recent weekend in Massachusetts, where my wife and I are spending the night at the home of our old friends Bob and Ellen.
We are making small talk in the kitchen when Ellen says: “Oh, we have a new addition to the family.”
Ellen is 54 years old, so we can pretty much rule out that there’s a bassinet with a sleeping baby somewhere in the house.
Now I start to get nervous. I start to get a vibe that this is her cutesy way of telling us about a new pet. And knowing Ellen, I’m pretty sure what kind of pet, too.
Sure enough, the new addition turns out to be a cat.
“His name is Cosmo,” she says.
Cosmo. What a name. But what difference does it make? You can call a cat by his name all day long, and the cat won’t come.
Just then, as if on cue, the cat saunters into the kitchen.
“Can you say hi, Cosmo?” Ellen says.
The cat glares at us. This is what passes for “Hey, how you doing?” in the cat world.
Anyway, for the rest of the day, the cat makes himself scarce, which is fine with me. I am a dog person and don’t much care for the chilly nature of cats, anyway.
We end the night with a few cocktails on the deck and a lot of stories about the old days. Finally, it’s time for bed.
Which is when Ellen drops this one on us: “You have to leave your bedroom door open for the cat. That’s where he sleeps.”
Excuse me?
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” she says.
I’ll be sorry? Who’s the cat with, the Gambino family?
At this point, I start to think: There’s a Holiday Inn Express right up the road.could sleep in a place where cats are not skulking around in the middle of the night and wake up to a nice continental breakfast in the lobby, with bagels and yogurt and those waffle irons where you pour the batter in and flip it and it makes a waffle the size of a satellite dish.
But my wife says: “No, we can’t go to a hotel. It would hurt Ellen’s and Bob’s feelings.”
My feelings apparently don’t count. I have four or five Sam Adams swishing around in my gut and need some sleep. Now I have to be on the lookout all night for this stupid cat.
Who knows what the cat’s going to do in the darkness? He could leap into the bed and scratch our eyes out. There are strangers on his turf. You don’t know how he’ll react.
Long story short, I get hardly any sleep. All night long, I can hear the cat padding around on his little cat feet and clawing at his little cat pillow. It really gives you the creeps.
He’s even playing with his little cat toy, with the ribbon and the jingly bells. Try sleeping with that going on.
We leave at about 8 the next morning. Just before that, I am sucking down coffee so as not to fall asleep at the wheel and send us into a ditch. The cat is in the kitchen to see us off.
“Can you say goodbye, Cosmo?” Ellen says.
The cat glares at us. Then he saunters outside to find something to kill in the woods. This is how they say “Have a nice trip” in the cat world. Unbelievable.
Anyway, if you’re a big cat person and feel all this is unfair, save your calls and e-mails, because this is probably my last column about cats.
After 22 years as a features columnist, I’m moving over to The Baltimore Sun’s sports department to write columns. I hope you continue to read my stuff in the sports pages and on balti- moresun.com; the new column starts tomorrow.
I’m looking forward to the change of scenery and the change of topics, too.
Oh, years ago I interviewed the great boxer Roberto Duran and tripped over a cat, which was skulking outside his hotel room, and almost wrote about that.
But what are the odds of something like that happening again?
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*applause*
leftrightleftright
NOTE: If you’re a fan of Coldplay, go download their free album on coldplay.com. It’s called left right left right or something like that. A tribute to their fans. I’m no fan of theirs but free LEGAL music is cool.
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Look closely, and you’ll see all the little words. 
