d.: Cal.E. is getting ready to return to her home planet, the Planet of the Talking Cats to campaign for ruler of that planet. The election for that position is in November, and the polls say that the race to too close to call between Cal.E. and the independent challenger, mewonnaire Ronald Dump, Jr..
Ronald’s dad came up with the idea to invent a truck with a large enough bed to fit all the waste from the litter boxes on the planet. It takes a week, but the Dump Trucks get rid of all the waste on the planet on a weekly basis. However, there is still some controversy about where that waste is discarded. Ronald Dump, Sr. won’t disclose that information, and the Supreme Ruler of the Cat Galaxy, Meow Z. Tongue has decreed that this is classified information. Cal.E. faces a large challenge from Ronald Dump, Jr., so she’s planning on going back to POTTC and campaigning hard.
However, just as she’s leaving, she receives a call from her former employer and my present one, Bad Animals & Troubled Inmates (BATI* for short).
The authorities at this institution are stumped with a personnel distribution problem. One of the night shift guards has informed the decision makers, the captain, the major and the warden of that organization that one of their former employees is a math genius. He then gives them the number of Calculating Einstein Katt. The trio calls the number and asks for help fromm the math genius. Cal.E., though, doesn’t want to reveal that she’s a cat, and this trio is never on the grounds of The Kennel at night, when Cal.E. formerly worked. Cal.E. insists that she’s in too much of a hurry to come to the facility, but volunteers to help the trio over the phone. They reluctantly agree.
East Columbia, Texas; 0500 hours; Warden’s office:
Warden: Hello, Ms. Katt. I have a problem that I need to solve. If you can help me with it, you would have my undying gratitude.
C.: Okay, go ahead.
Warden: Well, one of our units is understaffed, so we usually send officers from your former unit to work there. However, The Kennel in Houston is understaffed today, so that would leave that unit short-handed.
C.: Which unit needs help?
W.: The Stuttgardt Unit.
C.: Isn’t there another facility about twenty-five miles from the Stuttgardt Unit that usually has an excess of officers?
W.: Yes, the Wells Unit, but that’s a mental facility.
C.: So, are the officers mental patients?
W.: That’s debatable with some of them…but they can work at other units. Thanks for your help, Ms. Katt. I see how to solve the problem now.
Okay, Major, Captain, here’s what we’ll do. The Wells Unit is about 175 miles from here and the Stuttgardt Unit is 200 miles away. So, we’ll ask the extra officers at the Wells Unit to come to this unit and help out. That way, we’ll have an excess of officers here, and we can send some of our officers to the Stuttgardt Unit.
Major: Sir, the officers have been ordered not to work any more overtime, and the Stuttgardt Unit is a four hour drive from here. That would mean that our officers would spend all their time on their shift in transit.
W.: Yes, but the Wells Unit is only a three hour and forty-five minute drive from here. The Wells Unit’s officers can come here, eat lunch and then work for fifteen minutes for us before heading back home.
Captain: Sir, wouldn’t it be beneficial to ask the officers that are working for more than one more day to come here and spend the night in a motel? Then they could be here for roll call the next day.
W.: No, the state won’t pay for hotel rooms for officers anymore. They will only pay for gas, snacks, smokes, toilet paper, enough groceries to last a week and new tires for the officer’s cars if they need them, as well as mileage and a stipend for food each day that the officers are at another unit. It looks like my plan is the only one that’s feasible. That is all.
*disclaimer: As far as I know, there is no such organization as BATI, nor do the units I listed exist. Additionally I don’t really talk to my son’s (long dead) cat, nor is there a Planet of the Talking Cats, or a giant talking cat who rules a galaxy of talking cats.
Also, I doubt that any five-year-old would believe that a spider can actually talk to a pig, or that a teddy bear can actually talk. Although Winnie the Pooh hasn’t been put on a list of books that should be banned, like Charlotte’s Web has, but it probably soon will be.
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