Shrdlu the Office Cat Said Be Patient

It all started about a month ago when we found the tarantula trying to take over our office. We had to exterminate him. His execution, you will remember, was affected when Shrdlu the Office Cat dropped a paper weight on him.

The next week, we were trying to get a number on the telephone when a black widow spider leaped at us. We exterminated him with a telephone directory.

Then, the following week, we found another black widow enjoying a ride on the press carriage. We exterminated him.

On the very next day, we sighted another big tarantula. We failed to get him.

Then we found a horned toad underneath the thorny cactus in the office yard. Returning to the office, we found some yellow jackets trying to build a nest in the ceiling.

A Yankee came along about this time, told us he didn’t like Texas. “Everything in Texas,” he said, “either has horns on it or stickers. If they don’t hook you, they stick you. And if they don’t stick you, they sting you.”

We poo-poohed him. But nevertheless, the sticker-stinger-thorn idea had been projected with out inner man by this visitor from Yankeeland, and we sorta found ourselves hitting at spiders and even going around such common things as rattlesnakes.

As we said, it all started with that tarantula. We just got to be conscious of things that might sting us. Somebody helped by saying a black widow’s bite would be awfully nasty.

It must have been on our mind last Saturday. We were sitting down at the desk in a fairly important business conference when all of a sudden we felt a mighty sting on our knee. It was just like somebody had poked a hot piece of metal about halfway to the bone.

The first thing we did was to jump up. The next thing we did was to say something about black widows.

Then we said in one breath: “Before God and everybody, we’re going to take ‘em off!”

And no sooner had we said it than we had taken our trousers plumb off. We virtually jumped out of them, in fact.

We gave ‘em a good shake, and we expected a big juicy black widow to jump out.

Instead, a yellow jacket dropped out and flew out the door – minus his stinger.

We had the stinger in a red and swollen place on our knee. After a while, we put oru pants back on.

Everybody enjoyed the show and dance.

Everybody, that is, except us.

* * *

We asked Shrdlu our Office Cat, worriedly, if it is true that when a yellow jacket stings you, the place that was stung will rot away.

Shrdlu’s answer was feline enough: “Just be patient. Wait and see.”

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This installment of Shrdlu our Office Cat ran in the June 24, 1948 issue of La Feria News.