Hello friends near and far and a special hello to my adopted Mama,
Nikki, in Findland.  Forgive me for not sending in a story by the
September 1st deadline but, you see, something horrible has happened.

My home has been infested with red dot greeblings.

Some of you may know these elusive, formidable foes.  They appear out of
nowhere, floating near the wall or the on the floor.  They can disappear
and reappear in the swish of a tail.  And they have the strange ability
to make hoomins laugh especially when the situation is at its most dire.

My sad tail of woe began about two weeks ago.  The Daddyman went for a
walk one night after telling us he needed to get a pointer for work.
That was a shock because I didn't know The Daddyman worked with dawgs.
I didn't know why he didn't just borrow BJ, the pointer that lives down
the hall.  I've met BJ before and he is OK for a dawg.  I was all
prepared to terrorize this new dawg when The Daddyman returned with a
strange metallic item that looked like a pen although I could not smell
any ink.

At the time I had no idea what it was so I ignored it like I do most of
the silly things these hoomins seem to covet.  I was still disappointed
there was no dawg to torture.  The Daddyman showed the strange pen to
Meowmie and that was when the first red dot greebling appeared. I could
see it moving ever so slowly on the wood of our deck.  I didn't want to
panic the hoomins so I casually sauntered over to give it a swat with my
paw.  Only it disappeared.  Then it reappeared slightly to my left.  The
hoomins started to laugh and laugh.  This went on for about ten minutes.
 Whatever strange laughing gas these things emit was making my hoomins
laugh so hard water started coming out of their poor little eyes.  After
ten minutes the greebling disappeared but I stayed on patrol for the
next two hours looking under furniture and checking behind appliances.
The laughing gas must have hung around long after the greebling left
because Meowmie and The Daddyman kept laughing and laughing.  I'm used
to Meowmie acting inappropriately but that The Daddyman had succumbed
sort of surprised me.  He is usually the more sane of the two.

For the next week everything was fine.  I was vigilant but saw no red
dot greeblings appear and the hoomins got back to normal.  Then Meowmie
got a box from drsfostersandsmith.  I like these doctors because they
don't poke you "for your own good" and always send me tasty things to
snack on and toys to play with.  But this time they betrayed me.  One of
the things Meowmie unwrapped was one of those strange pens with no ink.
 This time I knew it for what it was.  A red dot greebling teleporter!
 The perfidy of Drsfosterandsmith!  Do these hoomins understand what
they are toying with?

Now every couple of days the greeblings materialize and I hunt them
down, trying to keep my home and my hoomins safe.  Meowmie starts to
giggle before the first greeblng even appears so they must be very
powerful. I do the best I can to keep these awful creatures at bay but I
am only one cat.  My dawg, Boone, seems unable to even see the
greeblings but we all know how limited dawgs are.

So I am on my own except for the good wishes of all my friends near and far.

Oliver T. Fine