......
AARRRGH. First there was the severe insomnia (was it the chocolate? the tea? the wine? the mulling of details, ad infinitum?) And then...then, just as I'd finally returned to that sweet land of Slumber, after sojourning so long in the blackness of wide-eyed purgatory, my little white business phone rang. It was seven twenty-two o'clock in the morning, and I was informed (by Steve at the Lowe's store) that two refrigerators were rolling their way to two of my rentals; I was too, too sorry I'd agreed to their early delivery on this damp gray morning.

One of them was bound for Apartment number Fifty-eight, where the moved-out tenants had written me a letter upon leaving. ""We cleaned the carpets and the apartment," they'd stated, "leaving it in better shape than when we moved in, as it wasn't very clean."



(I had taken a deep, deep breath. I had exhaled slowly. I had contemplated the gunk in the left-behind fridge, the wretchedly dirty carpet. I had calmly put down the letter. I had vehemently bellowed, "NOT VERY CLEAN?!!! NOT VERY [blankety-blank*] CLEAN?!!")

And now, Reader Dear, adding insult to injury on this damp gray morning (or cat hair to rabbit fur, as it were), I discovered that my cat and rabbit-loving, moved-out tenants had left me a memento.

Steve and his fellow appliance-toter removed the old fridge from Number Fifty-eight (yes, the gunked-up fridge, the one that was sparkling clean when the moved-out tenants moved in) and there it was: a feline toy ensconced in its own fur coat.

(Its entirely too valuable to keep. I suppose I will have to return to owner.)

......
*Sorry.