O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D

         FAIR WARNING!!! I am about to launch into a rant, a 1,300-word screed that will contain much nastiness and venom directed towards several of America's favorite commodities. Lovers of a certain small four-legged creature, turn back now, and if the reader happens to be dexterous and handy, jump ship too.

         It's snowing today. The wolf is not at the door yet, but he'll be here soon. Yesterday the sun was out and the temperature reached the high forties, but it was chilly in the early morning as I prepared to drive to the post office. The washer was on its final cycle and I decided that the mail could wait while I threw the clothes into the dryer. I grabbed a piece of a treated paper and put it in the front loader along with the wet towels, whites and colors.

         Do I hear any distaff readers saying 'Men!' Sorry! That's the way I do the wash. I learned the mix-master theory from my father, a man who would jumble his foods together insisting that they all went to the same stomach. I have extended the theory to the wash.

         I am stalling now, trying to let my anger subside so that my editor does not have to insert too many ****** into sentences, such as in "The g*****n cat ripped the f*****g exhaust hose that vents the dryer. She did this last November, apparently in an attempt to get up into the unfinished ceiling of the basement where she suspects the mice live snugly in the insulation. She may be correct in her assumption, but her slash and burn tactics come from the days of William Tecumseh Sherman.

         The exhaust hose is a thick piece of rubberized fabric that covers concertina wire. It carries the dryer's exhaust from the basement to an opening in the outer wall of the house on the first floor, just outside the window near which I am typing. The hole in the wall is covered by three small flaps. The blown air forces these flaps open. The observer standing outside in cold weather can see the exhaust leaving the house.

         A pretty sight it was until that day in November when I came home from another early morning trip and found the house felt like a rain forest. The window in the basement was covered with moisture. I walked into the laundry room and looked at the hose and found some creature had torn a hole in it that stretched nearly around the circumference. Holding it together was the chicken wire, around which a band of rubber stretched.

         I knew the culprit. Surely the ninety-pound dog did not shimmy up the hose. If she could have gotten atop the dryer, she could have stood on her hind legs and reached the ceiling. Only one creature could cause such havoc. I could picture the scene in my mind: Ten Ton Tessie, the cat, paying her toll and ascending to heaven on this superhighway, not realizing the structure was not built as a playground for felines. It must have started to sway, and she must have grabbed with all the gusto she could, sinking her claws into the rubber and tearing it. A thousand oaths I hurled that day, but I decided that cursing the darkness was not becoming of me.

         What is broken can be fixed, and I saw just the agent for doing so: a roll of America's savior, DUCT TAPE. I stood on top of the dryer and began to mend the rend. I had never been one to use much duct tape in my life, but remembered my wife using it to patch holes where she thought mice were getting into the house before we acquired our four legged trap. She never explained to me that duct tape is good at sticking to two things and two things only: cars and itself.

         Duct tape resembles another product I have never had much luck at using, Saran Wrap. Give me a roll of either and I will have any piece I tear off stuck to itself in a matter of seconds, and I will not be able to tear it apart. Atop that dryer I was now cursing not only the cat but also the duct tape. After wasting half of the roll, I managed to patch the hole by running pieces horizontally and covering them with vertical strips. Pleased with myself, I placed the dryer back in operation.

         Every ten days or so, I had to mount my perch and apply more. This was because where the rubber meets the tape, it had ceased to hold. Yesterday the wheels came off. Overnight either the tape gave up the ghost or the cat launched another strike for now the hose was apart, the sections held together by one slim thread of wire. Furious, I patched it again, screamed at the cat, and headed for the post office. When I returned, only the burning woodstove had prevented the house from being fogged over. The hose was apart again, the tape dangling uselessly. Moist air was streaming out.

         It was at that point that I realized two truths of life. Duct tape has a great press agent, but is totally OVERRATED, AND, I was going to have to get a repairman to put on a new hose for the cat to tear apart. A year after I bought the washer and dryer, I received two offers for maintenance contracts. Thinking the Kitchen-Aid Company was trying to rip me off, I threw one out and paid for the other. Naturally one letter offered coverage on the washer, the second on the dryer. I must have thrown out the latter. I can hear it now: "Mr. Lidle, that will be $372, and that's just for the labor, and keep that enormous cat off me."

         Even after I get it fixed, how do I keep the cat away? I could import one of her natural predators to keep her in line, but the closest one I can think of is a bull elephant. I have seen nature programs where they pick lions up in their trunk and hurl them, but they are large. So predators are out.

         I found a door in the garage that must go to the laundry room. I dragged it out and put it in place, but it is about one inch too big for the opening. I pictured myself hanging a door and had visions of being trapped in the laundry room for the rest of my life, my only escape route up the hose that the cat had tried to climb. Somehow this did not appeal to me, yet I was too full of the milk of human kindness to put the cat out in the snow, or the sunny forty-eight degrees.

         I would have to find her another home. I gave this great thought. I watched the nightly news and wondered if our brave Marines in Kandahar needed a cat to keep the rodent population in line. It seemed like a good idea, but how would I enlist her for the fight? The news reported the President had left for the Far East, so I could not call him. The Vice-President no doubt was at one of his undisclosed locations. I had no idea how to track him down.

         Suddenly the solution came to me. He had been in the energy business. Where else could he be but in the deep basement of a certain building in Houston belonging to a certain bankrupt company? I could ship her there, addressing her carrier to his attention, with a note telling him she was volunteering to help our brave boys overseas. If for some reason, the Veep was in hiding somewhere else, I am sure the people at that building could put her to work. She could catch the rats that were trying to leave the sinking ship.