A box containing a water fountain for pets arrived here in the black hole just outside Harmony Grove.
This made Tuna, our feline thug in a tux, known for biting heads off snakes, nervous.
After skirting around the new device for several days he finally stuck his face under the flower that was dispensing water and was splashed.
He shook his head and walked across the wood floor to where his old bowl of stale water, the one with a black ring around the collar awaited him. He never ventured near the fountain in the corner again.
Grandma Meow Moses, Tuna's nemesis, as well as the oldest cat this side of the stars, came upstairs for a visit from her fancy assisted living apartment, where she stays whilst Tuna is wandering freely through out the house, for safety reasons.
She immediately sensed danger at the presence of an alien being in the corner. The hair on the nape of her neck stood as she bravely made her way over to investigate.
As she began to understand the form of the shape that was taking place in front of her, her cloudy cataracts began to sparkle.
"Oh, my God! This is amazing. So cool. So fresh. So. So! I have always wanted one of these!"
She put her face under the falling water and drank and drank and drank some more.
After this first encounter Grandma could be seen scurrying by daily, relatively speaking, past her bowl of milk in order to get to her beloved new water fountain.
My sweet Sven and I realized that she might have a bit of a drinking problem.
But you know what?
When you are nineteen years old and your sight is not what it used to be and your hearing does not exist and your personal hygiene is a distant memory and there is a cat after your throat and your mom is always trying to stick you in a sink, I say, party on.
The never ending flow of fresh brewed H2O brought back the inner child inside Grandma's unkempt fur, standing there with her feet on the bottom rung of the bubbler at the park and sticking her whiskers into the cool and refreshing water with a line of thirsty cats waiting their turns behind her.
To the untrained eye Ms. Moses appears to be a little old cat lady who could easily double for a fuzzy slipper in pearls.
But to those of us who know her, that woman went through a major transformation. She found a whole new reason to live, liking her water as much as the Pillow guy likes his pillows, but in a less annoying way. And so much so that Sven and I talked about tasting that magical water ourselves. However, we did not feel like standing in line.
And then.
A few days ago, I was walking past the watering corner and I stopped short.
Just as the fountain had.
There it sat, dead as a doornail.
I unplugged and carried the lifeless unit to the sink and took it apart, cleaning each and every piece just as the instructions indicated, hoping to breathe life back into Grandma's newest addiction.
To no avail.
So how is everybody doing after the tragedy, you ask?
Here comes Tuna now.
"I for one am glad that thing is gone. It glowed in the dark. Looked like a spaceship had landed. Kids these days are spoiled. I am like my dad. I just drink water out of the tap. One refill a day is all I need."
With that Tuna excused himself for a little outside pillaging and I retrieved Ms. Moses from her downstairs apartment.
"Grandma, everyone is wondering how you are doing since the loss of your fountain."
"The hardest part about getting old are these weekly beauty parlor appointments given to me by an unlicensed professional who has no idea what the hell she is doing, washing someone's bottom she has no business being around."
"Um, Grandma, we were talking about the loss of your water fountain."
"The hardest part about getting old are all the losses. Eventually you do get used to it. But I never thought in all my million years that I would outlive the fountain of youth. That has got to be some kind of a record don't you think?"
