Epanorthosis (ep-an-or-tho’-sis): Amending a first thought by altering it to make it stronger or more vehement.

Every time I try to put things right, they go wrong—no, no, no, they go catastrophic. I go to the vet with my cat Barny. I decided to carry him to calm him & boom—he jumps out of my arms and runs away across the parking lot, jumps through the window of a waiting car and rides away. I was just trying to help him and things went way wrong. That was a year ago. I got a new cat and named him Barny 2. He is all black like the old Barny, but has a different demeanor. He likes clawing my ankles, yowling late at night, and knocking his food around the kitchen floor, like some kind of weird multi-puck hockey game.

I wanted everything to be right on the cat front. It never will be, but well, maybe it will be. Maybe I can work with Barny 2 to bring him around—to make him a model cat. There’s a place called “Bad Cat College” near where I live. My friend Etta had her cat cured there of its tendency grab ahold of her windpipe when she was sleeping. The cat, Blurto, was cured by substituting kitty treats for Etta’s windpipe. The cat gained a lot of weight, but Etta can sleep knowing her windpipe will be intact in the morning. I would like to stem Barny 2’s desire to eat my legs.

Sadly, Barny 2 disappeared 3 days ago. Maybe he’s gone for good. Right now I’m writing a short story called the “Incorrigible Cat.” The story ends with a woman and her cat fighting it out in the basement. The women hits the cat with its litter box and slams it up against the wall. The cat is unfazed and leaps on the woman’s head and tears one of her eyes out of its socket. The woman, bleeding from scratches and her eye socket, rips the cat off her head and strangles it with one hand, while she punches it in the face with her other hand.

This is like Dirty Harry meets Leo the Lion. Ha Ha. You might have guessed, that I’m actually done with cats. I think they are suitable for masochists, but not me. With luck, Barny 2 will never come home.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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