The Therapy Sessions
On Business Meetings & Ancient Greek Sculpture
Little’s mom suggests a special session.
TP: Didn’t expect to see you today, Little Man. Had you scheduled for next week.
LM: Right, doc. Blame it on mom.
TP: Yes, she seemed upset when she called. What happened?
LM: A home invasion. That’s what happened.
TP: Home invasion?
LM: Yep. Thursday night. She calls a meeting for her Animal thing. Drumming up support for some event or other. About 25 people posted…all women. Well, one guy. Think he was with this seriously pregnant woman—looked like she might drop the kid at any second. Guess he was the designated driver.
TP: OK, so your mom had a meeting. What about it?
LM: Well, two things right off the bat. One, they’re “animal people” which is good and bad. Good, because they’re all committed to helping the homeless and abused of my brethren. Bad, because they’ve all heard mom yak about me, and she (and they) expect me to be some sort of entertainment centerpiece.
TP: Hmm. And the second thing?
LM: Pretty much all of these women know mom…and they know the line between mom’s meetings and mom’s parties is a zigzag of powdery chalk with a bottle of white at every zig, a fine red at every zag, and tasty hors d’oeuvres laid out along the route. These women came for a little meeting and a lot of party.
TP: So? You’re a smart guy. I’d have thought you’d just find a quiet corner of the house and lay low.
LM: Did that at first, but I couldn’t really relax because what I haven’t told you is that they were “meeting” in my space. They literally circled their wagons in the room that has my scratch box, my fave catnip things, and my absolute best sleeping chair. I couldn’t relax, wondering what kind of havoc they might be wreaking on my stuff, you know?
TP: So you entered the fray.
LM: Fray? More like Dante’s first circle of Hell! At this point, a number of ‘em are already several sheets to the wind, and just dying to see me do some tricks, roll over and show my adorable belly, or worse, pick me up.
TP: Eh. Sounds like it was about to get ugly.
LM: Lemme tell you. One of these chippies decided I might like to play catch with my catnip-laced tomato toy, and she tosses the damn thing at me. Smacked me right up alongside my head. I was not humored.
TP: What happened?
LM: Went after the first set of gams I saw. Miss Shari’s, as it turned out. Chased her right out of the damn room. Felt a little bad about it in hindsight, though. Turns out, she wasn’t actually the tomato-thrower. Guess who it was?
TP: No idea.
LM: Think about this for a minute, doc. Who among mom’s friends might have a bit of an axe to grind with me?
TP: How would I know that, Little? I don’t know your mom’s friends.
LM: Remember Curly, the little orange dweeb?
TP: Ahh. Curly’s mom was there.
LM: Bingo. And on a bit of a payback mission, I’m thinking, on behalf of her little suck-up of a cuddle bug. Good thing I didn’t find out she was the tomato-tosser until after she’d gone. She’d have been sportin’ some band-aids when she got home to the little stooge.
TP: Where was your best bud through all this?
LM: Dad? Hell, he bailed early. Something he had to do at the school, he said. Right. Probably went up to Joey Chiu’s for a few Dewar’s and some egg rolls. He did come back before they all finally split, though. The hard core was still hanging tough.
TP: What time did they wrap things up?
LM: When the wine trough was empty would be the smartass, but not terribly inaccurate, answer. Here’s the thing, doc. The “meeting” was scheduled 6 to 8, right? Some of ‘em showed up at 5 and the hard cases didn’t leave until after 10. As for the actual meeting? That pretty much ran from 7:10 to 7:20. The rest was partay!
TP: Everyone get home OK?
LM: Far as I know. Biggest question mark was the one they call the Student Council President. Apparently, she fluctuates between being the buttoned-down PC voice of reason and the sorority sister version of Animal House’s “Bluto” Blutarsky, depending on how much wine she consumes. Last I saw of her, she was on her way out, still mumbling about her fascination with a piece of sculpture.
TP: A piece of sculpture where? In your house?
LM: Yeh. It’s just one of these little rip-off pieces like they used to do in ancient Greece . You know how, like, the Greeks did weird people who had certain perfect features but no arms and stuff…you know, like that Venus de Milo? Except our sculpture’s a guy.
TP: OK.
LM: Well, this was great. I happened to be in the room at the moment “Miss Blutarsky” noticed it. Suddenly, she damn near jumps out of her chair (actually, my chair) and screams, “My God! Look at that guy. (Pointing at the sculpture and laughing.) No head and no arms, but a perfect penis! Who the hell came up with that? I like it!”
TP: Scary.
LM: Uh-huh.
TP: Maybe that’s why your mom insisted I get you in here for a session sooner rather than later.
LM: What? I’m gonna be traumatized by people who throw catnip-laced tomatoes and go nuts over…well, nuts? And she thinks I’m the one with the problem!
TP: I’ll tell her we’re making progress.
LM: My man!