WE GOT A NEW CAT

                 (Or how I came to be known as Scarnose)
                             By Del Freeman

                      (A Ruby Begonia Offering)

         "Is it not enough that I have to suffer the degradation of
    being a misunderstood and unemployed journalist?" I complained.
    "Must I also be marked for life by the very animals I feed and
    care for?"
         "What are you telling me?" my husband asked solicitously as
    I nursed my profusely bleeding nose. "Did the kitty just come up
    in the middle of the night and say, "You're ugly," and go smack?"
         "That's pretty much how it happened, except the kitty didn't
    say anything or I'd have moved my nose," I answered.
         Call me demanding, but I don't think your pets should make
    you bleed. I have a lot of these expectations which have been
    systematically destroyed over the years.
         Once, when I was a reporter, I expected a Pulitzer.
         The local too-cute married-on-the-air news team would have a
    child, I imagined, which would arrive unexpectedly in a rapid
    birth as they cut the ribbon at the new drive-in Bagel-'N-Brew, and
    I'd be there, notepad in hand.
         I could see the headline over my byline: "Muffy Has a Boy -
    Handsome Hubby Bites Through Cord With Teeth."
         Another great expectation down the tubes. My choice of a
    journalism career has pretty much insured the demise of one great
    expectation after another. Serving the informational needs of the
    public can be a thankless field in which one can experience the
    poverty of a barely working wage and be regularly abused. That's
    like double coupons on grocery day for a closet Shi-ite such as
    I.
         I shall never forget my first feature interview with Alice
    and Irving Hollingbutton and their offspring, Bobby-Joe, Bubba-Lee
    and Sally. Alice called me when it appeared in print to say Bobby-Joe
    was not their child at all, but that of Eunice and Hollis-Wade
    Hollingbutton. (Why she felt no compulsion to mention this during
    the interview, I'll never know, but it left me with a distrust of
    all future subjects, and a propensity to ask at the most
    inopportune moments, "Tell me, which one of these children isn't
    yours?")
         Public relations, on the other hand, is financially
    rewarding. My P.R. counterparts all drive new Miata convertibles.
    I drive a 1979 Toyota with rusted doors and a window that won't roll
    up.
         And I'd switch to P.R. in a heartbeat, but no one has
    offered me a new car. No one has even offered me a newer old car.
    Besides, I'm not at all persuaded that journalism experience
    qualifies one for P.R. work.
         Public relations is the flip flip side of the coin. Modesty
    prevents my pronouncement that I am more than a moderately good
    reporter, (except for that Hollingbutton thing), but I have no
    doubt that I simply do not have the ability to produce 45 pages
    of documentation that says nothing. That is not to imply that I
    don't frequently produce a collection of writing that is of no
    particular interest to anyone. The two are not at all the same thing.
         P.R. writing involves the ability to say nothing at great
    length and make it seem like you have said something. Even if I
    could do that, I can't speak the language.
         What is community interaction, anyway? Does waiting for the
    bus count? Economic development? It sounds like somebody printing
    greenbacks in the basement and it turns out to be spending money,
    preferably not your own.
         And did you ever read an annual report that said, "We lost
    our shirts last year?" Most probably you read about acquisitions and
    investments that have a long-term repayment ratio, i.e. they lost
    their shirts last year.
         P.R. speak is even more difficult than P.R. writing. Next
    time somebody calls you up and says, "I hear your wife is getting it
    on with the mailman," let's see you come up with a response like, "A
    restructuring of management has resulted in a far more responsive
    team conceptualization and is expected to have tremendous economic
    impact in the third quarter."
         (Translation: "I have left the unfaithful harlot and she'll
    be a very old, stooped, gray-haired figure before she'll get a
    penny out of my I.R.A.").
         Public relations work requires that you cease the delightful
    pursuit of popping balloons, and concentrate on inflating them,
    placing them strategically in positions of maximum exposure, and
    persuading mankind that they are modern marvels resulting from
    many intense hours of handmade design and attention to detail.
    (Translation: "I blew them up myself.")
         No Sirree! Give me the massochistic degradation of blue-
    penciled copy from a maladjusted, border-line psychotically
    vicious editor any day. Why, my creative hackles rise at the
    thought of a juicy expose like, "Television Personalities Muffy
    and Boy Wonder Patronized Sperm Bank."
         I can hear the demented editor screaming a last-minute
    demand across the newsroom even now.
         "Hey, give me another graph on that warm-water birthing in
    the hot-tub, film at 11 thing.
         "Hey, you, Scarnose - get cracking."


                           END


                      Ruby's Pearls
                      A. C. Aarbus Publishing
                      Route 1, Box 444
                      Callahan, Florida 32011
                      (904) 845-7672