Sunday, December 7, 2014

An internal promotion



By Hobo Hudson

I walked out for an inspection tour of my old jeans production floor, which is now my porch, and found Pogo, my old chief designer, whom I had kept on as a guard after I sold my business several years ago, asleep on a sunny windowsill and the floor covered with MICE. There were brown ones, white ones and even a few red and green ones all over the place.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
When I pawed Pogo and asked why she didn’t have them under control, she meowed that she didn’t have the energy anymore and just wanted to drowse in the sun.

After thinking about it a moment, I realized she was probably just lonesome after her mother and sister departed my employment and Thomas was promoted to Mom’s lap kitty and decided Pogo needed company.

Since my policy has always been to offer promotions to my current employees before hiring an outsider, I immediately thought of Tiger who has been handling my outside pest control problems for about a year and has done an excellent job keeping away the lizards, mice, rats, etc.

He had shown up about a year ago when he was no bigger than Dad’s hand and almost dead from starvation. I immediately gave him some food and a room under my neighbor’s shed. After he had gained a little strength, I assigned him the duty of keeping the lizards and other small critters away from my backyard and, as he grew bigger, I promoted him to neighborhood rat catcher. 

When I approached Tiger, he was a bit hesitant about accepting the job helping Pogo on the porch and asked if he could work part time for a few days to see if he liked it. I agreed, and he went to work immediately but only worked an hour or so before he meowed he wanted to quit for the day, and I had Dad let him out. He showed up bright and early the next day to give it another try and worked a bit longer before wanting to quit. After about a week, he was working most of the day, and I was well satisfied with his work.

About this time, the weather turned awful! It was pouring rain and a cold north wind was blowing when he showed up for work. After getting the mice population under control and curling up with Pogo for a little while, Tiger spent the rest of the day on a window sill watching the cold rain coming down and told me the catnip is definitely tastier on this side of the window and he would be working full time from now on.


I am going to let him work another week to be sure he’s happy with his decision and then have Dad take him to my doctor for a little “house kitty ritual” after which he’ll be a permanent lifetime employee and I may even let him meow a blog now and then.

Mom and Dad are very happy with Tiger’s decision, although Dad was a bit grumpy by being awakened at 1 a.m. one night when Tiger and Pogo were playing a rousing game of jai alai using a ping-pong ball for a pelota and the bedroom sliding glass door as a backstop. I solved this problem by giving Dad permission to hide the ping-pong ball before he goes to bed, so everything is working out well so far.




Books

About Hobo


This was Hobo Hudson, my doggy brother, a little terrier mix with black fur. He became famous after his first attempt at writing stories, which was an article published in the newsletter of our local animal shelter, the same shelter in which I ended up years later before Hobo and his parents adopted me. Hobo’s fame quickly spread as he made a name for himself as a business dog and an adventurer. To keep his memory alive, my doggy sister, my three kitty siblings and I, Wylie Hudson, are continuing his blog. Our mom is the blog’s editor.

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