Dr. Doolittle

I don't know what it is.  I seem to attract wildlife.  This would be fine normally, but I seem to attract the wildlife in places where it shouldn't be.  

Growing up there was an incident with a pot-bellied pig in the front yard.  In college there were the bats in the dorm and the bevy of birds in my apartment.  Several years ago while driving to work, a mouse crawled out of the hood and appeared on the windshield.  Last year a squirrel was hanging out in my living room when I got home from work.  Today I came home and there was a bird in my garage.  

There are also two neighborhood cats, who happen to be doppelgangers of my two cats, that insist on sleeping on my deck.  This causes much ruckus in my home and inappropriate naughty behavior.

Why does this happen to me?  I never handle it well.  Sure, I like animals, but generally domesticated ones.  

A Good Night's Sleep

When I was a sophomore in college, there was a power surge in the apartment that I shared with my sister that killed my computer, tv, printer, and who knows what else.  Those are just the expensive things I can remember.  Needless to say, I had to buy a new tv.

My friend and I ventured out to Kmart to buy one.  I brought it home, after much distress of trying to load it in the car (why do we never think of these things when heading on such excursions?).  It was a delightful tv.  Brand new, built in tv guide and everything.  I still have this tv to this day, 8 years later.  

However, for the past 8 years, this tv has been haunted.  Every night at 3am it turns on to channel 46.  It's done this forever.  I've lived in 3 different cities and six different residences during this 8 years and it always remembers:  3am, channel 46!

In Manhattan it wasn't so bad because that channel was Nick at Nite.  Now, it's Discovery Health or something yucky so when I wake up and find it on, I'm lucky to not have my contacts in as babies are being birthed and tumors are being removed, etc.  Every night, it wakes me up and I turn it off.  It's always a good opportunity to go to the bathroom, but really?

BUT, yesterday I was fiddling with the clever built-in guide that has become not so clever in it's old age when I stumbled across a new menu I'd never seen before.  After punching several buttons I found that my tv has had a recording set for 3am, channel 46, for years!  Now tell me why it needs to be on to do this alleged recording?  And how does it plan on recording anything with no DVR or VCR.  And furthermore, who set this recording?  Grrr.  Regardless, I turned the stupid scheduled recording off and last night, for the first time in years....I slept through the night.