I Turned My Cat Into an Elephant
And now Elephant Butt Agatha is everywhere
My cat Agatha passed away in October. She was thirteen. Aggie was one of those nervous cats who are prone to hysteria. She spent a lot of time hiding in the basement back when I lived in a bigger house.
Then we moved, and there wasn’t really any place to hide. It was the best thing that ever happened to her. She became more social, more confident.
Aggie was the prettiest cat. Her hair was long and gray. One day, as she was lying on the arm of the couch, her tail hanging down, I pointed out to my brother-in-law that she looked like an elephant from the back. We took a picture, my brother-in-law did a little photoshopping, and voila! This picture was born.
At the time, my brother-in-law Ralphie and I had a soap business. I let him use my computer, which eventually just became his computer. One day, giggling to myself, I changed the wallpaper on the computer to Elephant Butt Agatha. The computer has now been Ralphie’s for about five years. In that time, he hasn’t changed the wallpaper. It’s still Elephant Butt Agatha.
Yesterday, Ralphie’s computer randomly decided that his Microsoft products were unlicensed, even though I had purchased them years ago when I bought the computer — I’m sure I literally bought a copy of Microsoft Office on a CD because that’s how we did things back then, kids. I’m pretty sure that disk is still in my desk. But before we tried reinstalling it, I signed into my Microsoft account on his computer. That was all the magic that was needed.
“You’re me now,” I told him, pointing to my name at the top of his screen.
“This computer’s always thought I was you.”
“Is it registered to the Galactic Empire?”
He smiled. “I don’t know. I never noticed.”
“It probably is.” Because I’m a nerd, and because when I set the computer up, it asked me for my “company.” Sometimes I get in touch with my inner Darth Vader. I can’t help myself.
And that was the end of the event, I thought, until this morning, when I woke up my own computer, a desktop HP that I bought about five years ago. Apparently, Microsoft thinks they’re funny. Guess what’s on my wallpaper now? That’s right — Elephant Butt Agatha. It flew through the ether and settled onto my home screen.
I’m going to leave it, of course — even though it’s tempting to change it now that I know changing my wallpaper probably also changes Ralphie’s. I could really have a lot of fun. We could start a war. But first, I would need to make sure I know where Elephant Butt Agatha is saved. I don’t want to lose the picture. I love it too much.
