"Oh, how I want to see Pride and Prejudice again!" my mother exclaimed on a breathy sigh, dancing with a broom. She began reciting the exchanges between Lizzie and Mr. Darcy, curtsying and fluttering all the while.

"Me too, me too!" I cheered, jumping up and down, clapping like one of those circus-y monkeys with cymbals.

"Man, they're gonna make a lot of money on us," she muttered then, her dance partner becoming a cleaning utensil once more. "This is where my OCD really comes out," she added as an afterthought.

"Yeah...me too—"

"No, really? That's not obvious at all." The interruption left my tongue in midair, wagging uncertainly. Sarcasm comes a little too easily to my mother. I took umbrage.

"What do you mean!? How can you tell!?" Insecure and unnerved all at once, I bordered on hysteria and fought the rising pressure of my pulse.

The picture of calm and clearly oblivious to my agitation, she replied, "Because you always seem to be sitting in the chair next to me."

His behavior is rather criminal, no doubt. He's a troublemaker and a little jerk most of the time. He's underfoot constantly, and has the gall to look at you like you are the worst kind of bully when you step on him...he'll even give you the silent treatment, and sulk out of rooms when you enter.

However, it has come to my attention, that he is the one I speak of most often. A "quicksearch" of this site seconds this observation. I am humbled as it dawns on me, that I am whipped. Totally and utterly whipped. Clem, that damn cat, has me wrapped about his overlarge tail.