blackmail

I sat at my desk, starin' at the computer.  Beads of sweat ran down my forehead and onto my cheeks before inching their way along my handsome whiskers.

Drip.  Drip.  Drip.

I glanced downward, makin' sure my perspiration wasn't drippin' onto the keyboard.

What was I gonna to do?

Almost four hundred dollars in bit coins.  That was their demand.  Did I have four hundred dollars in my froggy bank?  I didn't think so.  Could I get that amount by sellin' nip?  Probably not.  At least not in a few hours.  Peep #1 said my nip plants had to grow a lot bigger before harvestin'.

WHAT WAS I GONNA DO?

I wiped a tear from my eye.  And then another.  And then one more.

WHAT WAS I GONNA DO?

I peered more closely at the screen before me.

Upon receiving cash I will destroy dirt on you and you would never again heard about me.

The bloggin' kitty in me immediately started to correct the blackmailer's lousy grammar.  I'll correct it and send it back, I thought, before I stopped myself short.  The blackmailer was after money, I realised, not tutoring in English.  Although goodness knows some English tutorin' was SERIOUSLY needed.

MOUSES!

Three hundred and ninety-nine dollars.  They might as well have asked for a million.

MOUSES!

I studied the blackmailer's e-mail address.  It wasn't one I recognised, and that was for sure.  Ganhard blah blah blah at bol dot com.  BOL stood for Bark Out Loud.  That was doggy-speak.  Was I bein' blackmailed by a dog?

MOUSES!

Nah, I had lots of doggy pals, and there wasn't a blackmailer in the pack.  This was much more likely the work of the Weasel Syndicate, for sure.  Weasels impersonatin' dogs.  Now that I could believe.

MOUSES!

They had dirt on me.  Dirty pictures, they said.  Pictures of me nekkid, they were gonna post all over the Internet.

AND they knew all my social media accounts, too.  Every single one.  I gulped, hard.  Would I be wakin' up to pictures of me nekkid all over Facebook tomorrow mornin'?  All over Twitter, too?

WHAT WAS I GONNA DO?

"PEEEE-PRRRRSSSSSSSSS....."  I cried.  "Peepers!  I'm in desperate need of your help."

The peep came runnin'.  Well hobblin', actually, for she managed to stub a toe while racing into the room.

"Peepers, I need four hundred dollars, and I NEED IT RIGHT NOW."

The peep looked confused, although to be honest, no more confused than her usual look.  MOUSES!

"Look!" and I pointed to the e-mail still up on the screen.  "I have until 6:40 this evenin'.  If I don't pay the money into their Bitcoin Wallet by then, they're gonna completely ruin my reputation, for sure.  MOUSES!"

The peep's look of confusion grew even deeper, if you can believe.

"See?  Peepers, are you payin' attention?  PEEPERS!  Pay attention to me.  I need to send this Ganhard heir o' de casa guy $399 by this evenin'.  I'm desperate, Peepers.  DESPERATE, I say.  I can pay you back.  Honestly.  Maybe.  Kinda.  Perhaps in a very-small-instalments-over-a-number-of-years kinda way."

"What's an heir o' de casa?" the peep asked.

"I don't know, it's part of his e-mail address."

The peep furrowed her brow.

"Peepers, please don't make me beg.  PLEASE don't.  Beggin' is not becomin' of a cat.  PLEASE...."

Liftin' me into her arms, the peep sat down at the desk, and read the offendin' e-mail from beginnin' to end.  "They have pictures of you naked," she said.

"I KNOW!" I cried in despair.  "And they're gonna post 'em all over my social media if I can't get my paws on the money I need."

"But Seville, you post naked pictures of yourself all the time.  You're a cat.  You don't wear clothes.  You don't even wear a collar!"

"I KNOW!" I cried more loudly.  "And they're gonna post 'em...  Oh," I interrupted myself.  "Ohhh..." and realisation finally dawned.  "So you mean..."

The peep nodded.

"Oh.  Well that's kinda stupid of 'em, don't you think?  You're right, my pals have seen me nekkid MILLIONS of times.  More nekkid pictures won't come as a surprise.  Even nekkid pictures of those two long-haired freaky marmie brothers of mine, after their havin' lion cuts, wouldn't exactly be indecent.  Well...  Well not really.  Not quite.  Close, but you know...  Nothin' too bad, I suppose.  Certainly nothin' illegal."

The peep smiled.

"Looks like I won't be needin' that money after all, Peepers.  I think I'll just let this one slide.  If they wanna post pictures of me on the Internet, they can post all they like," and I smiled the smile of a Cheshire Cat.

The peep got up.  She started to hobble away.

"DON'T STUB ANOTHER TOE ON THE WAY OUT"  I helpfully cried.

Sittin' back at my desk, I read the e-mail once more.  "Threatenin' to post nekkid pictures of me," I laughed.  "Of me, Seville the Cat.  What will these scammers think of next?  And IMAGINE their thinkin' they could get money from me.  MOUSES!"

"Oohhh..." I whistled.  "But THAT'S interestin', isn't it?" and I looked more closely at the screen on the computer.  "Well gosh golly darn be, would ya look at that."


I thought for a moment.  Then thought a bit more.  "OH PEEEE-PRRRRSSSSSSSSS....." I yelled, and waited for her return.

"Hey Peepers, funny thing.  It turns out, this here ol' blackmail e-mail wasn't for me, after all.  It appears to have been addressed to YOU."

"What?" the peep gasped.

"Peepers," I grinned, "what did you get up to on World Nekkid Gardenin' Day, huh?  Huh?  WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU DO?  And who the mouses was takin' your picture?"

MOUSES!

not another one

You have got to be kidding.  Not another one. Really?  I've got those things comin' out of my ears, already.  Enough is enough.  Boy-oh-boy...

No, I do not have ear mites.  MOUSES!

So you're probably all wonderin' just what is comin' out of my ears.  Well actually, I was sort of speakin' figuratively 'cause really, there's nothin' in my ears at all.  My ears are as clean as a whistle.  So clean I could hear a whistle from a mile away. That is, if someone was whistlin' and I wanted to hear 'em.

But I am currently experiencing an infestation of sorts. It's my e-mail.  My e-mail has become infested with scammers.  Not spammers...  scammers.  MOUSES!

Let me tell you, peeps out there must think I was born yesterday or somethin'.  Well I wasn't.  I'm almost eleven-and-a-half years old, you know.  I was born almost eleven-and-a-half-years ago.  That's not yesterday.  That's not yesterday at all.  That's way more than yesterday.  It's almost eleven-and-a-half years more than yesterday.  Again I must say, MOUSES!

I can't tell you how many letters I've received from lawyers who have tracked me down on behalf of their clients.  And when I say that I can't tell you, I really do mean that I can't.  I can't tell you how many.  There are an awful lot of 'em, you see, and at some point I just stopped countin'.

Anywho...  apparently, I am the long-lost relative of cats from all over the world.  What's more, all of these relatives of mine have been leavin' me huge sums of money in their wills.  It's really quite amazin'.  Who out there knew that so many cats could be so wealthy?

That's right, I've got uncles and great uncles and maybe even great-great-great uncles all leavin' me money in their wills.  Uncles from far, far away.  Their lawyers have all tracked me down to my little abode here in Nova Scotia, beggin' me to accept my inheritances.

Hmmm...  I wonder if all these lawyers know that I'm a cat.  MOUSES!

If they were legit, they would.  Since I am a cat, it stands to reason that my uncles, great uncles and great-great-great uncles would be cats, as well.  Yup, that makes sense to me.

And workin' backwards, if one of my great-great-great uncles were to hire one of these lawyers to track me down, that lawyer would see that his client was a cat.  And he should be able to figure out that any descendants of his client who was a cat, would also be cats.  So thinkin' about it like that, he really should be aware that I, Nerissa the Cat, am a cat. MOUSES!

The odd thing is that from their letters, I'm pretty sure that not a single one of these lawyers is aware of my feline characteristics.  I'm kinda thinkin' that they all think that I, Nerissa the Cat, am a peep. MOUSES!

It makes me wonder just where they attended law school.  Clearly it was a school that did not offer courses in biology.

Or maybe they never actually went to law school, at all.  They could be weasels.  Weasels dress up as all sorts of things and try to pass themselves of as reputable peeps.  I once knew a weasel who... Nah, that's another story for another day, I'm afraid.

So back to the scammers.  These scarmmin' weasels, claimin' to be lawyers, are all after one thing. What that thing is, I'm not entirely sure.  Since I've never responded to any of their e-mails, they've never had the chance to tell me but I'm thinkin' that whatever it is, it's not good.

Or actually, it probably is good and that's why they want it.  Somethin' I don't wanna lose.  They could be after my pen collection.  You know, the one I keep under the refrigerator.  I have some valuable vintage 2006 disposable pens in that collection.  They could be after those, for sure.  Or maybe nip.  They might be tryin' to steal all my nip mice.  They might want my wand toys, too. Whatever they're after, they're not gettin' it.  I refuse to be scammed by the scammers.  I simply refuse.

Some of the scammers are supposedly businessmen.  They wanna set up business ventures and they all wanna set 'em up with me.  I must be far better known in the business world than I had realised.

The scammers will supply the cash and the idea and I'm supposed to supply somethin' else.  I'm not sure what that somethin' else is, though.  Probably my reputation.  If not that, nip.  One will never know for sure because let me tell you, I've got my paws full with business ventures of my own. Between my blog, working on further developments in eggbeater-whisk time travelling-teleportation technology and figuring out how to start investin' in nip futures, I don't need any more business ventures comin' my way.  My plate is already full so unless you're talkin' grilled tuna, I'm not interested.

But just the other day, these scammin' scammers started somethin' new.  They must have heard that I have a very empathetic heart and figured that if they gave me a good ol' sob story, I'd fall for it.

WELL THEY THOUGHT WRONG.  Actually they thought wrongly but we'll hope the GP - grammar police - don't pick up on that one.

Anywho...  those scammin' scammers thought they'd fool me with the ol' when-my-husband-died-he-left-me-his-estate-and-now-that-I'm-dying-I-must-find-an-honest-and-kind-soul-to-put-his-estate-to-good-use-and-since-I-can't-trust-my-children-my-lawyer-instructed-me-to-write-to-you story.

Yeah, well I'm not buyin' it, lady.  Firstly, from your letter it was very obvious that you were oblivious to the fact that I'm a cat.  If you don't know that I'm a cat, you clearly don't know me.  So how do you know that I'm an honest and kind soul?  I actually am, but you don't know that.  You probably say that to all the cats to whom you write.  MOUSES!

And secondly...  Hmmm...  Uh...

Actually I'm not sure what the second part is but I do know that I'm pretty darned sure that your story isn't true and I'm not buyin' it for a second.  Not even a nanosecond.

Bottom line is, I'm bein' beleaguered by scammers thinkin' they can scam me and I'm not happy 'bout it at all.  The nerve!  Thinkin' they can pull the wool over my eyes but I, Nerissa the Cat, will not allow that.  I'm more then willin' to play hide-and-seek with a wool blanket but that's the only wool you're gonna be pullin' over these eyes.  These eyes will not be fooled.  Not ever.  Never.  So once more I say... MOUSES!