If my experience babysitting animals is any indication of my caretaking abilities, I would be a terrible mother. I�m not talking about the Diane Downs style of mother, who offs her kids because they annoy the guy she�s trying to latch onto, or an alcoholic rage queen like Joan Crawford. I just have no ability to discipline anything.

I�m house-sitting for a cat, a giant rabbit, a rat, and a couple of fish. Well, as of this morning, one fish. That represents a 50% reduction in the number of fish that existed when the owners handed over the keys, and I�m thinking they�re bound to notice. He was a generally unattractive fish�kind of lumpy and coal-colored, and without going into detail, I�ll just say that death has not improved his looks.

So far, I have been bitten by the cat, the rabbit and the rat. The only reason I haven�t been bitten by the fish is that I stand back and toss their food in over the top of the tank, so there�s no hope of contact. With the exception of the cat, there was no animosity in any of the biting. The rat, I think, was just trying to say hello. The rabbit was just hungry, but that is intimidating in that she is larger than the cat and has ginger-colored rings around her eyes, like inexpertly applied eyeliner. She is the Tammy Faye of the rabbit world. She bit me this morning when I was putting a handful of alfalfa in her bowl, but I think it was just eagerness for the food and not, like, �You best be staying away from my maaaaaan, ho!�

The cat, whom I love, is 13 years old and stares a lot. He wakes me up in the morning by pushing on my arm with one paw. Unfortunately, his claws are long and so the push ends up more of a scratch. If I ignore the arm pushing, he aims for the face. I am not fond of being awakened by a scratch on my mouth, and opening my eyes to see a big-head cat staring intently at me from a distance of two inches. I have no idea how to stop him from doing it, though. This morning, I put my head under the covers and went back to sleep, whereupon the smacking began. He stood on the floor next to the bed and swatted me, hard. Finally, I couldn�t take it any more, so I just did what he wanted. I know it�s not possible to explain to a cat why it is not right to swat and stare intently (this is why the Pilgrims thought cats were satanic, probably�all the staring), so I just do whatever I think he wants, in order to get him to stop the swatting.

Having been raised to believe that it�s my duty to accommodate the whims of whatever idiot happens to stumble across my path, I tend to struggle with issues like, oh, boundaries, self-respect, little things like that. And while in general I tend to seek the path of least resistance, for Lord�s sake, you�d think I�d be able to stand up to a housecat. And yet: I cannot.

In other news, there is this guy here who I call Lumberg, based on his resemblance to the legendary boss from Office Space�he�s got the hair, the saunter, the overinflated sense of self-importance, the deeply irritating speech pattern. He called me on his speaker phone a few minutes ago, a habit I find arrogant, creating as it does the impression that he thinks he�s addressing an amphitheatre full of people over a PA system. His voice boomed into my ear, and he told me he would come over to talk to me In Person. When he got here, I was so blinded by the chest hair erupting through his shirt, which was open halfway down his chest, that I couldn�t concentrate on what he was saying, and had to fake interest in a piece of paper he handed me. I completed his totally unimportant request, and as he turned away to dramatically think of the other thing he�d come to tell me, I noticed the outlines of his pockets through the white fabric of his pants. I started to get seriously disturbed at the idea that maybe he was au naturel beneath those Farah slacks. Maybe he was just wearing dark underwear that didn�t show up, but it really looked like there was no underwear happening. Plus, he was strutting around, sticking his butt out for no apparent reason. Maybe he wanted me to revel in his no-underwear status. And that is where I draw the line. I will allow rats to bite me and cats to swat my face when I�m asleep. I may even allow giant rabbits to intimidate me, but I will not revel in your lack of underwear, Lumberg! Now, button up your shirt, take off that gold chain, and put on some big-boy pants before I knock you flat!

Star of the day. . .Gary Cole, as opposed to Gary Coleman