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someone who hasn’t turned them on! I read on the Internet that there’s a new gang thing — the city is full of gangs and drugs, especially in the Northeast — where they drive around with the headlights off & carjack the first car that flashes at them. Carjackings are up this year ... but God knows it’s not safe to just walk around. I just hope we can keep all that stuff out of this neighborhood. Yesterday a big Oldsmobile parked right in front of my neighbor Mabel’s house — they didn’t look like anybody she’d know — I just didn’t know what to do! I was about to call 911, but then I remembered that I had heard the police will only answer one 911 call per telephone per month, because the crime problem is so dramatic, and I thought “What if they go away when the police arrive, but then come back afterwards? And what if the police want to come in, and they decide I look suspicious, and they search my apartment and find my stash? Or they just decide to plant something on me?” So I went down to the basement with the mobile phone — I hoped to God they didn’t have a one of those scanners! — and I listened, and I waited. The phone has emergency buttons programmed on it, red buttons, so I can dial 911 with only one press instead of three, or else I can call Animal Control, Poison Control or my sister in Medford, instantly. I was down there for a couple of hours, just listening for trouble and watching all of the horrible little bugs we have down there. Honestly — little silverfish, spiders, they get in through the cracks. I never imagined there were so many. I finally got down on hands & knees with a brick and started crushing them, one after the other, until I was pretty sure I got them all.
    When I went back upstairs the Oldsmobile had snuck away. But then I noticed there was some sort of flyer stuck through the mail slot, and then I remembered: they haven’t caught the Unabomber yet, have they?

Letter to the Manufacturers of
Alley Katz Katz Food

    Dear sirs: I would like to thank and congratulate you on the quality of your cat repellent, Alley Katz Katz Food, which I’ve been using for the last few months to keep these meowing pests out of my home. Never have I seen animals so transfixed, held firmly at bay by an invisible feline wall of distaste. I am writing also to inquire whether you market a slug and snail food, preferably in the same cheese and liver flavor that you claim Katz Krave, or else in a configuration that might analogously nauseate slithering pests. (I imagine you employ experts in this area.) (Lettuce and salt peanuts, perhaps?)
    Finally, I would also inquire whether you could recommend a company that manufactures edible food for cats, in case I suffer a change of heart.
    Yrs, E. Tarantula, fellow cat hater.

    Sirs: in inconspicuous lettering on the back of my box of Alley Katz Katz Food, you warn that a temporary period of appetite loss is normal when attempting to feed your products to Katz. How long does this period last, in the normal case? I opened a bag of your Liver ’N Onion flavored product two weeks ago, and have been unable to stomach either of these foods in their unprocessed form ever since. My cats, meanwhile, have begun to eat their own litter and beg from passing children. Also: you warn that if this condition persists for over a month, some other cause (malnutrition?) may be suspected and a veterinarian ought to be consulted. Call me premature: I have spoken with my regular vet, Frida, who has suggested that I investigate the meat over meat by-products ratio of your Katz Food. Apparently when this ratio approaches zero, so does one’s cat.
    Please advise, E. Tarantula, vegetarian adept

    Sirs: a spot of confusion surrounding your product, to wit: on the front of your package you picture, seated on an ersatz fence, a furry creature of feline build, healthy in appearance and cat-like in all outward aspects, but apparently able to metabolize Alley Katz Katz Food for