Story

Mıssıng cat

The owner of a missing cat is asking for help. “My baby has been missing for over a month now, and I want him back so badly,” said Mrs. Brown, a 56-year-old woman. Mrs. Brown lives by herself in a trailer park near Clovis. She said that Clyde, her 7-year-old cat, didn’t come home for dinner more than a month ago. The next morning he didn’t appear for breakfast either. After Clyde missed an extra-special lunch, she called the police.

When the policeman asked her to describe Clyde, she told him that Clyde had beautiful green eyes, had all his teeth but was missing half of his left ear, and was seven years old and completely white. She then told the officer that Clyde was about a foot high.

A bell went off. “Is Clyde your child or your pet?” the officer suspiciously asked. “Well, he’s my cat, of course,” Mrs. Brown replied. “Lady, you’re supposed to report missing PERSONS, not missing CATS,” said the irritated policeman. “Well, who can I report this to?” she asked. “You can’t. You have to ask around your neighborhood or put up flyers,” replied the officer.

Mrs. Brown figured that a billboard would work a lot better than an 8”x11” piece of paper on a telephone pole. There was an empty billboard at the end of her street just off the interstate highway. The billboard had a phone number on it. She called that number, and they told her they could blow up a picture of Clyde (from Mrs. Brown’s family album) and put it on the billboard for all to see.

“But how can people see it when they whiz by on the interstate?” she asked. “Oh, don’t worry, ma’am, they only whiz by between 2 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. The rest of the day, the interstate is so full of commuters that no one moves.” They told her it would cost only $3,000 a month. So she took most of the money out of her savings account and rented the billboard for a month.

The month has passed, but Clyde has not appeared. Because she has almost no money in savings, Mrs. Brown called the local newspaper to see if anyone could help her rent the billboard for just one more month. She is waiting but, so far, no one has stepped forward.

FESTIVAL

People joke that no one in Los Angeles reads; everyone watches TV, rents videos, or goes to the movies. The most popular reading material is comic books, movie magazines, and TV guides. City libraries have only 10 percent of the traffic that car washes have. But how do you explain this? An annual book festival in west Los Angeles is “sold out” year after year. People wait half an hour for a parking space to become available.

This outdoor festival, sponsored by a newspaper, occurs every April for one weekend. This year’s attendance was estimated at 70,000 on Saturday and 75,000 on Sunday. The festival featured 280 exhibitors. There were about 90 talks given by authors, with an audience question-and-answer period following each talk. Autograph seekers sought out more than 150 authors. A food court sold all kinds of popular and ethnic foods, from American hamburgers to Hawaiian shave ice drinks. Except for a $7 parking fee, the festival was free. Even so, some people avoided the food court prices by sneaking in their own sandwiches and drinks.

People came from all over California. One couple drove down from San Francisco. “This is our sixth year here now. We love it,” said the husband. “It’s just fantastic to be in the great outdoors, to be among so many books and authors, and to get some very good deals, too.”

The idea for the festival occurred years ago, but nobody knew if it would succeed. Although book festivals were already popular in other US cities, would Los Angeles residents embrace one? “Angelenos are very unpredictable,” said one of the festival founders.

English is confusing

Good evening, everybody!” said the teacher, Donna. “Where is everybody?” That was sort of a daily joke by Donna. Usually the class started with only two or three students present, and then filled up as the minutes went by. It was summertime. Summer school was only eight weeks long. Class attendance was always smaller than during fall and spring semesters.

“I don’t know, teacher. Maybe they late or no come,” said one student. “Maybe watching TV football tonight.”

“Is there a soccer game tonight? It seems like there’s a soccer game every night. Oh, well. Let’s get started, okay? We’re on page 36 in the workbook. Tonight we’re studying participles as adjectives. Students are always confused when they learn about the present and past participles, so we will practice this a lot. Tonight, we’re just going to practice the present participle.

“The present participle tells us what emotion or feeling the subject is causing. For example, ‘Grammar is boring’ means that the subject—grammar—causes an emotion of boredom. If we say, ‘The movie is interesting,’ we are saying that the movie causes a feeling of interest. If we say, ‘The roller coaster is exciting,’ we are saying that the roller coaster causes a feeling of excitement. Any questions so far? Am I confusing you? Is everyone confused?”

The classroom was quiet. Donna looked at blank faces. They were confused. She knew this would take a while. But eventually, the faster students would grasp it, and then they would help the slower students. By the end of the evening, most of the class would feel comfortable using the present participle.

Donna erased the board and put some new examples on it. She loved guiding her students through difficult topics like this one. She always felt a little bit thrilled when the look of understanding came to their faces.

  English Only

Blair needed a break from the indoor life. Sometimes it seemed like he was in his apartment 24/7. He had recently found a perfect outdoor cure. It was a new coffeehouse which served 45 kinds of coffee and tea. He liked it because the coffee was good and the place was never overcrowded.

The coffeehouse was only a 10-minute walk, which Blair now took. There were three female customers in the coffeehouse. None of them were young and pretty. Blair was a little disappointed. He’d prefer to see good-looking women while he was drinking good coffee, but you can’t have everything.

He ordered a large “coffee of the day,” which was $1.70. He gave the clerk two dollars. He put the change in the tip jar and took his coffee outside. Blair preferred to drink outside. That way he could watch the traffic on the street. He liked to try to spot British motorcycles and 1960 station wagons.

He sat at a table under an umbrella, opened his book, and began reading. The book was a self-improvement book. Blair had been reading it on and off for about two years. He hadn’t noticed any improvement. A woman was approaching the patio. Blair looked up to see if she was attractive. She was. And she was by herself. He returned to the book as she passed by him. Blair kept looking at the pages, but his mind was on the woman.

A few minutes later, she came outside holding a cup of coffee and sat at the table right next to Blair’s. Her chair was so close to his that he could have reached over and touched her on her right shoulder. There were four other empty tables on the patio. Why had she sat at this one, so close to him? Was she telling him that she was available? Was she hoping that he would make a move?

Blair went back to his book. But he wasn’t reading the words; he was thinking about the woman. What could he say to her? How could he break the ice? What was a good line? “What blend are you drinking?” “Your perfume smells nice.” “Weren’t we in the same art class?”

But maybe she wasn’t interested in him at all. Maybe she just wanted to sit and drink in peace. Yet why would she sit right here? His head was spinning. He must say something.

Just then, her cell phone rang. She answered it, then laughed, then started talking animatedly. That’s got to be her boyfriend, Blair thought.

But from the moment she answered the phone, it didn’t matter if she had a boyfriend or not, because she was speaking another language. Blair was not interested in a girl who didn't speak English. He went back to his book and his coffee. It tasted good.