Sniffle.Sneeze.Cough

I'm running around like a madwoman today, trying to train the new temp they brought in while acting as the assistant to the (extremely needy) CEO, since his assistant is on vacation. We've already had two altercations, and he already hates me for the day. I made the grave mistake of asking him if he wanted to take his calls or if he wanted me to take them, to which he replied "I don't take my calls. Too many people call me." Mind you, the phone has rung about 3 times tops in the past two hours, and most of the time it wasn't even for him. Of course the one time it was for him I was away from the desk doing another chore, and he glared at me as I scurried back to the desk. I cannot and will never understand how people justify this sort of behavior - even if you are the CEO of a damn company and you have a golden stapler. Sheesh.

All this craziness will NOT keep me from blogging, however! My topic for this morning: household pets. In the households of Nick and Emily (we like to say we have two households: our suburban home-my studio apartment in Evanston-and our urban dwelling-his 1 bdrm in Lincoln Park) there is a standoff on the matter of household pets. Nick loves kitties, I'm deathly allergic. I'm a dog person, he's not so fond of them. Every time we pass the Paws adoption storefront near his apartment, he has to stop and ogle the kitties in the window. Once in elementary school I had a friend sleep over who had a cat at home, and the mere act of sleeping somewhat near her cat-hair infested pillow caused me to wake up unable to breathe and with my eyes swollen shut. Ask anyone who knows me and they can probably tell you in great detail about my various allergies. But I digress. Yesterday, while I was getting ready for work, Nick called out to me to come watch the TV. The feature story on Good Morning America was about a new Hypo-allergenic cat. They had a girl who was deathly allergic to cats holding the cat close to her face for an hour - no symptoms. Nick was very excited at the prospect of possibly getting to have a beloved kitty someday. He became less excited when he saw the price - with shipping, nearly 5K for the cat. FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR A CAT. Does it live for 50 years? Does it shit gold coins? Will it clean my bathroom and make me a chicken dinner? For five grand, I'd hope so. Don't think we'll be getting one anytime soon (Emily breathes inaudible sigh of relief).