The Jillie Mae Show: 2012

You know the kind of person who’s just lucky? The kind of person whose life is like an endless field of four-leaf clovers beneath a sky of double-rainbows and shooting stars? The kind of person with that extra bit of sunshine in their step that says, “I’ve never stepped in chewing gum or accidentally evacuated my bowels in public”?

Well that’s not me. I am lightning rod for comic misfortune. I’m a regular ol’ Charlie Brown, a Joe Btfsplk, a Eugene from Hey Arnold. My life is something like an endless field of banana peels, and I’ll refrain from commenting on the bowels thing.

My name is Jillie Mae. This is my ~~show~~ blog.

PILOT: SOMETIMES TWO’S COMPANY TOO

It all began with a simple, seemingly innocuous event.

I was in my final semester at Bowdoin College, and spring had joyously sprung (which, in Maine, means it was nearly May but all the snow had finally melted). One day I decided to go for a drive; it may have been a joy ride, it may have been a trip to TJ Maxx, it may have been a lazy commute to a class that I could have biked to in less than five minutes—I don’t remember. This is what I do remember:

Just as any other dedicated slacker with very little pocket money and an out of control eBay addiction would, I ignored the problem. With the exception of a few rainy days, my ignore-the-problem-and-maybe-it-will-go-away strategy was really panning out.

I continued with my campaign of avoidance until an early-morning bird-watching obligation changed everything.

I was taking a class called “Bird Song, Human Song” in order to get the one science credit I needed to graduate (the result of another long campaign of avoidance), and I had to drop in on a dawn chorus. Everyone in the class was assigned a time-slot, and—lucky me—I won the much-coveted 4:30AM shift in the Pine Grove Cemetery.

My college-student logic told me that staying awake until 4:30 was the wisest course of action; in all fairness: I am a pretty heavy sleeper who’s missed alarms at far more reasonable hours of the morning, and since I’m not exactly Bill Nye I was pretty sure my sheer love of science wouldn’t get me out of bed. So I loaded up on orange soda and Sour Patch Watermelon and settled in for an I Love Lucy marathon.

Around 4:20 I stumbled my way out of my apartment with low blood sugar and my brain functioning at about 20% efficiency (I even did the “Lucy, I’m home” bit going out the door—I feel I should emphasize that I performed this bit for an audience of shoes and empty beer cans in my building’s stairwell).

I got out to the parking lot, found my car in the pitch black of unholy morning, fumbled around with my keys, and opened the driver’s-seat door…SUDDENLY: a vicious beast of mythological size leapt for my face in a flash of thick orange fur, snake-like hissing, and disposable-razor-sharp claws. As quickly as it had appeared, the monster was gone.

First, I was confused. Then, I was terrified. Finally, I was forced to admit what had happened: my plan to ignore the broken window had failed. I had a cat living in my car.

I made numerous attempts to evict the squatter. I tried parking in a different space every night to confuse him, but every morning, there he was. I tried taping a garbage bag over the open window, but he clawed his way through. I tried yelling, “I hate you, cat! I hate you, cat! I hate you, cat!” over and over again—but it was no use.

Eventually the cat became so unfazed by my intrusions that he would stay in the car even while I was driving, and it wasn’t long before I began to feel a strange kinship toward the animal. He wasn’t, altogether, a bad houseguest. He never made number one, number two, or number three (hairballs) in the car. He never even left a single hair behind. He was clean. He was quiet.

Soon I had added a beanbag chair to the backseat so his naps would be more comfortable, and I had named him Tom Deluise (which I promise is a really clever name if you’re a fan of An American Tail and puns that require a little extra explanation).

*Dramatization: Tom Deluise did not really wear a T-shirt.

Tom Deluise became my co-pilot. Tom Deluise became my friend. This was a beautiful and a peaceful time of easy companionship. He was Harry to my Henderson family. He was Willy, and I was that kid who freed Willy. He was the adorable animal sidekick with just the right amount of people-smarts and house-cleaning know-how to legitimize me as a Disney princess.

But, like Harry and the Hendersons or Willy and that kid, Tom Deluise and I could not be together forever. Eventually, I did get that science credit; I graduated college, moved back home, and got the car window fixed.

I like to think that Tom Deluise has found another beanbag somewhere or some other soft and sunny spot to rest his rather significant hind parts. And I will always remember him when I watch An American Tail.