L'il Critter

Sometimes our instincts get the best of us. Cats are programmed to respond to movement. There is something in me that wants to catch a running cat. It's part amusement, part strategy, but mostly it's just a loudspeaker running through my nervous system, "GET THE CAT!"

I've been obsessed by people on disabled carts. You might know them as "critters" or "clark mobiles". I had the classic rock station on in the car one day about 2 years ago and Sammy Hagar's terrible "I can't drive 55" came on. I often jot down lyrics with a sharpie pen on stray pieces of trash that are magnatized to the inside of my buick. The epiphany on Hagar was that it would make a great title for a painting of someone on a critter. The scrawled note probably read "Can't 55 Critter Person", and it's probably still in my buick.



Since that epiphany, I have responded to every person on a critter as if they were a running cat. I've scrambled for my digital camera, reparked the car at a good angle facing the elusive felines, trying not to look suspicious after peeling out in a vacant parking lot. The photo here was taken from the passenger side of my friend's vehicle. He of course couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with me. Then again, we've been friends for a while. He wasn't that surprised.