I knew this guy Bob
whose life really sucked.
He got laid off from his job
pressing out plastic shampoo bottles
that looked like poodles.

Mindy Sue, this incredibly ugly chick
that Bob used to say he dated
only because he felt sorry for her,
left him for this other dude
who was even uglier and scrawnier than Bob.

Bob's car broke down on the expressway,
and before he ever had a chance
to figure out just what was wrong with it,
it got towed away
to some lot behind an old gas station
where they actually expected Bob to pay
before he could get it back out.

Like he really had anything to pay with.
Even if he did
he'd have to give it to his landlord first,
who didn't have much patience to begin with
and no sense of humor at all.

I'm not kidding.
Bob's life totally sucked.
And since he could see no hope
that it would ever get better,
Bob decided to chuck it all
and drown himself in the toilet.

And he would've, too,
had not this really incredible thing happened.

Just when he was returning from the alley
with a couple of old cement blocks
and a piece of clothesline
that he'd found tangled in the fence,
this really mangy cat showed up
with a winning lottery ticket in its mouth.
We're not talkin' just a whole lot of money here,
but five bucks was enough
for Bob to think twice.

So instead of ending it all,
Bob went out and got a hamburger
that he shared with the cat.

And after the cat
had licked all the grease
from its paws and its face
it went back out,
and when it came back it had another lottery ticket.
Only this time
we are talkin' a lot of money -
fifteen thousand dollars.

Bob may have been suicidal,
but he wasn't stupid.
He saw a goldmine in that cat.
Every day the cat brought him something:
Cash, stocks, bonds, gem stones;
and all he had to do was feed it.

Needless to say,
Bob's life got better.
He got a new car,
a new house,
new clothes,
and this really hot lookin' babe name Bambi
who rarely wore
any appropriate undergarments.

One day while Bambi was at the house
checkin' out all the channels
that Bob got on his satellite dish
with the remote control by the hot tub,
she happened to ask
just how it was that Bob could afford all the stuff,
stuff like a solid gold potato peeler
and a fur-lined pool table.

And Bob felt really stupid
telling her about the cat,
so he made up this really involved story
about a rich uncle from Akron
who'd been run over by a bus.
When he got done
Bambi told him how sorry she was,
well - about his uncle and all.
And the cat,
the cat got up and left.
And he never came back.

Well, Bob may not have been too stupid
when it came to keeping the cat,
but he couldn't manage money worth a hoot,
and within two months
the collection company had collected everything -
the brass goldfish,
the marble toothbrush,
even Bambi -
and loaded it onto their truck.
They let Bambi ride up front.
Bob didn't even have a toilet
that he could drown himself in.

But everything worked out all right,
I guess,
‘cause it was just about then
that the plastic factory called Bob back.
Well, it was the third shift,
but that was better than nothin'.

Bob even managed to get an apartment
in the basement of a house
just two blocks from where he worked,
so he didn't even need a car.

You know,
just thinkin' about it all,
I suppose there's a moral here somewhere,
but I'll be darned if I can figure out
just what it might be.

January 1992