Stupid Week is drawing to a close, thank God. Let us now recap what we have learned during this momentous week. We have learned that while people are stupid as a group (well, we already knew that), men as a subgroup may or may not be stupid. If one happens to be a man who hypothesizes that men may indeed not be stupid, one must be prepared to see one's daily hits immediately cut themselves almost in half.

One must also be prepared to wake up one morning to read outraged, indignant emails while savouring one's morning coffee. Since I'd already covered people being stupid in yesterday's entry, and for a much more pointed reason, I simply clicked my heels in glee. I must really be a writer! I get hate mail now! Not my first, mind you, or at least not my first blog-related hate mail. This inspired that. Without realizing it, people who write to me expressing a strong opinion are treating me like the editor of a publication that has published an article that has struck a chord. Their hatred of me legitimizes my writing credientials. Huzzah! I'm like Dan Savage! What else could a bitchy aspiring writer wish for (aside from a little more money)?

Perhaps it's true, however, that I occasionally go a little overboard in my scathing reviews of humanity. After all, this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which – according to that book I reviewed so scathingly and am now beginning to enjoy very much (mmm . . . my words are delicious although the writing still sucks) – is the dawning of humanity's search for truth after the Age of Pisces which apparently was the Age of Being Bossed Around.

It may be true that humanity may be committing slow, painful suicide by poisoning its home and by cutting its nose off to spite its face. Humanity my be so bound by its own and various sets of ideologies and dogma that it cannot even begin to contemplate the truth, no matter how minor, of another point of view. It may willing to shout loud and even murder to stamp out any opposition to unconsidered dogma. Finally, humanity may have begun my day for me by sending me an email that began, "Dear f---face! [ed. note: "dear"?] You hate women!" but I still loves it . . . despite its stupidity.

And speaking of stupid, cats are stupid. My cat, in particular is stupid. Thus far I have painted him as a clown, as a predatory teacher, and as an interior decorator but let's face it, he's pretty dumb. Now before I get another tsunami of indignant emails (I love that I get to write that now!), starting, "Dear f---face! You hate cats!" let it be known that I love Noudnic with ever fibre of my being. When it's his time, because if all goes well in my life I really should outlive him, I will be devastated and writing about for months. However, we are discussing a creature whose favourite game is to fish out crumpled pieces paper from the recycling bin and tear them to shreds, and whose second favourite game is to be tossed, purring with tail straight up in excitement, onto my bed and to scamper back to me, mewing for more. May we move on now?

That aside, Noudnic is stupid and here is the proof. After a very late start, Toronto is finally having the kind of summer to which it is accustomed. The mercury is busting out of the thermometers and people are crawling down the street, swooning under a humid layer of car fumes. I have no air conditioner, because I am morally opposed to them (as in, I don't have enough money for one; they are therefore evil) and so I set up quite an ingenious system, if I so say so myself, system that actually had the desired effect.

I closed all the windows in my apartment to let none of my anticipated cold air out. I then filled my bathtub with cold water, which lowered the temperature in the bathroom by several degrees (both Centigrade and Fahrenheit). I then set up a series of strategically placed fans all over the apartment end voilà!, a cool breeze circulating through the entire place. As I said, men aren't stupid.

Those who have already picked up on the keywords, "cat", "stupid", "fill", and "bathtub" get a gold star and don't have to read any more of this entry if they have other things they need to do.

There I was, sitting comfortably at my computer, a cool breeze blowing though where my hair once was, sipping on a nice, cold iced tea, chuckling over the apparently deliberate stylistic choices of yet another vexed gender divide-related email ("When will you learn that women are not your jokes to make?"), when I heard scratch! scratch! scratchscratchscratch! SPLASH! splishsplashsplishsplash! Mew! Mew! Mew!. Half a split second later a pathetic, water-logged creature scuttled across the living room and into the kitchen where he promptly began to chase his tail. I suppose he didn't recognize it as his own because it was so wet; since he was on edge, he decided that the tail would have to pay). Round and round and round he went without noticing that his little silver kitty maelstrom was sliding directly towards his food dish and boom!, little nuggets of cat food flew into the air as tornado collided with bowl. This was too much for his poor nerves. He hissed at his scattered sustenance and darted under the desk where he cowered, his ear flattened.

After I'd picked myself off the floor and the laughter cramps had subsided somewhat, I coaxed him out from his refuge and brushed him until he was only damp. He spent the rest of the afternoon purring at my feet, staring at nothing. But I think even he would admit that he was cool, even if he didn't know why. Stupid cat.

That was pretty funny, eh? Even though we may all hate each other with blind, murderous rage, there is still room for humour and, dare I say it, love. Happy Stupid Week, folks! Go for a walk in the park and throw bread at the pigeons.