I started yesterday’s entry with an extract from a poem written in 1635 (the year, not twenty-five minutes to five), which although not entirely connected with poker, at least made a difference from the usual fart gags and vitriol towards cats.

    Although I’m tempted to change tack and shove in a Shakespeare sonnet I’m afraid I have to revert back to my usual ranting.

    I managed to have a nice relaxed lie-in this morning after Mrs. Snowman went off to work and didn’t venture downstairs until about 10.30am. After wandering into the kitchen to obtain a bowl of cereal, I make my way to the living room and settle down to a quiet breakfast. The cat is gleefully racing around the room as if it’s got a firework shoved up its bottom while chasing after what initially looks like a ball of paper.

    Only after the ‘ball’ starts to unravel and I take a glimpse at the newly decorated wall do I fully comprehend what has happened. Very much like the Doppler effect, there’s a delay between sight and sound. The yell comes a couple of seconds after I drop the bowl and dive for the animal.

    Sometime between Mrs. Snowman’s departure and my arrival, the cat has clawed off a section of wallpaper and fashioned it into a toy. On closer inspection when I later try to repair the damage there also appears to be some teeth marks as well.

    The cat swerves like a running back to avoid my grab and swipes me round the back of the head before racing off with a pawful of my hair in its claw. As I write this I can hear it scratching the front door in another attempt to raise my blood pressure.

    There’s little point in racing around trying to catch it. When I open the front door it slinks around to the back and when I tiptoe to the back door it appears on the kitchen sill and meows at me through the window. Whatever I do it outsmarts me but it can’t carry on indefinitely. At some stage it will have to come in to get fed or failing that, I don’t think it will be able to resist the temptation of continuing its campaign against me.

    When I do finally get my hands on the thing I intend to offer it for sale on Ebay…in bits. There’s a market for rabbit’s feet so I see no reason why there shouldn’t be one for cat’s feet as well. If I take this idea to the next level I might even be able to get rid of a spleen.

    The mother-in-law refuses to acknowledge her pet’s vicious nature and continues to think the sun shines directly out of its colon. I am becoming increasingly convinced that they may be in it together. I don’t usually subscribe to conspiracy theories but I’m prepared to make an exception over this. In fact, the more I think about it, the more probable it becomes. When I tell people about it they don’t believe me and say I’m being catist but I’m not prejudice against felines in any way. Several times she’s quipped that I should see a psychiatrist. Maybe that’s it! If I persist in my telling my worries maybe she thinks I’ll be locked away in a room with padded walls, thereby leaving her daughter to claim on the insurance and provide her with a comfortable retirement. However, with some quiet reasoning I dismiss the idea as I don’t think psychopaths actually retire; they either get captured or join the board of directors at the World Bank.

    Talking of psychopaths, I met one or two in the evening freeroll (I missed the afternoon one, as I was busy doing a patchwork repair to the wallpaper). I’d amassed 5,000 chips by carefully avoiding the first one who went all-in on seven consecutive hands. However, another one joined the table and eliminated me after I raised with my pocket tens on a 10-7-3 flop only to be re-raised all-in by J-9 and they hit the straight on the turn. I shall try again at midnight.

    Ever since I was young I’ve wanted different jobs. When I was six years old I wanted to be an astronaut, at ten it was a rock star, by sixteen an architect. Nowadays my aspirations are far less ambitious; I want to be the first man to put a cat into space…with my foot.

Starting bank:  $0