By Herr Schmidt from the BAD LUCK CAT Mysteries
by Kay Finch

  
It’s almost time for the annual Pumpkin Festival in Lavender, Texas and I’m having a devil of a time getting the participants - townspeople who plan to give of their time in one capacity or another and vendors alike - to accept and sign for their copy of the official 2017 Pumpkin Festival Rule Book.

 Understand, these are the same people who appointed me as festival organizer. People who have known me throughout my tenure as German teacher at the local high school. I felt very proud that they trusted me with this position. Now that I’m retired, I have the time necessary to devote to this event and to ensure that rules are made and strictly followed. After all, everyone has the same goal in mind - we want this festival to be a success.

And what am I getting in return for all my hard work? Laughs. Insults. Disrespect. I deserve much better treatment from the citizens of Lavender.

I’m not the only one on earth who lives by rules. Life is full of rules from the day a person is born until the day they die, and that’s how it should be. How it has to be. Rules exist for a very good reason. Without them, we’d have nothing but chaos to deal with. What kind of life would that be?

I thought I could enlist the help of Rowena Flowers to make sure the rules are enforced, but no. She doesn’t think we need rules for the Pumpkin Toss. Has she never played checkers? Dominoes? Poker? All games have rules, right? The Pumpkin Toss should be no different. I tried to get Sabrina Tate to talk some sense into her aunt, but she's always getting sidetracked by that cat of hers - Hitchcock, the one they call the Bad Luck Cat.

The last straw came when one of the vendors - a man who gives me the willies to begin with and looks like he came straight from Woodstock - started singing to me when I tried to get him to sign for his copy of the Rule Book.

Rules, rules, everywhere are rules; Blockin' out the scenery, treatin’ us like fools; Do this, don’t do that, can’t you follow rules?
Then he laughed as if I was the biggest joke on the planet. How rude!  Sometimes I swear people are more polite to their pets than they are to me. I've thought about getting a pet of my own, but with my luck I'd end up with a cat or a dog that didn't like my rules either.

Kay Finch is the National Best-Selling Author of the Bad Luck Cat Mysteries, Black Cat Crossing, The Black Cat Knocks on Wood, and The Black Cat Sees His Shadow. She's a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the State Bar of Texas Paralegal Division. Kay lives with her husband and their rescue pets in a Houston suburb. Visit the author at kayfinch.com.