Notorious ‘‘Death Cat’’ Refuses to Leave Obama Campaign Headquarters
Note: The following column is satire
Saturday, November 3rd, 2012,(WASHINGTON)
“He refuses to leave. When we force him away, he just comes back. It’s really been flipping us out…”
Such are the quivering words of a flush-faced Stacey Bingham, President Obama’s volunteer coordinator at his campaign headquarters in Washington D.C.
No, Ms. Bingham is not talking about Joe Biden. Nor is she speaking of the inevitable horde of creepy, overweight, middle-aged campaign volunteers who smell like a Beluga whale’s placenta that can be found at any campaign’s volunteer offices.
Bingham is speaking of none other than Oscar the cat (a.k.a. the “death cat,” the “grim purrer,” or “Dr. Catvorkian”), who gained fame in 2010 from his uncanny ability to detect which patient was about to die at a Rhode Island nursing home. Curling up next to unconscious geriatrics in Providence’s Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre, Oscar, a 9-pound ordinary American housecat, stayed with each patient in the hours preceding their deaths, becoming perhaps the furriest, cutest Grim Reaper to date.
Nursing home doctors confirmed over 50 cases of Oscar accurately predicting patients’ deaths. But Oscar no longer roams the halls of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. Staff members reported Oscar missing on October 2nd, and have been unaware of his location … until now. Somehow, some way, Oscar, the “grim purrer,” has found his way to the headquarters of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign headquarters in the nation’s capital. And he refuses to leave.
“Short of killing it, we’ve tried everything to get rid of him, but he won’t go away. We lured him outside with tuna fish and barred the doors, but he still makes it back into the office somehow,” said Kareem Dale, Associate Director for the White House Office of Public Engagement, who so elegantly has been rallying Obama’s re-election staff with cries of “Let’s win this (expletive) !”
Dale, Bingham, and other officials in the President’s D.C. campaign headquarters said Oscar routinely curls up next to top campaign officers, purring morbidly. Brooms, boots, canes and chairs have all been used to “shuffle” the demise-predicting cat out of campaign headquarters, according to Dale, but to no avail. Said Dale to Duh Progressive, Saturday, “This is nothing short of super-naturalistical. This (expletive) cat refuses to leave! We can’t get rid of it. We can’t kill it. It’s just ‘here.’ Why? Why, God? Why?!”
Adding to the creepiness, Oscar has also been spotted at other Obama campaign offices in several states, including Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The frightening feline has even encountered the President himself during one of his routine stops/pep rallies at his campaign’s HQ in Richmond. No one has been able to explain how Oscar the Death Cat has been able to make it to so many campaign headquarters.
No member of Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s camp has claimed responsibility for shipping the cat around, nor has any rogue supporter of Romney come forward to explain how Oscar has made his way to so many Obama re-election offices in such short amount of time. In essence, Oscar’s appearance and current macabre loitering remains a rather eerie mystery, to say the least.
“I know it’s Halloween time, but this is just freaky!” said Johansen Bernard-Stevenson, an Obama campaign volunteer and father of three who has been unemployed for the past four years. The 42-year-old Virginia native and former professional underwater hypnotist has been spending his (unemployed) days working the phones and stuffing the envelopes at Obama’s Washington D.C. headquarters, and has had several run-ins with Oscar, the “grim purrer.”
Said Bernard-Stevenson to Duh Progressive, Saturday, “This (expletive) cat curled up next to me for an hour last week. I couldn’t make it go away! It just kept purring, with this ominous smirk … Really, Oscar made my job of remaining jobless for the next four years very uncomfortable. Somebody has to stop it! What’s the meaning of this?!”
Note: The preceding column is satire
