So it's about two weeks before Halloween and Joanne and I are in the local drug store, picking up some candy. On the way out, we pass a stuffed cat with a sticker on it's paw that says "Squeeze me here!"

When I squeeze, a speaker inside the cat lets out a low, mournful meow; a Halloween-cat meow; a you-squeezed-my-paw meow. So it do it again.

This time, the meow becomes a howl, followed by a brief, angry ffft!

"I'm teasing the cat," I say to Joanne.

I squeeze the paw again, and the cat's angry now. It growls and yelps and screeches, ffft-fffting along. I look around to see who might wonder what I'm doing to a cat, over here in the corner, but nobody's looking at us.

And when I squeeze again -- and you would have, too -- the cat actually jumps up at me. I suck in a breath and pull my had back suddenly and it shakes and skitters and lets out the most God-awful series of angry cat noises I've ever heard.

I turn to Joanne and say, "It's a toy that teaches children to taunt cats."

We watch it for a minute, as it vibrates across the counter.

"I wonder if they have an artificial bee-hive we can poke with a stick."

(This is the Lost EOD. I wrote it a couple of years ago, then lost it. It has since been found, and scolded for running off.)