Well, Berra wrote a whole series about terrible maps and I decided that I needed to add a post of my own. So here’s a wee story for your amusement.
I’m working on a project and needed to orient myself within it. I had a map sketched out and it was terrible and I needed to replace it anyway with a new terrible map, but I hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. The map was on the floor of my room of doom, where I do all my writing. (At a desk, not on the floor, but the desk was full, so the map pad had been set aside.)
I live with a pair of alynxes (maine coon cats, in this case). The kitten, who is now the larger of the two and nearing a year old, is called Rurik, after the first king of Kievan Rus, but you know, Rurik Runespear is a thing too. Rurik is a climber and he has a bad habit of getting into places he shouldn’t. That particular day, he got into some bacon grease in the kitchen. A lot of it. And it turns out that grease greases a cat’s innards, if you take my meaning.
Rurik used his litter tray, dug about frantically in a futile effort to bury that most horrific smell, and then leapt out and ran across the floor of my room of doom, trampling the map in the process. I was playing Cthulhu at the time and the smell was such that I knew I needed to do something, so I looked away from the screen long enough to realise that there were now footprints on my map (and my carpet). Poopy footprints. My GM and fellow players were both understanding and amused as I made lots of horrified noises and then muted myself to deal with the mess. The crappy map got disposed of and now I really need to get around to replacing it.
At least I know I’m not alone! Here’s an entire thread of pet incidents and documents from the past on Twitter.
