Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Deathday Letter ARC Giveaway!

So here's the story:  ARC's for The Deathday Letter were in short supply.  I had two to give away for contests and the like.  A friend of mine left her boyfriend and was between houses, so I told her she could stay in my spare room for a few weeks.  She brought along her three cats.  You see where this is going, don't you?

Okay, well you cat people probably know where this is going.  You dog people may be going, "So what?"  Well my first mistake was leaving the ARC out on my kitchen table.  Now, I did a good job of cleaning up and making sure that anything that could potentially fall down or be knocked over, was moved.  Except for my poor, poor ARC.  One day, not long after the cats claimed my home as their own, I came home from work to find a large pile of cat vomit hanging off the front of my book.  So I said to the cat, "Tell me what you really think of the book."

My roommate cleaned it off and it now only looks slightly water damaged.  But I was left with the dilemma: What do I do with it now?  Would anyone actually want a copy of The Deathday Letter that had been kitty-puked on?  Well we're about to find out.

Now begins the official Deathday Letter ARC Giveaway!  Entering is easy.  Leave a comment telling me about something special that YOUR pet destroyed, and post a picture to go along with it.  Cat, dog, goldfish, doesn't matter.  Don't have a pet?  No problem! Tell me something your roommate destroyed.  Most roommates are dirtier than pets anyway.  No roomates OR pets?  Make something up.  I'm a fiction writer, I'll appreciate the effort :)  If you have trouble putting a picture in the comments, link to one.  If you can't do that, then tell me all about your adorable Poopsie.  ***EDITED TO ADD*** If you're shy and don't want to leave a story, you're more than welcome to just leave a comment with your name.  It's not as much fun, but I totally understand :)

I'll draw the winner via random drawing on May 1st (my birthday!).  That's all there is to it.  So spread the word!  There will also be awards for the cutest pet (to be decided by vote) and the funniest story (to be decided by whether I shoot coffee out of my nose).  The only stipulation is to keep it clean-ish.

Spread the word, the contest begins NOW!

By the way, that's not the cat in question, it's my dog, Maxx, looking particularly regal.  Also, the ARC is pretty clean, so no worries about lingering vomit.

This is the cat that did the vomiting and a picture of the ARC:

16 comments:

  1. A few years back, I used to drop my dog off at my parents' house for a little canine daycare.

    I got a desperate call from my dad one day while I was at work.

    "You have to come here. Right now. Your dog is sick."

    Actually, all the dogs (they had two of their own) were sick. And it was not the kind of sickness that comes out of the front end. By the time I got there, all of their shag carpets had been sullied.

    This is not the sort of thing my dad knows how to clean. So I set to it.

    But I have a weak stomach. There is only so much post-digested dog dinner I can clean up.

    I got a sudden, overwhelming urge to puke. So I ran outside and my dog followed me thinking, "Hooray! We get to play!"

    I barfed. My dog ate it.

    And then I went inside to finish cleaning the rugs. I didn't do such a good job, though, on account of the puking. And that's why my parents now have hardwood floors.

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  2. I grew up on a farm. I have tons of animal stories: some even involve high electricity. But the most memorable one happened while visiting the old farmstead with my Manx cat.

    While sitting on the floor petting the farm cats, my Manx got terribly jealous. So he walked/hopped up to me, raised his back leg, and peed on my shirt. Then he hissed at the other cats, proclaiming I was his.

    Here's a photo link to one of the farm cats:

    http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/G0axuSMGea-7zJGUyThhXw?feat=directlink

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  3. Poesy is our precious princess pup, who has a slightly evil side. I make handmade jewelry, and our biggest venue of the year was the Fairie Festival that year. Well, I had a whole tray of pendants ready on the table, and Poesy wanted them badly--they're her favorite thing to chew. "Will you help me?" (We assume) she asked the cat. The cat kicked some pendants off onto the floor, and Poesy pounced...and they were ruined, post-haste.

    This is her, in fairy wings, looking NOT EVIL AT ALL:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_plus_jenn/3484273379/in/set-72157601326779957/

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  4. My dog Hoot is a wind-up weasel with titanium teeth. He has taken bites out of a Pendleton wool blanket, eaten a grandma-made afghan, leaves no shoelace in one piece, operates as a shredder on junk mail (it's all junk mail to him)... so he ate the envelope my ARCs came in. Of course he did. He didn't get to the books, but he was on his way.

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  5. Long ago, when casette tapes were more popular than digital downloads and my husband had a mullet and listened to hair metal, we had a cat named FuzzButt who ate anything and everything.

    My then-two-year-old daughter found FuzzButt's iron stomach beneficial whenever she didn't want to eat her broccoli or beans. Seeing what other things she could get the cat to eat was also a huge source of entertainment for her.

    One night, as I slaved away on the word processor in the bedroom of our single-wide trailer, my husband heard our little girl giggling in her bedroom. He ventured back and found her doubled over the mattress of her bed, her face red with laughter.

    The cat was spinning in circles, chasing the 16 inches of cassette tape that was stuck to its tail. Although he found the feline's antics amusing, too, my husband felt sorry for the poor little beast and decided to help relieve it of its frustration.

    He grasped the tape, only to realize it was not attached to FuzzButt's tail. I don't want to be crude in my explanation, so I'll just say the tape was much longer than the 16 inches he had been chasing and the cat yowled as it waddled away.

    Believe it or not, even guys with mullets get grossed out when something like this occurs. Once my husband had everything under control (read: once he had santized his hands with mineral spirits) he came into the bedroom to tell me that FuzzButt had ruined one of our cassette tapes, but he didn't know which one.

    I told him not to be angry with the cat. I had thrown that tape in the garbage can two days earlier after it had been mangled by the cassette player in our home stereo. Then, like my daughter, I began laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

    "Go ahead and laugh," my husband said. "It wouldn't be so funny if it happened to you."

    "You don't understand," I said with tears rolling down my cheeks. "That tape that I threw away? It was Faster Pussycat."

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  6. Oh my goodness, these are all so great! Keep them coming!

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  7. Well, I don't have too many animal stories, but my kids have destroyed plenty of things when I've been sick or not paying attention. Once, they wanted to pretend it was snowing, so they de-stuffed my couch and tossed the stuffing all over the room (I had a pic of that but can't find it).

    And another time, I was really sick and left my husband in charge of the kids. He was watching tv upstairs while they destroyed the downstairs. The pictures don't do the carnage justice, but here's a link:

    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016136&id=1184835717&l=082f239092

    While looking at these, keep in mind that when I had gone back to bed in the morning, the house was totally spotless and the bed in the pictures was neatly made, complete with an array of throw pillows (one of which I still have yet to find).

    Good thing my kids are cute ;-D

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  8. P.s. The pic of that cat is cracking me up. He definitely has a "yeah, I puked on it - whatcha gonna do about it?" look on his face LOL

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  9. Wow, where do I begin?

    My cat, Kermit, is constantly getting into my cupboard to tear into bread, leftover muffins, and boxes of cereal. I put child locks on all my doors to try and keep him out, but he still manages every now and then. He's supposed to be on a diet.

    After he eats all the bread and cereal in the house, he runs into the living room and yaks all over my couch. Then he looks for anything leather that he can sharpen his claws on, whether that's a pair of boots, my purse, or the couch. He's ruined a lot of stuff. But we still love him.

    Here is Kermit's picture:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/29336289@N04/4495336299/?eOrig=4495328557

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  10. That cat looks pissed off and proud of what he/she accomplished. I hate anything that poops in sand, otherwise known as litter.

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  11. I just read the first chapter of your book and loved it!!!

    My pet story is of the battle between my cat and my iguana. I have two cats, Stigmata and Monkey, of which my iguana Ronnie would chase stigmata. On one particularly epic battle Ronnie was on top of Stigmata with a mouthful of fur. Apparently iguanas have the Jaws of Life and would not let go for the next 30 minutes. Good thing he didn’t get a mouth full of actual skin or the cat probably wouldn’t have taken it so well.

    Here is a picture of the victor!!
    http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f257/pandorasknife/100_0405.jpg

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  12. Ok, this is going to sound assinine, but I have two poodles. Little ones. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And because they're so small, they really can't destroy much and I really don't have any good puking stories (they're both very concientious).

    Ok, that aside, here's the story. Winston (the little dude poodle) and Fiona (the little lady poo-er) have very specific roles. Winston is the hyper nutsoid with an attitude I call 'stupid-happy'. Fiona is the eater. She's all about food and proud of it.
    But one day, my hubby/roomie (yeah, it's like that) came home to find the dog food cabinet lolling open. And immediately he calls me and we're hunting for the culprit.

    Keep in mind, there was about 8 months supply of food in the cabinet for them--I'd just gone shopping and they don't eat very much every day, so the food really lasts.

    But when Fiona greeted my hubby, she was all tail-wagging and happy-cakes. Not so Winston.

    He, clearly, had eaten more than just a small portion of the dog food in the cabinet. Based on his panting, small whimpers and a few groans, we kinda thought he might've eaten all of it.

    What to do!? We took him to the doggie hospital and they had to *clearing my throat* 'help him' get it out witha little enema action. Yeah. Not pleasant.

    Best part? He did it again about 2 weeks later.

    Like I said: Stupid Happy. That's my boy.

    I can't deal with putting pictures up, so if this disqualifies me from the contest, that's cool. I'd love the ARC, but I already know I'll be buying Deathday Letter on it's drop day anyway!

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  13. Okay so my story isn't as funny as the others, but I'm desperate to read Deathday Letter, so what the hey.

    Anyways, a few years back we went to Arizona and there I had got these 2 really cool handmade dolls that were absolutely gorgeous. (Keep in mind that this was actually 8 years ago, so I was 7) I was absolutely in love with them and took them everywhere.

    Soon after we got a puppy, Pal, who was a jack russell terrier and always acted though we gave him RedBull instead of water. (This is him; http://www.flickr.com/photos/danidlion/4533474008/)

    But anyway one day when I was at school Pal somehow got into my room, knocked down my bookshelf, peed on all my books and bit the heads straight off my dolls. (No the heads were torn off without me even having the pleasure of tearing them off and barbrcuing them, or whatever it is they do in movies)

    To do such a tragic and heartless thing I imagine Pal must have got bitten by a zombie and turned into something like this;
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/danidlion/4532832229/in/photostream/

    Uhm, if you haven't guessed it crushed my poor 7 year old heart.
    Pal became no pal of mine, and we ended up giving away to someone who could handle that zombifieddog.

    This was a fun to read about other people's pet mishaps, though I got to say a cam vomiting on an ARC is pretty incomparable:P

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  14. LOL excellent contest and I've had a lot of fun just reading the comments. My dog passed away in 2001 but man he was a sneaky so and so on occasion. I remember one time, my mum was cooking sunday dinner and had just carved the roast chicken. Whilst her back was turned, he jumped up and ATE all of the white breast meat. Of course, he left all the brown, not-so-nice meat. He was definitely in the dog house that day!!

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  15. Ok, I've got trouble times 2.
    Introduce Pooh & Larry here: http://tenaciousink.blogspot.com/2010/04/celebrity-peeps.html

    They're growing pups so their ultimate mission, that takes all their time, is a seek and destroy. This would be great if I didn't also own and operate a preschool where the dogs aid in wreaking havoc among the usual chaos.
    An exhaustive list of what they've ingested? Impossible. However, they always manage to leave clues.
    In fact, we found one just yesterday by a screeching two year old who retrieved a headless mommy doll from our train table. It's like a treasure hunt.
    Another clue was when one of my four year olds pointed out that his glob of playdoh was 'icky spitty' and later, yet another clue: blue glitter poop that made the kids gather, point and 'ahh' as if it was a swag bag at the Oscars.
    But, my favorite, to which I believe you can most relate, was when I was conducting an interview with a brand new client.
    Larry was sitting at my side, the picture of docile perfection and Pooh was lying behind him. The mom I was speaking to was concerned about having animals in the childcare and had just complimented their laid back appearances.
    "I guess they're pretty harmless and they seem clean enough..." She says.
    Right then, Larry snorted. His belly started doing the rubber raft thing, as if somebody was jumping in the center of it. He opened his mouth wide and gacked on my shoe.
    Needless to say, the would-have-been-client scooped up her toddler, with her hand over her mouth and choked out, "Okay, then. We'll give you a call."
    Sometimes it's not what goes in that is the problem but how it comes back to us that is most disturbing.

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  16. I hope this is not late.

    I'm studying in a university that demands blood and sweat from students. I was serious about that. I shared an apartment with my friend, AIra. We're both nocturnals. It's always hard for me to fall asleep.

    And as the days passed and the end of the semester crept closer and closer, I got less and less sleep. And Aira's pet dog - fluffy, didn't exactly help with all the yelping she was doing. I mean, sure, she was cute. But that's all there is to it. She wasn't helpful.

    It was just two days before the end of the semester. My plate was full. I had to edit a musical movie for my major, conduct research for a research paper, tally surveys, type up 10 pages about modern art, finish a documentary for comm arts, do my physics homework and of course review for 5 final exams that are bound to torture my brain with pages of information.

    I started at 5pm. I kept editing, typing, printing. Aira went to a different school. Her school work was way way easier than mine. She only had to review for exams. At around 2am, I was exhausted. I only had three more things to do: edit the movie, write 10 pages about modern art and go to school in 5 hours to pass the requirements.

    I didn't wake up on time. I was late for class. By then, Aira was gone. I started hurrying to the bathroom when I saw it: my research. Torn into pieces. And what was annoying was that the dog was sitting on it! I started screaming. Who wouldn't? It was deadline day and my research paper was ruined. The worse thing was I forgot to save it (because I was so sleepy the night before) and I just printed it.

    Aira thought it was just a draft. Because I had lots of papers on the desk, on the chair and on my bed.

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Keep it clean, keep it classy, and jokes are always appreciated.