This piece is just a silly little idea that's been sitting on my to-do pile and gathering dust since August of 2019.

What spawned it was walking down one of the main streets in the north end of the city, where I lived at the time (and which I have recently moved away from), and I saw something that made me stop and do a multiple-take, as it was an odd combination of bizarre, eerie, and in a way, rather darkly comical all at once.

Long story short, I was perhaps two blocks north of what was (and still is), the largest seniors' housing complex in the city—large enough that it takes up most of an entire block, with low-rise townhouses arranged around the perimeter of said city block, and then in the very centre, there is a fourteen-storey condo and apartment tower, itself surrounded by parking lots, and green-space, serving to separate the outer low-rise buildings from the tower at the centre. In some ways, the layout could sort of remind me of Saruman's Tower at Isengard in Lord of The Rings

What added to the overall effect that day was the fact that there was a flock of perhaps thirty turkey vultures, which were circling around and above that central tower, as I walked down the block towards it. I imagine the vultures were likely gliding on the updrafts from the asphalt sea of the parking lots below, but I still couldn't help but thinking of the really ghoulish symbolism that occurred to me at the very idea of vultures circling above an old age home. As if they knew that, sooner or later, there was always going to be a new corpse for them to feed upon...

It was also in the midst of seeing this, and the odd, gallows-humour ideas that were already turning around in my head, that I suddenly heard the voice of the late Estelle Getty in her Golden Girls role of Sophia Petrillo, where she was cracking off yet another of the acid-tongued insults that were her trademark.

So, yes, this wound up being more than a little silly, but I'm sure that anyone, who has ever seen more than one episode of The Golden Girls, could likewise hear this in Sophia's voice. :P

Also, the reference to: "Battlecat" comes from an old (and now rather politically-incorrect) online meme of a few years back, where several well-known female celebrities were used to illustrate the concept of a 'cougar'. A twentysomething (at the time) actress (I can't remember who it was) was shown on the left, with the caption of "Puma" underneath, whilst in the centre was a picture of Demi Moore with the caption of "Cougar". At the far right, was Beatrice Arthur, with the caption of "Battlecat".