RUSH: Punkin update: Punkin is fine. She’s got medicine. It was a bladder inflammation. She ate some flowers in the house, specifically some lilies. This caused a little inflammation. She got some antibiotics; she’s fine now. More feisty. She actually rolled my cigar off the desk last night, I guess sending me a message. She never comes up on the desk and interferes with what I’m doing. She usually runs around my feet and my legs to get my attention. She actually jumped up on the desk, meowing a lot. She doesn’t say much, which is a blessing. She was meowing like crazy last night. This cat, as I’ve told you — this gets me in trouble when I say this — but this little cat has taught me more about women than practically anything else in my life. (Laughing) Here, I’ve just built up some goodwill with a touching, compassionate story about my cat then I blow it with that joke that people will not understand.
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RUSH: I just got a fascinating e-mail. ‘Rush, I heard you in the last hour say that your vet thinks that your cat Punkin may have gotten sick because she ate some flowers. Now, look, Rush, you’re a single guy, you live alone in your testosterone compound,’ it says here. ‘What are you doing with flowers in your house?’ Where is it written that I, as a man living alone, cannot have flowers in my house? I have orchids in the house all the time. I have scented candles all over the place. I love those things. I got a Jo Malone candle, grapefruit and orange blossom. They’re all over the place. I love the scents. S-c-e-n-t-s, for those of you in Rio Linda, the smells emanating from these things. I like their colors. Sometimes I put roses in there. The orchids are there even when I’m not there. I don’t have this done every day when I’m not there. If Punkin got anything it was the lilies because when I got in from California, a couple of lilies, I have a little niche off the front door, and a couple of the lily petals I guess had fallen on the floor and if she had gone and sniffed around those things and chewed on one, that can be the source of the bladder inflammation. So I took the lilies out of there, but they’re there all the time. The idea that I would not have flowers in the house and only do it on special occasions. I like ’em. What the hell. What can I tell you people? I’m just a sensitive guy. Get used to it. ‘You don’t sound humble enough, Rush, to be a man of flowers and scents.’ Oh, you people have no clue. But you do now because I have told you.