CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: SETTING UP SOUND EQUIPMENT IS THE CAT'S MEOW

The old speakers for my stereo finally bit the dust the other day, and since a stereo with no speakers is essentially worthless, I had to buy new ones.

This was not traumatic. I found a nice pair for a really good price, wrestled the box up the stairs to my humble abode and made the first of a series of startling discoveries.

When you only buy the speakers -- as opposed to the entire, prepackaged stereo system with the tuner and cassette and CD player -- they don't give you the speaker wire.

Off I went to a large discount department store to buy speaker wire, and of course, wire strippers.

I got all the stuff unpacked and ready to go, full of pride at my apparent competency.

I am a '90s kind of woman. I have urban survival skills. I can program a VCR. I can use a computer, even if I do forget the name of the program I use everyday at work. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan (actually, I microwave it), and ask the cable guy to hook my TV and VCR up and preprogram both with all the cable channels.

I am woman, hear me roar.

While I was actually hooking up the speakers -- or trying to -- I made several more startling discoveries.

1.) Cutting wire is easy. Stripping wire is not for the faint of heart nor fumbled of fingers.

2.) Not only does stripping the insulation off wire require surgical precision, but once the insulation's off, the wire breaks really easily.

3.) They sell speaker wire in gazillion-foot lengths for a good reason. (See above.)

4.) Domestic felines should be locked in the bathroom while their owners are messing about with sensitive electronic equipment and the wires connecting the aforementioned sensitive electronic equipment.

I learned a long time ago not to ask a man's advice on buying sound equipment; I don't need speakers that are taller than I am to enjoy my Ella Fitzgerald albums.

Try explaining that to the sales clerk.

My cat, Melissa, isn't what you'd call a music lover, but she loves sleeping on top of the CD player. It's warm and she can clog it with cat hair and make the CDs skip when she jumps off and on.

She can also make me scream when she jumps off and on and makes the CDs skip, so she scores bonus points on the "irritating your human" cat scorecard.

Melissa particularly enjoyed the hooking-up-the-speakers fiesta the other night because not only did she get to pounce on 10-foot lengths of untrimmed speaker wire, she also got to go chasing after the bits of wire that went flying while I was trying to strip the insulation off.

SPROING!!! went the wire bits, and SPROING!!! went the cat after them.

The last time she had this much fun was when we were invaded by crickets at our old apartment.

While Melissa was chasing the wire bits, she also managed to knock the shelf holding the CDs and videotapes over onto the adjoining stereo, which in turn fell out of its cabinet and onto the wannabe-sound technician (that's me) trying unsuccessfully to thread the speaker wire into the little connectors on the back of the speakers.

Just another exciting night at the O'Farrell household.

The bruises are almost healed, the CDs and videos are back on the shelf and the stereo still works.

And the cat's learned a new way to irritate the human.

Don't you love a win-win situation?

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.