Created •
a new cat in town
(a work in progress)
I have a confession to make. I guess that's two posts in a row, so I must be really guilty lately. I've been holding out on you. I just felt like it was time to come clean. I am a two cat man. There, I said it. It's out there forever. So be it. It didn't start out that way, I mean lately, anyway. I mean, we had cats when I was a kid, sure. My dad was a "Cats inside, dogs outside!" kinda guy. I knew that some people had dogs in the house, but nobody we knew did. We were cat people. Some times there were a LOT of cats in my house when I was a kid. I recall a brief period when there were twenty-three cats in our house. Some of them were very small cats. Actually there were three sets of very small cats, and all were honestly given away to what we believed would be good homes. (I was maybe ten years old, give me a break!) Some of our cats were of a higher social stratum than we were. There was Samantha, who could simply not bring herself to perform certain bodily functions in public. She would hang from the back door window frame until someone let her in, and then scream through the house, power-sliding the corners and banking off of walls to get to the sacred box. Then there was Meanness, whose name really does say it all. Named as a kitten who would attack your hand as if it were a life or death struggle in the African wilds, she had such a maternal drive that she once brought home a chicken to feed her cubs. A whole fryer in the plastic bag. We don't have a clue where it came from, but it had to have crossed at least two fences to arrive in our back yard-and it was still cool. Mom, having a strong sense of social justice, cooked it and fed it to the cats. (The fact that she wouldn't have touched a chicken that had been brought home by a cat might have helped.)
So I do have a cat person background, but I had been cat-free for a number of years. The story of my first cat in this married life is recorded here. So I will get on with how I managed to acquire yet a second feline female, also completely against my will:
It was warm in the city. I was tired after a long night working at the terrible place, followed by an even longer drive across...well, the CITY! I had decided to fill up at the Shell on the corner by the exit ramp because they had free air and the left rear was a bit soft. I pulled in and got out before I looked over and saw the new air machine. They say that it isn't so much the situations that get to people, it's how much different they are than what was expected. What was expected was free air, what was there was a new machine to replace the old one that kept getting it's hoses cut off-a new machine that charged 75 cents. I really don't blame them for being tired of replacing hose ends, I mean what is it with people that they would cut off the hose end at a station that gives FREE air for cryin out loud? (Really, what kind of a bozo cuts off air hose ends in the first place? I mean, you have to have a compressor and hose to even have a need for such a thing. If you do, you already have the doo-hicky at the end of the hose!)
I digress. I got back in the car resolved to buy my gas at Minyard's where air costs 25 cents less. I arrived at home with neither air nor gas. I drove up to the last pump on the right (my usual pump) and got out of the car. While I was getting my card out I noticed a very loud meowing coming from somewhere close by. My initial though was that some crazy cat person had brought their cat with them in the car. (continued...)
(a work in progress)
I have a confession to make. I guess that's two posts in a row, so I must be really guilty lately. I've been holding out on you. I just felt like it was time to come clean. I am a two cat man. There, I said it. It's out there forever. So be it. It didn't start out that way, I mean lately, anyway. I mean, we had cats when I was a kid, sure. My dad was a "Cats inside, dogs outside!" kinda guy. I knew that some people had dogs in the house, but nobody we knew did. We were cat people. Some times there were a LOT of cats in my house when I was a kid. I recall a brief period when there were twenty-three cats in our house. Some of them were very small cats. Actually there were three sets of very small cats, and all were honestly given away to what we believed would be good homes. (I was maybe ten years old, give me a break!) Some of our cats were of a higher social stratum than we were. There was Samantha, who could simply not bring herself to perform certain bodily functions in public. She would hang from the back door window frame until someone let her in, and then scream through the house, power-sliding the corners and banking off of walls to get to the sacred box. Then there was Meanness, whose name really does say it all. Named as a kitten who would attack your hand as if it were a life or death struggle in the African wilds, she had such a maternal drive that she once brought home a chicken to feed her cubs. A whole fryer in the plastic bag. We don't have a clue where it came from, but it had to have crossed at least two fences to arrive in our back yard-and it was still cool. Mom, having a strong sense of social justice, cooked it and fed it to the cats. (The fact that she wouldn't have touched a chicken that had been brought home by a cat might have helped.)
So I do have a cat person background, but I had been cat-free for a number of years. The story of my first cat in this married life is recorded here. So I will get on with how I managed to acquire yet a second feline female, also completely against my will:
It was warm in the city. I was tired after a long night working at the terrible place, followed by an even longer drive across...well, the CITY! I had decided to fill up at the Shell on the corner by the exit ramp because they had free air and the left rear was a bit soft. I pulled in and got out before I looked over and saw the new air machine. They say that it isn't so much the situations that get to people, it's how much different they are than what was expected. What was expected was free air, what was there was a new machine to replace the old one that kept getting it's hoses cut off-a new machine that charged 75 cents. I really don't blame them for being tired of replacing hose ends, I mean what is it with people that they would cut off the hose end at a station that gives FREE air for cryin out loud? (Really, what kind of a bozo cuts off air hose ends in the first place? I mean, you have to have a compressor and hose to even have a need for such a thing. If you do, you already have the doo-hicky at the end of the hose!)
I digress. I got back in the car resolved to buy my gas at Minyard's where air costs 25 cents less. I arrived at home with neither air nor gas. I drove up to the last pump on the right (my usual pump) and got out of the car. While I was getting my card out I noticed a very loud meowing coming from somewhere close by. My initial though was that some crazy cat person had brought their cat with them in the car. (continued...)
