Pretty much every animal we ever owned, with the exception of my dad’s hunting dogs, were rescues. Whenever a cat followed one of us home from school, we kept it. One such cat was Mac, a pretty white shorthair with one blue eye and one green eye. Corinne brought him home one day and he became the newest member of the family. He must have been normal at first, since we decided to keep him, but then he started going weird (scratching, eating the Christmas tree, etc). Certain members of my family blame ME for it…that I somehow brain damaged him or something. Sure, blame the 3 year old. Either way, whether or not I contributed, this cat turned into a total psychopath. It got so bad that it was unsafe for Mac and little children to be sharing the same home, so my mom made an executive decision, packed the cat, Annie, and me in the truck, and off we went to “put Mac to sleep," which sounded like a nice thing to do.
My mom parked the truck in front of the vet’s office and left us with the crazy cat. I wonder if she was scared for our lives? Anyway, it was only a few minutes, she had to go in to fill out some papers before bringing in the patient. But when she came back out to the truck, the dumb cat was nowhere to be found. After searching the cab for several minutes, she must have just given up and decided that despite her best efforts, she had raised a couple of lying brats (“We PROMISE we didn’t let him out!”).
Okay, now I was about four at the time, so I don’t know the best way to describe what happened next, but halfway down the road, Mac appeared. He crawled out of the engine. There was a small hole near our feet, under the dash, and first his head popped out, then he twisted his body and his shoulders popped out, then he squeezed the rest of his hind-end through and plopped down on the floor of the truck, mewing. I’d like to say that that little stunt saved him – that my mom had a change of heart and decided he was meant to be with us forever - but it didn’t. She turned that truck right back around, this time instructing Annie to hold on to him tight, just to make sure.
By that point, Annie knew more about animal death than I did. Previously, before I could even walk, my family owned a little kitty named Kizzie. Well, Kizzie died one day, I don’t really know how, but anyway, she was dead. Okay, I just emailed Corinne for the whole story, and this was her reply.
“She had kidney stones. If mom had taken her to the vet that morning, she would have been ok. But she didn’t, so she died.” (I laughed for about five minutes at work over this. Seriously. I looked stupid.)
Okay. So my mom had hidden her body in the basement in a box so that my dad could bury her. She pulled him aside when he got home from work to let him know that Kizzie was dead, and that he needed to sneak her out of the basement, but be very careful because little impressionable 3-year-old Annie was watching TV in the next room, and mom didn’t want her to be upset if she saw. So my dad kind of wanders downstairs and is sneaking nonchalantly behind Annie as quietly as he can, when she turns and exclaims, “Hey, dad! Guess what!! Kizzie died!” According to him, she then proceeds to grab his hand, beside herself with excitement, and drags him into the next room, where she apparently had made the deliciously grisly discovery hours earlier. Granted, this story came from The General, who is notorious for exaggerating things, but he has been known to quote little Annie as saying, “Look! Look at that cat, she’s flat as a pancake!” whilst poking the corpse exuberantly. True or not, it’s worth asking my dad to repeat just for pure comic value.
Okay, why so many cat stories? I’ve got at least one more. This one takes place in Nevada. Picture a rainy, windy day in Gardnerville. Just the three Sweet girls sitting at home watching TV. Out of the blue, Annie says, “..what the heck?!” and slips out the front door. Corinne and I mostly tuned her out until a few minutes later, she announces that she has just rescued a little cat that was thrown out of a car window. She had been looking out the sliding glass door when a car drove past, slowed down slightly, and threw something dark and furry out of the window into the sagebrush. We teased her later, saying that they probably saw a skinny little 14 year old girl in their rear-view, scooping up the frightened kitten before they even turned the corner.
That cat was so great, though. We named her Boo because she was black with orange eyes. She was so sweet and only wanted to sit on your lap and drool all day long. Until she got spayed. When we went to pick her up, the vet tech handed her to me, wrapped up tight in a towel. I could hear muffled yowling coming from within, and I was told that “Boo woke up a little angry from surgery….”. And she stayed that way. The anesthesia made her permanently mad. What is up with us and mentally handicapped cats?!? Anyway, she was a real psycho after that, until she met her demise. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because it was gross…
…but let’s just say it involved a garage door motion sensor malfunction. And a cat that truly did become “flat as a pancake.”
My mom parked the truck in front of the vet’s office and left us with the crazy cat. I wonder if she was scared for our lives? Anyway, it was only a few minutes, she had to go in to fill out some papers before bringing in the patient. But when she came back out to the truck, the dumb cat was nowhere to be found. After searching the cab for several minutes, she must have just given up and decided that despite her best efforts, she had raised a couple of lying brats (“We PROMISE we didn’t let him out!”).
Okay, now I was about four at the time, so I don’t know the best way to describe what happened next, but halfway down the road, Mac appeared. He crawled out of the engine. There was a small hole near our feet, under the dash, and first his head popped out, then he twisted his body and his shoulders popped out, then he squeezed the rest of his hind-end through and plopped down on the floor of the truck, mewing. I’d like to say that that little stunt saved him – that my mom had a change of heart and decided he was meant to be with us forever - but it didn’t. She turned that truck right back around, this time instructing Annie to hold on to him tight, just to make sure.
By that point, Annie knew more about animal death than I did. Previously, before I could even walk, my family owned a little kitty named Kizzie. Well, Kizzie died one day, I don’t really know how, but anyway, she was dead. Okay, I just emailed Corinne for the whole story, and this was her reply.
“She had kidney stones. If mom had taken her to the vet that morning, she would have been ok. But she didn’t, so she died.” (I laughed for about five minutes at work over this. Seriously. I looked stupid.)
Okay. So my mom had hidden her body in the basement in a box so that my dad could bury her. She pulled him aside when he got home from work to let him know that Kizzie was dead, and that he needed to sneak her out of the basement, but be very careful because little impressionable 3-year-old Annie was watching TV in the next room, and mom didn’t want her to be upset if she saw. So my dad kind of wanders downstairs and is sneaking nonchalantly behind Annie as quietly as he can, when she turns and exclaims, “Hey, dad! Guess what!! Kizzie died!” According to him, she then proceeds to grab his hand, beside herself with excitement, and drags him into the next room, where she apparently had made the deliciously grisly discovery hours earlier. Granted, this story came from The General, who is notorious for exaggerating things, but he has been known to quote little Annie as saying, “Look! Look at that cat, she’s flat as a pancake!” whilst poking the corpse exuberantly. True or not, it’s worth asking my dad to repeat just for pure comic value.
Okay, why so many cat stories? I’ve got at least one more. This one takes place in Nevada. Picture a rainy, windy day in Gardnerville. Just the three Sweet girls sitting at home watching TV. Out of the blue, Annie says, “..what the heck?!” and slips out the front door. Corinne and I mostly tuned her out until a few minutes later, she announces that she has just rescued a little cat that was thrown out of a car window. She had been looking out the sliding glass door when a car drove past, slowed down slightly, and threw something dark and furry out of the window into the sagebrush. We teased her later, saying that they probably saw a skinny little 14 year old girl in their rear-view, scooping up the frightened kitten before they even turned the corner.
That cat was so great, though. We named her Boo because she was black with orange eyes. She was so sweet and only wanted to sit on your lap and drool all day long. Until she got spayed. When we went to pick her up, the vet tech handed her to me, wrapped up tight in a towel. I could hear muffled yowling coming from within, and I was told that “Boo woke up a little angry from surgery….”. And she stayed that way. The anesthesia made her permanently mad. What is up with us and mentally handicapped cats?!? Anyway, she was a real psycho after that, until she met her demise. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because it was gross…
…but let’s just say it involved a garage door motion sensor malfunction. And a cat that truly did become “flat as a pancake.”
You should have mentioned when I threw the conversation heart right at Boo's head (right between the eyes) and she didn't even blink.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and I also should have mentioned when she went to jump on Annie, claws out, and I caught her in mid-spring. Hindsight's 20/20 I guess.
ReplyDelete