Those were the words that came from my precious, beloved spouse’s mouth every time I brought up the subject of getting a cat (or two) for our home. From the day we bought our home, I had tentatively suggested a cat (or two) on more than one occasion. His response never varied. I, of course, paid no attention whatsoever to his protestations because I knew he didn’t really hate cats. First of all, he had never had a cat as a companion. Second, you have to be one cold, hard, sonuvabitch to reject a tiny helpless little ball of fur, and he is none of the above. (The fact that he actually is the son of one of the nastiest bitches I've ever had the bad luck to meet has no bearing on anything.)
We live in the country on one acre of land. It was a lot more country when we moved here in 1982 than it is now, but it is still pretty rural out here. We have a field on one side of our property. The farmer who owns and works the field usually plants either field corn or soybeans as a main crop and winter rye as a cover crop during the off-season. The other side of our property abuts a two acre pond. Originally it was a kinda swampy area and some fool tried to get it to perk so he could build a house on it. Well, you can see how that turned out, because now it's a pond. The soil out here is mostly clay and we required more than a thousand feet of drainage tile in order to meet specs for our septic system. Our house is atop the highest elevation in the area, so we don't have to deal with swampy land or flooding. If we flood at our house, you better have already said your goodbyes to anyone living in any of the cities around us because they will all be underwater. Behind our house is still wooded. We actually have kept some wooded areas on our property as a barrier between us and the rest of the world. We do have neighbors to the front where the street is, but our house sits about 60' off the road and we have a natural area with huge white pines as a break between us and the road. The people across the road are also set back from the road, so it's not as if we can see each other unless we put forth some amount of effort.
So, here we were relaxing in bed on an autumn Sunday morning, reading the paper, drinking coffee, and catching the Sunday morning news shows on TV. (Yes, I know we should have been getting ready to go to church. We are both Christians and firmly believe in God, but we aren't church goers.) The next thing I know, a herd of mice go running through the attic directly overhead. No, not just a mouse or two, not even just a family of mice, it was an entire herd. It was getting cooler out, and the mouse population apparently was seeking warmer quarters for the winter. Our attic seemed like a good place for them to homestead, so they thought. I knew if we had mice in our attic, we would also have mice in our pantry and our kitchen and our basement and every other room in our home. I have nothing against mice personally. They, too, are tiny little balls of fur, though not in the least bit helpless. I do not, however, care to share my living quarters or my food with mice, rats, roaches, snakes or various other creatures I lump into one big category I call vermin.
This time when I brought up the subject of a cat (or two), my beloved was not nearly as opposed to the idea. Apparently, he's not any more fond of varmints than I am. The following weekend found us at the local animal shelter picking out a kitten to bring home. We opted for a kitten because we already had dogs and we thought they would be less likely to harm a kitten. We chose a four week old, medium haired yellow kitten who was so small he fit entirely in the palm of my hand with room left over. He and his siblings had been found in the woods after the mother cat had been hit and killed by a car. We named him Alexander the Great, in the hope that he would grow big and strong and be able to take care of himself around the dogs. We brought Alex home and began the gradual process of introducing him to the dogs. All went well until we got to T.C. She walked up to Alex, sniffed and then opened her mouth and put the entire kitten inside her mouth. I screamed, Bud yelled at T.C. and she spit the kitten out. Alex was mostly unhurt. There was no broken skin or bones, but he did walk with a little limp for the next day or two. His reaction upon being released from the jaws of death, was to run and hide under our grandfather clock. To this day I don't know how he fit under that clock; the clearance from the floor is barely an inch, but he got completely under there and had no intention of coming out as long as the dog was anywhere near. Later in the day, I found my "I hate cats" husband and our new ball of fur curled up together on the loveseat napping.
Since Alex was so young, we started out feeding him baby cereal several times a day. We realized he was able to eat regular food one day about three weeks later. I was holding him in my lap while munching on some left over roast beef. I picked up a piece of roast beef with my fingers and was about to drop it into my mouth when Alex jumped up, grabbed it and gobbled it down. So I held out a few more pieces, which instantly disappeared down his gullet. From that point on, Alex got regular kitten food. We had asked Alex to grow big and strong and healthy because of the dogs (especially after that first meeting with T.C.), but Alex took us at our word and then some. He finally quit growing at around 30 pounds. That's when we started calling him Fat Al. He was huge, and not just fat. He had a large structure as well, and his hair was medium to long making him appear to be even bigger. We once had a friend over doing some electrical wiring for us. He was in the basement working away when Alex decided to go downstairs and see what was up. Al was so big you could hear him clomp down the stairs. Our friend, hearing someone on the steps, turned to see who was coming. He started laughing and yelled up to us to come get the "lion" away from him. He had never seen a house cat quite that large.
Alex broke the ice so to speak. He was our first cat, but we eventually ended up with Pywackette and Smoke (for a very short time) and Jason and Samantha. All four cats and all four dogs managed to get along for many years (with only one other mishap). We put Fat Al on a diet as he aged, and he managed to stay with us until he was 21 years old. I still smile whenever I think of him. We don't have any cats now; someday we will again, but there will never be another Alexander the Great.
No comments:
Post a Comment