Monday, September 12, 2011

Cat-Sitting The Meanest Cat In Creation






As you might have garnered
from my earlier blog
 about pigs and cats and fish,
 I never had the experience of
 growing up with a cat.
 
If I went to a friend’s house
 to play and they owned one,
I viewed it with a healthy balance
 of fear and ambivalence...
pretty much code for ignoring it
 It wasn’t part of my world and
the fact that they
took care of their business,
 in the same place that I took care of mine, frankly freaked me out.
Even though I never owned one,
 to this second,
I can clearly recall the smell of them.
 
 
 


I give you this
 bit of information,
 as a precursor to the
stupidity of a friend
 that decided I was the
best choice to nab,
 when she and her boyfriend
 went to Greece for three weeks,
 to visit his family.
 
She owned two cats:
 
 
 Elvis and Ebony.

Elvis was a mush-head.
You could pet him...
You could hug him...
You could dress him up
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
in stupid costumes,
 
 
if the urge so moved you.

He was the most mellow pussycat
I had ever laid eyes on.
Probably so mellowed out
 from the years of living
in a cloud of Marijuana smoke.

Has there ever been any research
 on the effects of
 second-hand pot smoke,
on the pets that live
 in that perpetual cloud? Hey….






Ebony.
 
What can I say about Ebony?
This is tough.

Ebony was the anti-Elvis.


He was also the anti-Christ.
 
 


If you entered the apartment
 and looked over at Ebony,
 you could pretty much
expect a cat splayed across your face,
 as he could go 0 to 60,
in three split seconds.
 He made this evil hissing sound,
on an almost constant basis.
He looked like the fattest
 freaking reptile,
except he climbed into a box
 in the bathroom to poop.
I grew up somewhat fearless.
 
I was a street kid.
 
I was a tomboy.
 
I do have a few deathly fears,
 which those close enough
to me are fully aware of, and,
 
prohibited 
 
from ever discussing in my presence.


If you break the rule and
 discuss them in my face,
 well then you get a
 call from me at 3:45a.m.,
 when I’m freaked out
that something is in my bed.
 
 
 
 

I don’t F-around with this….
It’s my hang-up and
 that’s how I deal.

So on my short-list of fears,
 Ebony...the evil, devil cat, 
 
made the grade.

My forehead was all wrinkled up,
 
 


as my friend was laying
out her vision of me
 visiting the boys every other day,
 for 21 days.  
I had a hard time imagining
how I was going to swing this.
Hell, I could take Elvis with me
 on the roller coaster at Great Adventure

 
and not have a problem with him.

But Ebony,
 
 was a horse of a different color.

To be precise, a jet black horse.
 
 
 
                         
I reviewed the list of items
 involved with cat care.
 As this was back in the ‘80’s,
 there was no modern-day
 fix to dealing with a kitty litter box.
They left it there,
 but it was up to me to remove it.
 Although I desperately
tried to dream up
some genius mechanical alternative
 to being this close to
 
 
 
someone else’s business,
I realized there was
 
 no way around it.

Why I agreed to this,
 I’ll never know.
Stupidity seemed to be
 
 my guiding force,
 
for many a year.
 
 
 

We next went into the kitchen,
 where she had basically built
 a pyramid out of cat food cans,
 forcing me to take from the top
 and work my way down.
 I guess she had laid out a
 balance of meat, fish and God-only-knows
 
 what the other food group was
 
 to make sure the boys
 
weren’t bored with their vittles,
 
while she was off
 
ruin-schlepping in Mykonos.


Lying on the table,
 
next to the Great Pyramid of Egypt
 
 
 

is a hand-held can opener.
 
 

 

Holy Shit!
 
NOW  I know
 
 how my carpal tunnel actually happened.


The worst part of this gig
 was actually not dealing 
with the poop –
 
 
it was the parking.
 
 
This was a street where
‘alternate side of the street parking’
 
 existed,
 
 

like living with a
 chronic infected tooth,
 in need of a good root canal,
 but being forced to see
 
 
 a different dentist,
depending on the day of the week.
They were forced to
live their lives around this
 archaic parking system,
 
 all in the name of
The New York City
 Department of Sanitation
coming through with the
 
street sweeping machines…
 
 
                         
It’s the Bronx, for Christ's sake..
 
 
it’s supposed to be dirty.

There were hundreds of
 examples of being
 in the middle of something,
when one of them
went screeching out of the apartment,
flying down the stairs
to get to the car in time, before the
NYC Parking Authority
 plastered the car with tickets.
 
I’ve also encountered
death rides from Manhattan,
 back to their apartment,
as the parking situation was,
 “you snooze, you lose.”
Her boyfriend, driving
90 mph
 
 
 up the
 
 
Major Deegan Highway
at 4:00am to secure a parking spot,
was not a good thing.

As I’m regretting
 the acceptance of this
 
favor for a friend,
 
I’m weighing my options of:


1. Driving around in circles, to park my car,
 to go and scoop cat poop...or,

2. Moving in for three weeks and
 
 risking being clawed to death
 
 in my sleep by a
 cat with anger management issues.


So, I sucked up my poor decision making, coupled with a raging inability to say NO!, and did my kitty duty.


I’d go into the apartment and
 try to be gentle, yet jovial,
 
 
like I was really happy to be there.
 
 

I’d pet Elvis &
 
mush his ears together like Yoda…

 
mostly because he let me.

And I’d make a
 sincere attempt to get
within hissing distance
 of the evil, devil cat.

As I’d  look in his direction and
hold up a crucifix, 
 
I felt cat saliva flying
 
through the air, across the room.
 
I’d try talking to him,
 
 from a safe distance:

“Hello, Ebony…
How are you, boy?
How are you doing?
  Did you like your meal yesterday?
 Have a nice poop?
 
 
The power of Christ compels you.”

I mean, what the hell else
 am I supposed to say?
 I’m making one-way,
stupid ass talk
with the meanest cat in creation.
 
From ten feet away,
he’s swinging his paws and
 
 claws at me..

Well, no more
sweet talk for you, Mister!
 I’m done.
I’ll feed your ass and
 clean up after you,
 but you can talk to yourself. 

Elvis is taking all of this in and
 like a bratty sibling,
climbs in my lap and
 nuzzles up against me.

I swear I saw him
 
 stick his tongue out at Ebony.
 
 


Now, don’t get me wrong.
 
I truly felt bad that
 
Angry-Cat had no physical affection or
 
real company for three weeks. 


 
I rigged cat toys,
to verrrrryyy long pieces of yarn,
 so I could participate in
Ebony’s playtime,
without risking
plastic surgery reconstruction to my face. 
 
 


I’d throw the toy,
over to where I could make him
 out on the other side of the room….
he’d look at it for awhile and
 then make a small move toward it.
 
 I’d tug on the yarn a bit,
just to engage him.
 
Well, after 30 seconds
 
 of playfulness,
 
he clawed the cloth ball to ribbons.
 
I dragged the
 
very dead toy
 
 by the attached yarn
 
back to me and
 
 
 
 examined it,
 
in shock & awe.
 

Yikes.
 
 
That could have been my face.
 
That’s enough frivolity
 
for one day, or better yet…
 
three weeks.

On day one,
 
I opened two cans of
 
some fishy kind of food
 and placed them on the floor.
 
Elvis comes barreling in and
 
devours his dinner,
 before I even rinsed off the can opener.
 
 He rubs up against my leg,
 just to let me know how
much he loves me, and then leaves.
 As I’m rinsing out the empty cans,
 
I suddenly feel as though
 
I’m no longer alone in the kitchen.


I swallowed hard and 
quickly assessed
 the teensy window
next to the stove and
sadly determined
 that I was just born too
big of a girl to fit through it,
 
 

to get to the fire escape,
 
 if need be.

I slowly turn toward the
 
 kitchen entrance and
 
there he is.
 
 

 
 
I felt like Wyatt Earp,
about to go head to head with Curly Bill.
My heart was pounding and
 I was certain that Ebony
could smell my fear.
His eyes looked a little more
 squinty than they usually were,
as he sized me up.
 
 I slid his food dish across
 the linoleum with my foot,
trying to put as much
safe distance between us
 as I could manage,
in a two-foot long Bronx kitchen.

Surprisingly,
 
he also gobbled down my offering.

He then looked up at me,
 as if he was suddenly willing
to tolerate my presence and
proceeded to
 
 
GAG.
 
 
Or choke.
 
My first thought was,
 
“Oh, No.
 
You puke, I puke.”

I didn’t know if this was one
 
 of those hair-ball thingy situations
 
that I had heard about,
but since he had just finished eating,
 
I thought perhaps a little fishbone
 
 
 had remained from the can.

I’m trying to
mentally conjure up
 an image of how to do a
Heimlich Maneuver on a
 
 pissy, pussycat,
 
without crushing his
skeletal system or,
more importantly,
me coming out of this looking
 like I’d met up with Freddy Krueger.
 
 



I’m trying to talk him through it.
“Ok, Ebony…Susi’s here…it’s ok,
 just be a good boy and
 
 yak it up.”
What else could I say?
I didn’t want to seem
 insensitive or worse,
uninterested.
 
I strongly disliked and
 
 feared him,
 but I wasn’t a monster and
 the prevailing thought was,
“Oh, crap…if he dies,
 
on DAY ONE,
 
 
they’re gonna pin it on me!”

I had all kinds of solutions, running through my head.

I’d simply buy a replacement cat!
 
I Sure couldn’t pick one any worse,
 
but for some God-forsaken reason,
 
they loved this little bastard
and would surely notice
 
 if he suddenly seemed
 
like he’d undergone
 
 intensive therapy while they were gone.
 
 
 


Or I could get him stuffed and
 
put him on a little dolly and
 
pull him around.

 
 
Nah…that’s stupid...
 

They had carpeting
 
 in the living room &
 
the wheels wouldn’t
 
 have moved very well....
 
 




The last option ...


was my last option.


I’d simply put the cat in the freezer

 



and meet them with a bottle of Stoli &
a sympathy bouquet at JFK.
 
 


I did the only logical thing
 
I could come up with.
 
I ran through the apartment,
 
their bedroom closet,
 
 whipping open every drawer,
 
looking for props.

 
I did the same thing
 
in the kitchen and
 
when I reappeared:


I had John’s catcher’s mask
 
 
on my face,

 
over a ski mask
 
 
you'd wear to rob a bank,
 
 

 
 
with a pair of
 
 giant sunglasses
 
 
on top of that.
 
 
 
 
 
Around my neck,
 I wrapped every scarf
I could find, until I looked like
 I had a goiter the size of China.
 
 
    

I put on her long winter Down coat,
 
 
 
but I worried if I got swung at,
 
that it would be a bitch to
 
 vacuum up all of those
 
 expensive feathers.

On my hands,
 
 I had her oven mitts,
 
 


with a long pair of
 
rubber-tipped tongs
 
 in each hand.
 
 
 I had no f’ing idea of what
 
 I was supposed to do
 
 with this protective get-up and weaponry,
 
but damn it,
 
I was prepared. 
 
 
 If I was forced by God
 
 to squeeze this stupid cat,
 
 to make him puke,
 
well I sure as hell
 
 wasn’t using my bare,
 
 
 exposed hands.
 
 
                          
I think I scared the shit
 
out of evil, devil cat,
 
 as his gagging problem
 
instantly stopped
 
at the sight of me and
 
 he ran under the bed and
 
remained there.

 
Every time I opened
 
 that front door and
 
gave my jolly greeting of the day,
 
I heard claws hitting
 
 
 the hardwood floor
 
 of their bedroom,
 
sliding into his new hiding spot.


 
Problem solved.


 
Oh, gosh…
 
 
 
I think I’m The Cat Whisperer.




~SusiTheJ~





2 comments:

  1. I never heard this one before it was hillarious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Anonymous!

    Thank God your cat Dutchess was a piece of cake to care for,compared to this little nightmare of mine!

    Susi

    ReplyDelete