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tim!: #3
2001
I live with four women and four cats. Two of the cats are male and two are female. I can tell you their names because they have less to lose, and won't get as mad as the women might. The current list of cats is as follows: Jewel (female), Robinson (female), Joe (male), and Taxi (male). It used to be four cats with Hunter (female) preceding Taxi (male). To the best of my knowledge, there were never more than four cats in the house at any one time. The day that Taxi arrived, Hunter mysteriously left. Like only a few hours passed between arrival and departure. I will abbreviate the women's names as follows: C, K, L, B. There is also another K whom I may reference, so to avoid confusion, this K will be denoted as a little K, or k. k, no offense to you, but I thought I'd give K the big K since she is an inhabitant.
C, K, L, and k have most likely heard this before. I don't think B has. I just have to get this down to find out if anyone else has had a similar experience with animals. Dog people I don't think have to worry too much with respect to this happening to them. This is based solely on the dogs I've met thus far not being too bright. The first image that pops into my head is our family dog, we'll call her Biscuits, who in 1987 allowed the new kitten we had just gotten to ride her around the living room. The kitten was both on the dog's back and hanging from her neck during the course of the evening. I don't think Biscuits cared much, but also didn't know really what to do in this irrational situation.
My point is I'd rather reincarnate into a cat before I did so as a dog. There is a reason why the evil James Bond nemesis with the funky eye and no hair had a cat and not a dog. Cats are evil and smart, and dogs are happy and dumb.
Recently I came home and started to walk upstairs. No one else is in the house. At the top of the stairs is a landing sort of deal with a bathroom ahead and rooms on the left and right. My room is left and L's room is on the right. Just as I get to the top of the stairs I see three of the cats filing out of her room, one after the other. First there is Jewel, followed by I believe Robinson and then Taxi. L's room has become a haven for the cats lately. There is a slight chance that this can be explained simply because L keeps her room temperature elevated with a plug-in style oil furnace. And cats like that steamy sauna-like feel of her room. But this falls short of explaining the single file method in which these cats exited the room. And the last piece of evidence, and really the case closer is the following.
By now I'm standing on the landing watching the last of the three cats exit L's room. And I'm already thinking what in the hell..., when I look into L's room as the door is open and see on the bed is sitting there Joe. Just sitting there. My first thought, the correct answer, is that the cats were just having a meeting and Joe is the leader of the group. And if you knew Joe, you'd see what I mean. He's all black cat with those yellow eyes. Very quiet and judgmental. Very charismatic. Slender. Like if Joe were a human male, I'd want to be around him. Hell, I still want to be around him as a cat. A man's man and a ladies man at the same time. At least in the cat world. So back up and imagine 5 minutes before I walk into the house and break this meeting of the cats apart. It doesn't take much to imagine Joe on the bed addressing the three other cats who are sitting on the floor in classic meeting style. I just got an image of an Ann Geddes card at the local bookstore. Throw in some babies with cabbage on their head next to Joe and you've got a card for Mother's Day.
And then they hear a car. They hear footsteps. They need to finish up the last bit of business before they split. Only they weren't counting on me coming upstairs so quickly.
Trying to act all cool walking out of L's room like it was nothing.
I have often held that cats are the highest form of reincarnation, if there is such a thing. What do they do? They eat, sleep and play. That's it. And apparently now have meetings when we're away to discuss plans of some sort. It's probably stuff like who got a roach this week, or ironing out differences over quality of cat food supplied by the various humans.
My long standing search has been for the most ridiculous profession which offers the most amount of money for the least amount of work. I think having a cat that is famous would satisfy all three. Morris the Cat. The 9-lives cat. Orange tabby style. Nothing spectacular. I'll bet the key is the attitude, and how well the cat responds to direction. Now this could be very important. Joe is so much better looking than Morris the Cat was. He stretches to like two feet when he stretches. And he's black and sleek and really quite a fine specimen of cat. Joe's problem is his attitude. He would have a Harley and ride around the country alone breaking hearts at every stop if he were a human. He would get into bar fights and allow himself to get hit, just to get more riled up. A loner. K, L, k, and C can back me up on this. Anyone who has had Joe on them for more than 3 minutes in the past year or two can show you the scars of Joe's love.
Whoever owned Morris the cat I'm sure made a few dollars on that deal. He was the lead role for years. You get free 9-lives on top of the mullah, certainly. And what does Morris get? $0. He gets to be semi-starved so that when the cameras roll, and they open that door, Morris rushes to the bowl of mushy, fishy smelling paste on the floor and inhales it all. "9-lives is so good your cat will break down doors to get to it." When really, "This cat hasn't eaten in 2 days, so any slop we put in his face will be gone in less than 30 seconds, key for commercial TV."
If you can get over that little starvation hurdle, you're set. That and the bad cat teeth that will surely follow from a career of eating only soft food. Bowel trouble from eating too quickly. I'll bet a bowel job on a cat is costly too. Fortunately for Joe, he would either fail to show up on the set or show up late having already eaten some other brand of dry food and just poke at his meal, leaving the set early over creative differences.
Taxi is the new kid in school. His charm is that he has no idea. He's very loving and willing to let himself be put into compromising positions for our entertainment. Within the span of a week, he was rescued from three places, which escalated in severity all by themselves. The first was he climbed into another person's car. Two women were talking on the street with their doors open, after the Wednesday evening church meeting at the church next door they have every Wednesday evening for one reason or another. He jumped into her car like he was going somewhere. Fortunately we saw this going down just as we were about to pull away. Taxi is not as good looking, empirically speaking, as Joe, but he's a charming MOFO. Maybe charming is the wrong word. I don't know the right word for it. What I'm trying to say is that when people see him, they want him. Like they want to take him. And he won't scratch or bite to make you want to toss him across the room.
The second thing he did was to climb into a loaded dryer moments before it was to be engaged. Luckily he was discovered just in time. More lucky for the person loading the dryer than for the cat. Psychically speaking.
To be fair, number three here was not so much his fault as this could easily be construed a kidnapping. I'm not sure if an eight year old girl, love struck and feeling like she won the lottery by finding this adorable kitten just over there, or maybe even in her yard, could be charged with kidnapping, but its close. I think this was #3, C and/or K can verify this. Of course this was on my watch. After late on the 2nd day of not seeing him around, I got slightly concerned. 50% for me and 50% for the cat.
I put up signs with big letters and big numbers, describing him to his captors, and letting them know that this darling five month old maniac was no stray, and that his talents were needed elsewhere. The guilty did call the next day from just across the block to return him. Having the acumen and the balls to eat anything at any time, he apparently went after the eight year old's PB&J as if he were the aforementioned Orange Tabby on the 9-lives set. Their collective hearts broke at this I'm sure, this poor waif. This poor orphan of the streets. Suckers. We can only guess what happened after hours in the 8YO's bedroom. I shudder to think. Purring, nuzzling. Pulled out all the stops I'm sure. I think I heard that the 8YO had tears in her 8YO eyes upon learning the Truth. Tears from the realization that she had been used for her soft tender hands and likely unlimited access to PB and J. I'm sorry she feels bad, but most of me was happy to know my 30YO ass was now off the line and the con man was back under wraps. I take it back that Taxi has no idea. I think that's just his angle. You can't blame the guy. He can't be the aloof stud, so he has to be the innocent one. He's Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects.
The other two cats just ran out of space. Jewel is the twin of Hunter, the one that left. Or at least they were sisters. After that, she was never really the same. And Robinson is my cat, the matriarch to use k's word. And I'm certainly not going to make fun of my own cat. It just wouldn't be right.
