Cat Tales

She’s looking at me. I know she is, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That cat with her slits for eyes, she knows I’m not going to feed her right now because she spit up the food I gave her an hour ago. But she’s a cat, and she believes she knows what’s best, with her haughty nature and shrill “meow!” that wakes me up sometimes in the middle of the night. Or maybe it’s the other cat, the boy, who used to be so hefty he could have won some kind of award for fat cat of the year. These are my two cats, who totally rule, but who can also be completely annoying when they a) want food (even if they have it), b) want water (because it’s never perfect enough for them), or c) want their litter box cleaned (it’s only smelly because they refuse to cover up after they’re done). If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a cat person, and always have been. Some people are straight dog people, some are “whatever pet shows up” people, and some are straight cat people. I’m one of the latter, and darn proud of it.

It all started back in elementary school when we got Shadow and Frisky. Well, Frisky was a dog, but he was really my sister’s anyway (I locked him out of my room at night), but Shadow, she was my favorite. A tabby cat with some real spunk, the cat would try to open locked doors, and I swore one of those times she was going to get it. Sad end to that story though, because Frisky ran away from home, and Shadow was so heartbroken that she followed him after a while, and I never saw her again. Luckily we were getting the major setup for another cat, the illustrious Marmalade, a straight-up street cat, definitely calico, who we allowed to remain a street cat, even though we fed her, gave her water, and gave her a place to stay whenever she decided to come in. Affectionately called “Muu Muu,” she would drop off the occasional squirrel or rat head on our porch (I would leave the house via the back porch on those lovely mornings) as compensation. And there was the one day that she came into the house and disappeared for a week. No one knew where she was until I heard little cries from deep in the recesses of my messy closet. Suffice it to say, she had gone in the messiest place she could find and created a nest. Those kittens stayed in that closet for the first two weeks of their lives. What a sweet story. I eventually cleaned out my closet.

Shades was next, a really sad story. My sister and I found her on the sidewalk way down our block and brought her home. She had crusted over eyes that we weren’t able to do anything about, but she was the sweetest cat. We did everything we could for her, gave her food, water, and a lovely pillow to sleep on, but she refused to drink anything. Eventually she passed of dehydration, and it was devastating to me. I swore I was never going to have another cat, but that didn’t last. A neighbor of ours’ cat had a litter of kittens and we got sucked in again.

This time it was part-Siamese kittens, and mine was Spunky, while my sister named hers Silver, although both cats loved me better. And no matter how much heartache was involved when they would all inevitably part from us, it never deterred me from getting more. While other animals come and go, I will always be partial to cats, and I like to think they’ll always be partial to me. But I know better. Those fiercely independent animals do what they want, when they want, and that’s probably why I respect them so much. Maybe I could be like them someday.

Sam