Speaking of cat food, do banks approve loans for kibble?
08.02.2003
Cats are contagious.
Not only are cats contagious, they are cumulatively so. Cats are infectious agents squared. If you have the great misfortune of contracting a cat, you're bound to cough up another one in time. Once there are two attached to your leg like carpeted tumours, the next wave of infection invariably involves a four-pack.
What's more, contrary to popular belief, there is no choice involved in having a houseful of felines. Those cat ladies who die and leave behind 487 gleaming-eyed and hulking kitties in their kitchen -- you think age killed the old biddies? No, no; it was a lack of available energy in the known universe, the quantum impossibility of stuffing the next exponential cat expansion into the living room that killed them. A rip in the fabric of space-time split their skulls and made their heads explode, leaving their 487 cats to feast on ladybones and look for a new host in the bodies of unsuspecting animal control workers. Death by cat.
I'm a carrier. The seed of catdeath germinates within me, like a furball in my gut, growing slimier, smellier, and more heavily thatched until finally it is horked up from within me onto the persian rug. Oh god -- another cat.
It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my choice. How could I avoid contagion when for 4 years I worked directly across the street from the humane society? I didn't even like cats, yet one afternoon after work I sneezed, blew my nose, and the next thing I knew I was in a cab heading home with a cardboard pet carrier resting on my knee, moving.
For 4 months, I wished she'd just leave. She kept sucking on my dressing gown while puncturing my armpit repetitively, accidentally dragging her tail through my morning oatmeal and subsequently attempting to write her name with it all over my new armchair. I never dreamed she'd already infected me.
A year after her arrival, she was still with me. What's more, when I would leave for work, she would spend hours crying at the door. My neighbours complained. Then my landlord. I thought to myself, If I don't get rid of this fucking animal soon, I'll be evicted and eating cat food right beside her.
So I got another cat.
Contagious, I tell you.
I was sure I'd shaken it off. Five years, no sneezing. The idea of having a third cat made me laugh hysterically -- on two occasions so much so I had a brief stay at Bob's Mental Health Clinic and Deli on 5th and Walnut. There was no way I'd get another cat. Hell, I wanted to get rid of the 2 I already had, and took steps, when required to move cross-country, to find them a new home before I left.
My god, I had become an infectious agent by proxy.
They came with me. That was what did it -- the two cats in a 747. Everyone knows how sickness spreads on an airplane. All that stale air endlessly recirculated. I bet the damn cat germ I carried met up with a corona virus in the bathroom, joined the Mile High Club, procreated, and re-infected me with little corona cat mutant offspring.
There are stray cats everywhere. You can't save them all, and should they die it simply helps to decrease cat overpopulation. I'm no bleeding heart. I don't feel any great need or desire to save cats, dogs, birds, squirrels living in the big, bad world all on their ownsome. Hey, I live in the big, bad world all on my ownsome, and I don't see anyone picking me up, giving me a flea bath, feeding me canned salmon, and letting me sleep on their head. Get in line.
Yet there it was, every morning, waiting for me. Waiting for me, and shrinking. Every day. Day in. Day out.
I'm fine. I'm clean. I'm not shaking. No chills. No, no way. Starving cats are part of life, nothing I can do to save them all. Move along, move along. Stop staring at me!
He was everywhere, everywhere. I couldn't escape. I got up at 5 am to go to work 3 hours early. There he was, lying huddled and shivering on a pile of dirt and rotting leaves. I ran home after work and locked the door, laughing and rejoicing that he was gone, he was gone! -- then AGH! There, at the dining room window! Staring. Just staring.
I sneezed.
Oh shit.
Now the last cat-free sanctuary in my home, my bedroom closet, has been appropriated by a third litterbox. I go to work fully furred, reeking of clay, digested tasty chunks of beef with gravy, and urine.
Never a fourth. No. Not a bloody chance. Hey, if the third even looks at me funny, it's cat kebobs for dinner. Got it, you white spawn of Satan, you?
Ah... ah...
make idle gossip (1 comments so far)
come hither - back off
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