Never Invite Your Cat to Cofee Break

Never Invite Your Cat to Cofee Break By Liz Alley

When I was young, every Wednesday, my mother and her sisters would have “coffee break.” This ritual rotated from house to house each week and the host would make a cake, something wonderful and homemade of course, and prepare an urn full of percolated coffee. The days of cakes from the grocery store bakery had not arrived and would have been unheard of amongst this family of bakers. I loved coffee break days, I long for them even now. Though, when coffee break days were hosted at our house, with them came extra chores such as mayonnaising the leaves of the house plants so they’d shine and dusting those blasted bookshelves that housed what felt like a million books. My mother, Shannon Alley, her mother, Nora Garland and my mother’s sisters, Lillian Hunter (Aunt Sissy), Winnie Ledford, and Laney Brown would gather around the table to discuss all manner of things. It could be Aunt Laney’s cake decorating class or the contraption Aunt Sissy built for her strawberries to climb. It could be Aunt Winnie describing the plastic she’d had attached to the seats in her car to protect the upholstery or my mother who unbeknownst to herself at the time, had the heart of a poet, not a seamstress, as she lamented the details of the dresses she was sewing for my sister Lynn and me. My Granny was usually quiet, listening to the lives of her daughters, I supposed. I remember the smell of the coffee wafting through the house, the delicate sound of forks on plates and my aunts soothing voices like the low hum of contented bees in their hive. When coffee break was hosted at my Aunt Sissy’s house, it was my chance to ride my older cousins’ bicycles that were twice as big as me. Not knowing how to use the breaks, I’d run into parked cars and trees which certainly stopped me but also turned me black and blue. It was at my Aunt Sissy’s house that I saw a very interesting poster in my cousin Pam’s room, it was of Burt Reynolds circa 1972 and that’s all I have to say about that. It didn’t matter which sister was hosting, us kids knew on no uncertain terms that we were supposed to stay outside and not be under foot. No matter the weather, hot or cold, they’d call out “close that door and stay outside!” This was of course when kids actually stayed outside all day, only coming in for a swig of Kool-Aid and a bologna sandwich. If we were too busy for that, we’d chug some water from the water hose. One summer morning, when coffee break was at our house, my girl cousins and I were playing in the backyard. My boy cousins were playing cowboys and Indians in the side yard and we could hear them shooting up the place with their toy guns. When coffee break was over, my cousins and I walked to the side yard where lo and behold we saw my cat, Tiger, swinging from our pink Crepe Myrtle tree. Tiger had been captured either by the cowboys or the Indians, I wasn’t sure. He had been tried and convicted for his crime which I could only surmise was “cat burglary” and evidently his punishment was death by hanging and I don’t mean in the way cats normally hang from trees. The boys stood in a stupor, the look on their faces like they couldn’t believe Tiger actually died from all the fun as I don’t think that was their real intention. I immediately fell prostrate on the ground crying at the top of my lungs. I admit at times I could be a dramatic child, though surely these circumstances called for a little drama. A huge commotion commenced as mama and her sisters came outside, demanded answers and upon not getting any threatened spankings which certainly did not entice any of the boys to fess up. So, in the spirit of fairness, they all got one. Still, no confession. Finally somebody cut poor Tiger down, probably Aunt Sissy since she was the most practical of the sisters, and put him in a shoe box. Tiger was then handed to my Granny Garland in order for her to lay hands on him and bring him back to life. My Granny could remove warts and take fever out of a body as you can clearly read about in Foxfre Volume 3, page 480, but I’d never known her to bring the dead back to life. This seemed like a bit of a stretch to me especially since I’d never heard of her having this gift before, but I thought hopefully “if anybody can do it, it will be my Granny Garland.” So, Granny took Tiger to her house and I was sure once she got home and could get alone with The Lord, Tiger would be as good as new. That night I asked my mama to call Granny and see about Tiger. She said she did but that the line was busy. I thought maybe Granny was calling everyone to tell them Tiger was alive and well, but then I thought that surely she would have called me frst. This went on for a while, me asking about Tiger and all these vague answers coming back. No one wanting to admit that Tiger had indeed, bit the dust forever. Finally, as I’m sure they thought I would, I forgot about poor Tiger. What kind of mother was I to forget about my own cat? I believe that the hanging of Tiger really was an accident in that the boys thought it would be funny and then couldn’t get him down quick enough. We all survived the hanging; the sisters baked another cake and coffee break marched on.

Liz Alley was born and raised in Rabun County in the city of Tiger. She loves to write. She is an interior designer specializing in repurposing the broken, tarnished, chipped, faded, worn and weathered into pieces that are precious again. She is the mother of two daughters and one granddaughter. She divides her time between her home in Newnan and Rabun County.