11 minute read
BAD KITTY by George Pallas
Bad Kitty by George Pallas
Amy Trent was a cat person, no doubt about it. For as long as she could remember, she shared her life with at least one feline, often more than one. She even had a plaque with the Victor Hugo quote, “God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.” But now she found herself catless. When her daughter, Brittany, decided to move into an apartment of her own, she begged to take the family cat, Princess, with her. Amy relented, and now she had no feline in residence.
Nor was this the only upheaval in Amy’s life. She was in her mid forties, an empty nester, and had weathered a recent contentious divorce. Alone for the first time in more than twenty years, she thought it prudent to downsize. Using some of the settlement money and proceeds from selling her former home, Amy put a substantial down payment on a smaller house in an upscale suburb. After almost three weeks, she unpacked the last box the movers had left. A cat, she decided, would be the perfect addition to her new house.
With so many animals in shelters, Amy knew she shouldn’t—no, couldn’t—buy a cat from a breeder or a pet store. Pounds and rescues everywhere were overflowing with cats available for adoption. A bit of quick research on the Internet found several animal rescues in her area. One of them happened to be having a “re-homing” event over the upcoming weekend. She resolved to go.
As she expected, when she got to the shelter, there were cats and kittens galore. There were grey cats, white cats, black cats, and orange cats. There were long-haired cats and short-haired cats, striped cats and spotted cats, solid-colored cats and cats with patterned coats. None of them were fancy breeds but were plain domestic house cats. The hard part for Amy was choosing.
From the outset, she planned to adopt a kitten rather than an adult cat. The cuteness factor with kittens was too much to resist, although many of the grown cats had plenty of appeal, too. With a little effort, she resisted the impractical urge to take them all and studied the cages one by one. At last, she came to a large cage that held a mother tabby and six kittens old enough to go out on their own.
“Oh, how cute,” she gushed to the older woman—Gladys, according to her nametag—who was one of several working the event.
“They certainly are,” the woman said. “Would you like to take one home?”
“That’s why I’m here. How much are they?”
“The adoption fee is $225.” When Amy frowned, she hastily added, “Our fees do run a little high, but that’s how we cover the cost of running the shelter. And it’s only $175 per animal if you take more than one.”
It’s just me in that house, she thought. I can handle more than one cat, can’t I? Eventually, though, common sense prevailed. “It’s tempting, but I don’t think I’ll take on more than one right now. Do you have any females in this litter?”
Gladys peered into the cage. She reached in and patted the mother cat before picking up one of the kittens and taking it out for a closer look. “I think I have a little girl here,” she said, inspecting the kitten’s undercarriage. Satisfied, she placed the kitten in a cardboard cat carrier. “That’ll be $225. We can take plastic, but we prefer cash or checks. Saves us the credit card processing fees.”
“That’s no problem, I understand,” said Amy as she whipped her checkbook out of her purse. She wrote out a check for $275 and handed it to the woman. After exchanging goodbyes, she took the makeshift crate out to her car and left.
Once she got home, Amy took her pet out of the carrier—no more than a fancy box—and let it acquaint itself with its new surroundings. She watched, enthralled, while it poked around, tentatively, at first but soon with all the confidence of youth. Its coat was shades of brown adorned with mackerel tabby markings. Its only distinguishing feature was a black spot on the tip of its pink nose.
First, the animal gave everything in the room a good sniff. In no time, it displayed stereotypical feline curiosity, exploring without fear every nook and cranny it could reach and casting a pensive gaze at the ones it couldn’t. It ran, it sat, and it pounced on dust bunnies. Amy laughed as the little kitten tired itself out with its antics.
Thinking up a name was more of a challenge than she expected. She tried out several different names in her head, but none seemed to fit. She didn’t like girly-girly names, so she did not consider any of those. She sensed they wouldn’t wear well on such an energetic little furball.
The following morning, Amy put her new baby into an actual cat carrier, not the cardboard one she used to bring her home. Their destination was the veterinarian for a get-acquainted visit. The woman at the animal shelter had assured her that all their adoptive animals had received the appropriate vaccinations. But her as-yet-unnamed pet would need to be spayed when she reached the proper age.
The vet was a very young-looking man who could have passed for a high school student. But the collection of diplomas and residency certificates arrayed on the wall of the examining room convinced Amy he had the qualifications to practice veterinary medicine. After giving Amy’s kitten a thorough examination, he turned to her and said, “Well, you have a healthy little boy here.”
Amy was bewildered. “Boy!” she said. “I asked for a girl cat.”
“Well, this is a boy, no question about it. He should grow up to be bigger than a female, but other than that, there won’t be much difference after you have him neutered.”
Back from the vet, Amy reconsidered her naming options. Feminine names were out for obvious reasons. So, at least in her mind, were cutesy names like “Fluffy,” “Muffin,” or “Mittens.” Nor did this kitten have any distinguishing characteristics like the cat she had when she was in elementary school. That one she had named “Socks” because it had black fur with white paws, but this one only had typical tabby markings. Thinking about Socks did give her an idea, though. Oscar Spangler, a neighbor who lived one street over from her parents, had given her the cat. The more she considered it, the more she liked the thought of naming this cat Oscar.
“You,” she said to the kitten, “are going to be Oscar. How do you like your new name?” Oscar blinked his eyes a couple of times and resumed chasing dust bunnies.
Months later, Oscar was almost a full-sized cat, but he was still a youngster at heart, getting into feline mischief at every turn. In no time, he figured out which closet Amy used to store the cat food and how to open its door. He had no qualms leaping from between the kitchen counters and table, indifferent to Amy’s efforts to train him not to. But his most annoying stunt was batting at rolls of toilet paper until a ribbon of bathroom tissue festooned half the house.
Oscar, like almost all cats, also despised the cat carrier. No manner of pleading or coaxing would induce him to go inside on his own. Bribing him with treats didn’t work, either. Amy found that the best technique was to put the crate on its end, pick up the animal unawares, and drop him in from the top. He still objected, but dropping him in was easier than trying to push him in from the side. Getting fewer scratches was a pleasant side benefit.
#
On a day when dreary winter surrendered to a warm and sunny spring Saturday, Amy decided it was an opportune time to air out the house. She went from room to room, drawing curtains and opening windows, first downstairs, then repeating the process on the second floor. With the house open and airing, she went about her daily routine.
As the sun began to sink and the temperature fell late in the afternoon, it was time to close the house up for the night. Entering an upstairs bedroom, she stopped short when she saw a gaping hole torn through the window screen. She stopped and realized she hadn’t seen Oscar in the past few hours, and now she could guess why. He’d clawed an impromptu gateway to the outdoors and gone out the window. She leaned out to look. The missing feline was nowhere in sight, but his pitiful meows carried all over the neighborhood.
Thinking it might be easier to spot him from the outside, she went downstairs and out onto the front lawn. There, on the peak of the roof, huddled against the chimney and quite frightened, was her contrite pet. “Oh, Oscar!” she said, shaking her head. “How did you get yourself up there? Bad kitty!”
The first thing she tried was coaxing him down. She went back upstairs with a bowl of tuna, his favorite treat. Leaning out the window, she called to him. Call as she might, he refused to move. Bribery had signally failed. No, she was going to have to go up after him.
Amy recalled that the previous homeowners had left a ladder in the garage. She fetched it and stood it up against the side of the house. Anyone watching might have found it amusing to see a middle-aged woman scaling a ladder onto her roof. She kept herself in shape with frequent visits to the gym, so this middle-aged woman, at least, made the ascent without much difficulty.
What was difficult, though, was convincing Oscar to come down. He dug his claws so firmly into the shingles that Amy was afraid she’d lose her balance and fall if she pulled him loose. She wished she’d brought some tuna with her but doubted that even the promise of a favorite treat would pry him away from his perch.
Another idea took hold. Amy climbed down the ladder, went back into the house, and fished Oscar’s cat carrier out of the closet where she kept the pet supplies. Then she gingerly climbed back up on the roof, toting the crate. Positioned at the roof’s apex, she made sure the flap was open and set it right in front of the frightened feline. Gone was his refusal to voluntarily enter the carrier. Instead, he all but flew into it, squeezing himself in the back as far from the opening as possible. He cowered without making a sound while she zipped it shut. Now, with Oscar safely confined, she took the crate with the cat inside it off the roof and into the house.
Once in the house, Amy released Oscar and sat with him in her lap. She petted him and offered him bites of tuna now and then. Despite her vexation over the ruined screen and her rooftop acrobatics, she felt sorry for Oscar. He’d gotten into a situation that genuinely scared him, and he couldn’t find a way out.
The cat, in the past so reluctant to have her hold him or pay attention to him, was now quite content to sit still and let her pet him.
“Bad kitty!” she said while she stroked Oscar’s soft fur.
