Friday, July 1, 2011

A Cat This Way Comes


     You know the old axiom, “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans?”  Well, I pretty much stepped in it this past week.
     It all started on Monday when I was watching a commercial on TV about cat litter.  This “cat lady” lets her cat come up and rub her face.  I was absolutely repulsed by this spectacle, and boldly declared, “I would never own a cat!”
     You see, there’s some history I need to explain.  When Pam and I used to live in Sabinal, TX, I thought it would be a great pastime to raise quail.  Quail are raised in a glorified chicken coop or pen, and it goes without saying that quail pens and cats do not go together.  They do, however, attract each other like the poles on a magnet.
     It also goes without saying that if you raise quail; you are going to gain a reputation as a gunfighter of cats.  Mine is rather impressive.  That is until last Tuesday, when a half starving, mange-dappled barn kitten, with a pretty good hitch in his giddy-up (from direct contact with some type of moving machinery) showed up on my studio deck. 
     He openly declared, “You are now my new owner…. I just adopted you.”  My first thought was, “Reach for the gun and send this little flea-infested Third World kitty to his ninth level of Nirvana.” 
     Then God tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of my declaration the night before.  I felt like Moses—giving Him every excuse why I couldn’t raise this cat.  (The most obvious being the four dogs in my kennel that are all glazed over with visions of a cat sandwich dancing in their heads.)  I have a terrier, a pit bull, a black mouth cur hunting dog, and a Labrador retriever, who lets all the aforementioned lead her weak mind down some very dark roads. 
     “This will not work, God!”   I have this comical vision in my head of God laughing at my previous cat declaration on Monday, as I slowly turn and walk away, muttering something about going to the Dollar Store for cat food.
     So now I find myself sitting in the shadows of a bold statement, humbled by God’s finger, while a malnourished barn cat eyes me with adoration and thinks I hung the moon. 

P.S.  I am in the process of finding Socks (yes, I named him) a new home.  He's been put in my charge, and I just can't let him meet an early demise at the whim of my dogs.  He found his way to me, and now it's my responsibility to see that he gets a fair shake.  I'll let you know how the story ends.

5 comments:

  1. Why not let him be a studio cat? I find mine help my creativity. (No, I do not need any more. I am already the Crazy Cat Lady. Stay away from my mom too, as I'ma need her to take some of mine when I hightail it to New York!) He'll learn real quick how to stay away from the dogs. (Vertical.)

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  2. And just in case you forgot, our families are DOG people not CAT people.

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  3. I know! I'm having a hard time recognizing myself!

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  4. Hey, I finally made it on one of your blogs. HA, HA.

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  5. Love your perspective on the cat. You still however need to understand. You are not the cat's owner. The cat is your owner. I would know. I am owned by two cats. And the two cats owns three of my four dogs. (The 4th dog, Sandy the three legged Toy Fox Terrier, owns all of us.) The dogs don't like being on the bottom of the food chain. They have just learned to deal with it.

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