Rat-a-tat Cat

For 10 days, I stalled. At first it was easy, there were too many things going on, too much confusion, it was for their own good. Then The Mom went off to California for a week and that made it ever so easy to be neglectful. But yesterday my hand was called and so, tail between my legs, I drove our minivan through the snow-plowed streets to our old house and picked up the last two things left there: The cats.

How long do cats live? These guys have been with us now for six years and that seems just about right. They could die any time and I would consider their lives full and complete.

They've lived longer than any of my other pets, to be sure. Significantly longer than my first pet, a mouse I had when I was eight. My mother did not like the little caged rodent, and she forbade me to pet it, fearing that it would bite me and impart some kind of frothy mouse disease, but secretly I opened the cage and stroked its gray fur whenever my mom wasn't around. I was fascinated by the way its whole body twitched as I gently ran my finger over its sleek back, and it wasn't even days until it got used to the attention and stopped its nervous convulsions. And it wasn't even days after that until I realized he was dead.

Looking back on it now, those few days between its death and my realization of its death were probably the best days I spent with that mouse.

My first cat came decades later, just after The Mom and I married. It lived a grand total of a year before a car knocked it through a stand of oleanders and into a ditch beside our Arizona apartment. We didn't see it there, not for days, and by the time we found him, he had grown dessicated in the desert heat. In the phone book, I found the number for an animal disposal company that promised they'd whisk our stiff friend away and return him in an urn suitable for any mantle, all for a reasonable price, but when the guy showed up, the first thing he said was, "Hell. Nobody told me the cat was in a ditch."

I looked at the guy. I looked at the cat. I looked at the ditch. "I didn't think it was relevant," I replied.

"I can't get an animal out of a ditch. Union rules."

We stood there for quite some time, he and I, not five feet from my dead and virtually mummified cat, while he detailed for me the various risks he would be taking if he ventured into that ditch, risks that his union considered too great for a grown man such as he. "So what do we do?" I finally asked.

"If I give you my gloves, can you go down there and drag the carcass out about two feet from where it is now?" he asked. Two feet was about half the distance between where we were standing and my cat. He was not kidding.

"Gimmie the damn gloves."

The cat was on its side, dried out with its legs splayed, looking like nothing so much as a child's stick-figure drawing of a cat. I went down and put a gloved hand on the part nearest me, a hind leg, then I grabbed and lifted. The cat rose in a single, stiff unit, but it was heavier than I had anticipated. I grabbed another leg. Now, with one hand on a back leg and one on a front, I looked to all the world like I was wielding some kind of cat machine gun. I had the urge to sweep it around in an arc at the unionized animal disposal guy with a "rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat," screaming, "What does your union think about that?! Huh, big man? I killed you with my cat!"

But I didn't. Instead I set the cat down at his feet, took off the gloves, and said, "He's all yours."

Two days later the cat was mailed to us in an urn and it wasn't until then that we realized we didn't have a mantle to put it on. We dumped the ashes in the backyard and threw the urn in the trash.

Two years later, when our next cat died under similar circumstances, it was double-bagged and in a curbside trash can before my wife had even left for work. I'm no fool.

Now we have strictly indoor cats, which have the distinct benefits of not being exposed to street traffic, but also the drawbacks of naturally long lives.

It's a devil's bargain.

Comments

[Cheri]

Not to worry you, but my indoor only cats are 13, 12 and 11. I'm so glad that someone else keeps their cats indoors for their safety.

[Wendy]

I can't even tell you how much I needed a laugh. Thanks for providing it.

The scene you paint of Ditch Dead Cat could easily be a scene out of a Ben Stiller movie. "Huh, big man? I killed you with my cat!" I can totally see him saying it.

And I'm sorry to tell you but according to healthycatanddog.com, "the maximum lifespan of a domestic cat is estimated to be as high as 25-35 years".

[a visual tinkle]

Hate to tell you but my childhood cat will celebrate 21 yrs with my parents come MLK day (we think she may have been about 2 when we got her). We've come to the conclussion that it's pure evil that's keeping her alive.

[Dan]

i've heard they can live until they are 80

[Stacia]

I don't know if this is good news for you or bad news, but my indoor cat is 17. And she was an outdoor cat until she was 10.

[Tammy]

Buy all future cat food direct from China. That should wrap things up nicely.

[Margie Blystone]

I think Dan is mistaken... They live 'til they're 102.

[The Dad]

None of you, not a damn one of you, are making me feel any better about this. Not one bit.

[Anne Prince]

Why don't I remember NOT to read LD when there is liquid in my mouth!

And Tammy - SNORT!!!!

[DebiD]

We had a cat that was an adult when we picked her out at the shelter so her age was unknown. She lived another 21 years after that as an indoor/outdoor farm cat. Her black hair grayed some and she eventually lost her teeth and was switched to soft food. Our second cat survived an attack by a mountain lion although it left her blind in one eye. Cats are remarkably durable.

Oh, and if you wanted someone to make you feel better, you came to the wrong place. Our job (as I understand it) is to laugh at your misery and poke fun.

[marisa]

Yeah, the kitten->cat->kitten cycle is quite a bit faster with indoor cats. Which is how we ended up with three, I guess.

[marisa]

SLOWER. I meant "slower." Geez.

[Kat]

You are sick. And very funny. But sick. But that's why I like you.

My indoor/outdoor cat is 12, and shows no signs of slowing down. He kicks ass in our neighborhood. He's won more fights than Ali. If he read this post, he'd probably take a swipe at you.

[Hatchet]

Mine made it to 17, 12, 7 and now I'm on a new pair.

But then, ours were all indoor cats. The coyotes, raccoons, foxes and cars would have made short work of them otherwise.

[Irma]

My outdoor cat is about 8 (he was a stray we took in)and is the nicest, sweetest, most lovable cat I have ever had. My indoor cat, on the other hand, is three and the biggest bitch / trouble-maker / furniture-destroyer in the world, she terrorizes the other cat AND my Labrador. And she's the one who's going to live virtually forever? Great.

[Sue]

Our kitty, "Kitty", lost her battle with cancer just three months after our twins were born. It was sad, but convenient. She was 13.

[Kate]

We had a cat that was smelly and scabby and needed cortisone shots once a week. If you went to close, she bit you. Recently we moved to an rural area rife with coyotes and the cat, uh, "got out" one day and we never saw her again. I think she ran off with cat gypsies. She was (I mean 'is') seven years old, about the right age for a cat to run away with gypsies in my opinion.

[Heidi]

A stray we named "Bob" showed up in our garage and we took him to the vet who pronounced him"loaded with tumors." I could not have been more pleased since my husband was making motions to move Bob inside and he was the foulest animal you could ever imagine. Then the vet said "wait a minute, he's just fat!" We took Bob home and the puppy proceeded to make daily sorties to raid the litter box. She could not get enough of the yummy truffles inside there. Then she would come back upstairs and lick the baby in the face. We were stuck with Bob for another 3 years until a rare heart condition did him in. Happiest day of my life.

[Bock!]

I like cats. I just can't eat a whole one by myself.

[Tammy from Twinstuff]

Our cat, KC, for kitty cat is going to be 15 on MLK day. My hubby is also waiting for to pass on. He's changed her name to LC for Last cat.

[Taado]

Obviously you don't know how to work the "I'm moving and I don't want my cats" angle. The previous owner of our house suckered us into taking on his 2 cats when we moved in. We felt bad for the poor old guy who was going to have to take them to a shelter. Five years later, our own cats have been done in by coyotes, teenage drivers, and roaming dogs, but those damn squatters are pushing 20 years old and still rule the roost.

To be fair, the old guy drops by a bag or cat food or $20 bill a couple times a year. Always when we're not home . . . .

[Burgh Baby's Mom]

A cat's life span is most certainly directly correlated to it's personality. The nearly invisible, very sweet, and not-at-all annoying Prince Ali passed away at 10. His evil brother and the one I like to call Spasmatic are still going strong at 12. Then there was the evil, evil Maribel. She never met a foot she didn't want to attack, a toe she didn't want to keep for herself, or a child she didn't want to eat. She lived to be 25. I tried to be sad when she died, but really I just wanted to give her a good swift kick with my horribly scarred foot.

[The Godfather]

The Dad- I remember you and The Mom telling us the part about the cat being in the ditch (what was that cat's name anyway?) but never the part about the machine gun kitty - too funny!

Now we've all heard about what unions do in the northern NJ area, but in Arizona? Unions can't be that tough there!? I think the guy was pulling your leg when he should've been pulling the cat's!

[Angela]

Hooray, you're back! Thanks for another hilarious story. God forbid for that guy to break a "union rule", how convenient for him too, don't get me started on civil servants. We had a cat....now we have a dog, dogs rule!

[Liz]

My twin sister ran over her cat in her driveway (with her 3 kids in the car). I was called to remove said cat with a shovel - kids still screaming and crying. Buried cat in the back yard - was called next day as family dog had dug up dead cat and left on porch!!! Twin girls - we sooo rock!