The History Of Me

Little Kitters

I share my life with a few other people. My lovely, sweet, awesome, sometimes bitchy wife, my way cute and way smart diva daughter, and my confrontational and confused teenage son. Very seldom does a day go by that we four aren’t completely entangled in the goings-on within each others individual activities. Like so many other families, however, human companionship alone is not adequate for a satisfying home life, so there are also two lesser life forms that inhabit my home.

Misty is a shy, scared, petite cat that my wife rescued from the shelter. She keeps to herself and is about as completely self-sufficient as a housecat can be. We’ve determined, through her skittish behavior and her constant aversion to people, coupled with the fact that her tail is noticeably shorter than that of every other feline that I’ve ever encountered, that she had been seriously abused before we adopted her. Misty is fairly calm around my wife and I, but she tends to stay hidden and out of site until company is gone and the kids are in bed. She is well taken care of now, but I suspect that the fear instilled in her by mistreatment will stay with her for as long as she is alive.

The second cat, since my wife always insists on having a pair, couldn’t be more opposite. At only a year and a half old, his massive form leaves the pillow backs on our couch in a constant depression. He is a purebred Ragdoll that was born in the confines of a loving breeder and given massive amounts of attention from birth. His experience with pain is limited to a time or two that his paw has been stepped on by accident, and he will readily approach a complete stranger, and possible cat mutilator, in the same carefree manner as he would us. His body, due to his breeding, goes completely limp when handled, and owners of the breed are warned that their lack of a defensive nature is detrimental to survival as a stray in the event that they get out and are lost.

While I’ve grown accustomed to having these furry things always underfoot, I wasn’t always completely accepting of housecats. Of course, one of the main factors that helps contribute to my tolerance of them is the fact that I am a homeowner. The two previous pets that my wife boarded had the unfortunate circumstance of living in a pet-free apartment. This factor put me in the delicate situation of balancing efficient animal training with the desire to have continued residence at low cost rental property.

I will readily admit, at the risk of pissing off the pet-loving population who think that domestic animals are comparable to actual procreated children, that my aptitude to alter instinctive cat behavior was very limited. One of the biggest issues was trying to prevent the cats, Frisky and Cuddles, from lounging in the windows. This behavior, I’m sure, should not normally be frowned upon, as it would seem that all living mammals (and cats) require, a time or two in their lives, to bask in the bright and energy giving sun. Rental lease not permitting, though, I revoked their right to Kal-El’s power-inducing yellow sun, and, instead, forced them to live like Chunk’s dear friend Sloth, in the dark confines of the indoors. As you can imagine, they were not very receptive to this rule.

I found myself having to reprimand them daily, in the form of, I’m sorry to say, a harsh beating. Now, in my defense, I was born in 1974 and there was a completely different approach to teaching animals back then. We didn’t take our animals to trainers or just simply allow them to behave as they see fit. I defy anyone to argue the fact that, back in the day, we were taught to beat an animal’s fucking ass if they acted up. If a dog jumped up on you, you smacked him in the nose, if a cat swiped at your hand and scratched you when you were trying to feed it, you punted it across the room. Animals, I’ve found, are quite resilient to physical pain. I think it’s due to the fact that getting smacked with a rolled up newspaper because you shit on the floor, is in no way as bad as having another larger animal chase you down and eat you.

Ultimately, though, Frisky and Cuddles moved into a house with us and they were able to finally enjoy the sun. I did, however, find myself constantly finding cat piss on a few of our amenities. There was piss on the couch. There was piss on my new leather jacket. There was piss on our clothes in the laundry basket. And, there was piss on my fucking bed. Unfortunately, because I had no possible way of determining which of the two had done it, and because, debatably, the other should have stopped the culprit from following through with their evil deed, they were both recipients of reprimands.

After sixteen years, Frisky became seriously ill and hade to be put down. Cuddles seemed to cope fine, and was, quite possibly, a little relieved as the mystery cat pissing completely stopped and it was suddenly blatantly obvious which one of the two was destroying my furniture and belongings. He lived another couple years, as a behaved and loving companion to my wife, before he too got sick and needed to be euthanized. I didn’t cry for him, although I was seriously choked up by the sadness engulfing the rest of the family, but after he was gone, I did feel quite a bit of guilt for the harsh approach I took to trying to created a well behaved pet.

I think that I would be correct in saying, however, that his sacrifice is much appreciated by the little fuckers that is Misty and Marshmallow (yes, she named the fat cat Marshmallow). I can’t bring myself to lay a hand on them. They scratch the couch, oh well. They sneak out of the house and leave my wife crying for an hour while I go out and ultimately find them cowering in the window well, what’re ya gonna do? They do their thing, I do mine. I am completely tolerant of their behavior because, just like them, I’m a big pussy.