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A Cat Tale (or this ain't Felix) by deltabravo
Pets are great. We had a cat once. He was a golden striped long-haired Maine Coon. Proto-cat. There was never a cat better. He could hunt and catch and skin a squirrel. He'd leave their pelts at our doorstep as gifts. He would ride around on our shoulders like a golden parrot. He was people.
Cats didn't get much better than him. So being young and foolish, I thought all yellow striped cats were good. So I went to a pet store and picked a stripey yellow kitten out of the basket. (Note, it turns out yellow striped cats are the sociopaths of the cat world. They are the cat most likely to have to be pulled out of a tree by firemen. They could climb down themselves, but it's more fun to make the big red truck come out and inconvenience everyone.)
Long story short, this cat was a nutburger. It would steal stuffed animals off of sister's bed and drag it under the bed like a kill, making growly noises all the way. Just because.
A couple years later my youngest sister brought home another yellow stripey kitten. It was her gift from her boyfriend. Mom cried. Now I know why. She knew that boyfriend and daughter would be long gone and she'd still have CrazyAss StripeyCat tearing away at her antique sofa and walls and running inside the front door and demanding to be let out the back door 20 times a day for years after. One day about 13 years later the vet told my mom the cat was insane and gave her permission to put it out of its misery.
To this day I refuse to let teenagers in my house bring small furry things home. My crazy cat and moron dog are enough.
Well, back to Nutburger. For hobbies, he'd take down CrazyAss StripeyCat several times a day, wrestling him to the ground like a lion takes down a wildebeest. Just because.
He'd yowl for no reason. He was unpleasant and lacked the affection gene. And he never died. We began to refer to him as Methuseleh.
The grandkids came along over the years, arriving long after he should have died. They knew to fear him. Babies would go to pet him and get scratched. Just because.
They called him "That Mean Scary Cat" and "That Icky Old Cat." Eventually he looked like Bill the Cat, but without the necktie or the sense of humor.
He'd disappear at night and not eat his food. Mom grew hopeful that he might be dying. Nope. After several months, a neighbor came over to complain. Seems she finally traced his path back to the old homestead. He had been going over to her house down the street and letting himself in the pet door and eating her cat's food. Probably drinking the old man's beer and using their cat box too.
How do you tell Methuseleh he's not welcome to let himself into the neighbor's home and eat their cat food?
And what kind of wimp cats did they have that they couldn't kick a 15 year old cat's rickety ass?
He'd probably take them down like a wildebeest.
Yeah, eventually he died. Just because.
So that's my story of pets who let themselves into neighbors' houses.
Deltabravo
