The Transporter Couch

Now there’s a charming disorder! It springs to mind because a friend of mine …. I guess he’s a friend …. operates a cat rescue organization or, something like that. I mean, when the SPCA or other facilities get overrun he takes in cats. And he eventually gets rid of them but at any given moment he will have 25 cats in his house. And it’s WORK! All the litter needs cleaning, and they need feeding, and they’re not allowed outside (it’s a miracle the place doesn’t reek but remarkably, it doesn’t).

Just now I was playing with my own cat, Aretha, my one and only cat, and I was encouraging her to play rough and she was responding to the challenge. She’s working out her frustration at being left outside last night but she insisted on it and out she went. You have to know, we had a GORGEOUS thunderstorm last night, lasting hours, lightning and thunder and, high winds and hail and tornado threats and all that good stuff. Aretha was antsy through it all. She’s relatively young (one year old basically) and this was new to her. So she paced and made noises and generally generally didn’t know what to do with herself, but she would stand at the door and yowl from time to time as if to say “I want to go out there.” And I would say, “No.” At last the storm subsided and she was absolutely, positively, completely and utterly ready to go outside so I let her out. I myself was absolutely, positively, completely and utterly ready to go to bed. So I did.

So she came in this morning looking a liiiiiiiiittle bit the worse for wear. She’d managed to get sopping wet and I saw two dead birds on the porch and I haven’t seen a fish in the pond for a week! Anyway, I toweled her off and left her to her own devices and she napped for a little while and then she initiated her attack on me. Systematic, unwavering and ruthless. So at last I engaged her and she took me to the cleaners! I’ll spare you the grizzly details but just know I actually have a band-aid … a big-ass fuckin’ band-aid on my left hand. And I used up half a tube of Neosporin over various parts of my body. Now she lies beneath the bookcase, supine, “les jambs en l’air comme une femme lubrique.” She’s happy.

I like playing rough with the cat. I never would actually BEAT her or HARM her but it’s just kind of fun to mess around. And it’s 5% of the time. The rest of the time she just lies around the house or goes outside and does what she does. Aretha is very affectionate and will sleep cuddled up with me if I let her, though I don’t like to because I move around a lot and she has to be displaced and I worry that in the middle of the night I’ll squash her or something. I do worry that she might not limit her intensity to just me but will take on a relative stranger. She’s very friendly and affectionate and readily approaches people. My fear is that one day she’ll just go to town on a visitor. We’ll just be sitting here having tea and crumpets and talking about the vicissitudes of life and the tribulations of the unwashed masses and suddenly Mrs. Uppington-Smythe’s stockings are in shreds and she’s reaching for her digitalis! Or, knowing Mrs. Uppington-Smythe, her pistol. “What IS in that handbag, my dear?”