Insanity In Black And White

This is my cat, Miss Kitty.
I know, don’t blame me, I didn’t name her.
I know everybody has funny or strange stories about their pets. But believe me this is one bizarre animal.
She must have been severely abused before I adopted her. Either that or she is so cunning that she is purposely driving me insane.
When I was a kid, we always had a couple cats around the house. For some reason they would always be hit by cars. This would always send me into a day long crying spree. Every time this happened, my father would decide that we would have no more cats. And every time, a few days latter, we would have another cat.
The last time one of my cats died I was determined to show that I was all grown up. I decided that no matter how much it hurt I wouldn’t cry. And I didn’t. What I did do, however, would have Freud scratching his head.
I woke up in the middle the night opened my bother’s underwear drawer and peed in it. I didn’t remember a second of it. This, of course, completely freaked out my parents. My Mother sympathetically screamed, “Michael, have you lost your fucking mind!?” My Father quickly picked me up, took me in the next and said, “I guess your Mother is a little upset. But Mike, the next you feel like crying, just cry. Everybody does. Some people just do it from the inside”

If this doesn’t describe the polar opposites of my parents, nothing will.

Now back to present day. When I pet Miss Kitty, I must be very careful. If she doesn’t like the way you’re petting her, she’ll suddenly bite your hand so hard that you will see stars. But the strange thing about it is that she won’t move. She will look up at you as if to ask, “So why did you stop?” She doesn’t have a clue that almost biting your finger off is a sign of aggression.
My friend Ricky (see “Chasing Noodles”) and I were discussing this one day. After giving this a great deal of thought, and with Ricky, that mean 15 seconds, he said, “The answer is simple. Miss Kitty is transgendered.” “What the HELL are you talking about?” was all I could reply. “Well when a male cat makes love (makes love?) to a female cat he always bites her. It’s like when we kiss. So Miss Kitty is really a male cat trapped in a female cat’s body. She or he is not biting you; she or he is kissing you. I’ll look into it for you.” “And what do gay cats do while” making love”? I asked. “I don’t know. Dance maybe?”was his answer.
He said this with complete sincerity. I have never been ever to figure out if he is a comic genius or Jack from “Will And Grace”
Keep in mind that we were handing out flyers at the time, so each of these remarkable insights into the feline psyche were interrupted by him singing, “Thank you for supporting the Gay and Lesbian Community. We love you” The, “we love you” part was not in the script, but no one can stop him. So he would sing this to cops, construction workers, bikers, nuns, thugs, you name it.
Personally I love this improvising, but it makes the organizer of our volunteer group very nervous. That’s why we were always paired together. Apparently I am, and I quote,” Almost bizarrely masculine in appearance”, he thought we would balance each other out. The fact is standing next to Ricky even Richard Simmons would look masculine in appearance. But I am more than happy to “protect” my little friend. Still I always carried mace when we are sent out together.
But I digress.
Miss Kitty loves to smell trash. I just emptied her litter box and tied up the thrash bag. BTW, her crap smells like a mountain lion’s and she has never mastered the basic cat instinct of covering her poop. Also, God forbid I should ever forget to clean her litter box out, she will look me right in the eyes and brazening shit right on the carpet. This she knows is wrong because she’ll then run like hell.
Before I could put out the trash bag full of her crap, the phone rang. Unfortunately it was a “chatty Kathy” so I could get off the phone. Keep in mind that this was a beautiful and cool summer evening, so I had the kitchen window wide open. Also keep in mind that we live in a row home. You’ll need to know this, trust me.
So after about a half an hour of her trying to rip the trash bag open, I lost control and screamed at the top of my lungs. “YOU ARE SMELLING YOUR OWN SHIT. YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT!”
Now you know how you don’t notice that there is noise in the background until it stops? Well right next door to me they were having a barbecue. The second my screech traveled out my window and into their yard, all conversation came to a deafening halt. I was so humiliated I didn’t leave the house for a week. I still can’t look the women in the eyes. God only knows what they were thinking when they heard this. And frankly, I don’t want to know. As for my friend on the phone, she’s now deaf.

Miss Kitty also can not eat unless I’m in the room with her. So there is a bowl of food in every room of this house. She also is too afraid to go outside the house without me. And she always wants to go outside. I have found myself enduring blizzards both heat strokes until she decides she has seen enough. The only time she won’t go out is when it rains. If I knew how, I would start every day with a rain dance.
She is also bulimic. She throws up at least once a day. I have taken her ever vet I know and they all say the same thing: hairballs. Believe these are not hairballs. I’ve even bought evidence to these vets. Not one vet sees anything to worry about over these. The next time I get our carpets cleaned, I am going to send them the bill. Our carpets have been cleaned so many times, my partner refers to them as “those threads on the floor”.
And getting her into the pet carrier is a four man job. One to hold it, one to keep the door open, one to try to get her on the bag and one to man the phone in case we have to call 911. My Mother, who Miss Kitty used to tolerate, was the person who brought this pet carrier into house. Now every time Miss Kitty sees my Mother she runs like hell. This is the ONLY sane thing I have ever seen her do.

So why do I put up with this you ask? It’s because of a nightly ritual that I don’t think I could live without. My last moments of the day are always on the computer. Since she is always in the same room I am in, she usually falls asleep beside me. When I shut down the computer and turn off the lights, I try my best not to wake her up. I tip toe past her and climb next to bed with Mike. But she always wakes up. I can hear her stretching out and yawning and slowly heading for the bed .Sometimes she hasn’t woken up enough to make the jump on the bed. So I reach over and pick her up. She will then crawl up my body, up to my chest and actually licks my lips. This both grosses me out and melts me like butter. I’ve never had a cat that licked my lips before. She will then lay on my chest, purr like a BMW, and await her goodnight petting. I am always too tired to pet her. That is why I don’t carry her to bed with me in the first place. But I do pet her. If she hasn’t had enough she will then rub her head on my hand until I start again. I will then pet her until she has had enough. This is only time I don’t have to worry about her biting me. I don’t know if it’s because she’s too tired, but she never bites me during this time. When the petting is over, she will stay on my chest purring long enough to let me know I am the creature she loves most on this earth. When she’s content that I have this knowledge, she’ll slowly walk back down on my body. If she pauses on my stomach, I winch a little because she is fat as hell. Then she makes it down to my feet, she’ll ball herself up and purr herself to sleep. If I roll over, she will wobble up and crawl between my feet again. This amazes me.
This happens every single night and every single night I think the same thing. In this insane and often brutal world, there is at least creature on this earth that is totally and completely happy. And I am the person who made her that way. And for this nightly gift, I love her .

How could I possibly give that up?