In (Un)Loving Memory

Let me preface this by saying I am a huge animal advocate. I love animals...almost as much as I love children. Even cats have grown on me...but I'm thinking not enough. Dogs and horses might as well be children. I absolutely love big dogs, loyal horses and honking donkeys. Chickens....well, they're not really animals of the animal type. They're more in the poultry/bird category which do not classify as pet loving, real true animals. We have them and I do like the idea of them but as far as being in love....ummm....yeah, it's just not happening. They lay eggs and therein lies my affinity for them. They also crap everywhere you step. They make a whole lot of squawking noise and, in general, give a romantic notion to life but are not entirely romantic at all...especially the crapping part. Nope..that doesn't exactly endear one to them. Especially when it's all over the carport on which young toddlers play and all over the front porch that greet visitors. But, oh yes...we live in a small town where no one actually ever uses the front porch or the front door. They just go to the back like they are all family and usually don't bother even knocking. Just open it up and stick their head in giving a shout out warning of "Hellloooooo??" Yes, people....doorbells were created for a reason. Imagine that! "Why!! Sweetie pie...usin' a doorbell in these parts???!! You must be from the city, you darlin'. We don't do that 'round here. That's just too fancy for us locals. We're all family, ya know." Well, Betty and Bertha, it's so good to know we are all family now and that knocking isn't necessary...nor is it ever practiced. Next time just remind me not to walk around in my bra and underwear at the crack of dawn when the local Baptist women want to come calling.



So never mind with non doorbell ringing...or door knocking...locals and crapping chickens and such. It doesn't matter anyway. The chickens crap on the front porch and the back porch so it's all the same thing. Despite the hours and hours spent rigging up chicken wire they seem to ignore our hard efforts and just cluck in total hilarity as they fly over everything we have rigged up to keep them within their confines. They have an entire acre of pasture, but, as always..the grass is always greener on the other side. To their credit though, we have no mosquitoes, no grasshoppers, no pestering insects of any kind. Nope...we have 85 crapping chickens to take care of that aspect of life. Alright...so really. Never mind the gravity defying, feces releasing chickens.



The real reason I am here. We have this cat. Or well...we had this cat. Once again.....I just adore animals....but not when they pee on absolutely everything in the house and not when they're cats and the whole house begins to wreak of cat pee. Everywhere I wandered the smell of cat urine permeated the nostrils....and it was nauseating. Amused husband began telling me that, according to my nose, everything smelled like cat pee. Children grew irritated everytime they were called because they knew it was time to hunt down the source of the offending article...that, I might note...was always sprayed in pee. Everyone else in the house assured me time and again that there was no odor and my nose had been permanently damaged and never became unstuck from cat urine smell. But, I knew differently....and my nose really knew differently....and my triggers of absolute nausea really, really knew differently. So, before you go feeling sorry for this cat imagine your house becoming your worst nightmare and your dearly beloved feline ruining everything you have. Not even children pee this much on worldly possessions.



Granted, this cat was mentally deficit in more than a few ways. We rescued her...the only way we ever end up with any of our animals...at a mere 5 weeks old as she was knocking on death's door. In fact, I think she had all but about half of her tail through it. Infested with fleas it seemed her whole body moved and crawled with blood sucking insects from fleas to ticks to everything else that can raid an animal's body...ear mites, worms....you name it, she had it. We bathed her, medicated her, treated her for all of her problems and dealt with her eye infections. By the end of it we thought we had a pretty good little kitten that we so romantically and heroically had saved. But what I failed to actually think about was that this sweet innocent looking little kitten might actually suffer from some amount of brain damage...and in hindsight, I'm thinking serious brain damage and total mental dysfunction. But she saved the day and became Aubrey's security when her little world seemed to be falling apart. As time elapsed, Aubrey recovered both physically and emotionally but the cat never quite seemed to. As this lovely little feline grew she became cranky and cantankerous and just plain mean...and irritating. She loved and demanded all of our time in her own timing..which was usually bad timing on anyone else's part...and when it was time to love she hissed and bit and, in general, made an absolute turd out of her little self. And at night, once the sun went down, darkness pervaded and the house grew still this possessed cat would take off, up and down hallways actually managing to climb the door facing almost up to the ceiling. She ruined the leather chair, some parts of the couches, the door facings, the window sills, the window screens. We have claw marks to prove this for the next homeowner that calls this homey little place his. She made strange and scary noises as she darted frantically from long stretch of front door to back door. This only proved to amuse not so cat loving husband and so we kept her around...not to mention the fact the children had invested so much "veterinarian" time into her. She was a good science lesson, I suppose.



I also have to add that we saved this cat from the great outdoors numerous times when she escaped the confines of the house and was too skitzed out to come out of hiding and return to the warmth of her familiar environment. I actually crawled into a spider infested space the size of Gavin and dug her butt out with a fish net, carrying her scratching, clawing self back home. I waded through mesquite thorns and scratchy bushes on hands and knees under brush and brambles, tearing arms and legs up to fetch this beloved little thing. Yep...she was a keeper alright. Not to mention that we spent the money and had her spayed at six months.



We had made a grand attempt at kenneling her every night per the vet's advice to "teach" her where the litter box was and what exactly was not the litter box...like the laundry basket of clean unfolded clothes, or the unmatched sock basket, or the missing sock basket, or the oven mitt that had been strung out by 17 month old girl, or the van tote that had come inside to be cleaned out, or the towel that lay discarded at the end of the hallway. Ummm...dude, this cat never craps on anything and goes straight to the litter box but yet she pees on all of this. I think she knows what exactly a litter box is and what to use it for. But, alas, we did as we were advised and kenneled her at night and while away from home. That only served to make her meaner than ever at night and refuse to be captured. So round and round we went night after night. Once reaching her she'd hiss in evil ways and eventually bite the fire out of me...or Grayson...or Mother. Whoever the animal catcher happened to be that night. It didn't take long for that little rodeo to grow very, very old. So then we tried making her an outside cat. This cat that would never return home to us that we dug out of so many small places now saw fit to boomerang home. Out the front door....in the backdoor. Out the backdoor....in the front door. We did tis whole little routine for an entire day. It wasn't working....at. all. And, of course...no friend in their right mind will take a peeing cat into their own home and embrace it as their's. Yep...we tried that route too. Pleeeaase come take our sweet little kitty. Pleeaaase????? Nope. Wasn't happening. We exhausted our resources. Not even the SPCA would take his darling little thing due to the fact she had shown signs of violent aggression and would be considered unsafe in a new home. And the county animal shelter didn't seem too promising due to the fact she would do nothing but sit in a 2x2 cage, 1/2 of it taken up by a litter box, that I somehow instinctively knew she probably wouldn't use, only to be euthanized a week later....if that. Oh animal lover world...where art thou help????



While at grandparents' this past weekend Mother called and gave the lovely info that she had peed in our dirty clothes basket...definitely not a first, but contemplating making it a last...and then went on to discover that she had also peed on some strewn out piece of clothing under our bed. Thus the never ending smell of urine that forever existed in my nostrils. With that, I was so fed up with this mentally deficit in the head, mean little turd that I gave the order to take her out. Shotgun loving husband grew irritated that I gave the order while we were all away from home, as he loves shooting pretty much anything that moves...including billy goats that ram little boys into fences and pin them there. He overruled and put it on hold saying he would take her out when we arrived home. I plead my cause to him, saying the children would never be the wiser and she could just conveniently "escape" out the door and never come home. That definitely wouldn't be a first and seemed reasonable enough. No traumatizing children with horrific cat stories or the sound of multiple gunshots as bullet-like cat evades and dodges expertly the ones aimed at her.



I figured, in all of my ingenious animal wisdom, that it would be more humane for her just to be shot rather than try to deal with a new place in new surroundings like dumping her on the side of the road and having to scavenge for food and be at the mercy of cold, wind, heat and rain. But little urine spraying, turd cat proved to not be so easily shot. And when one shoots among 85 chickens one is bound to take out a few of those as well. This non-returning cat would do nothing but boomerang to the backdoor, hissing and growling in scary ways and making herself increasingly difficult to shoot......seeing as how there would be a huge new cat height, shotgun hole in our backdoor once we returned home if she was shot while throwing her hissy fit by the backdoor. Even the smaller handgun promised to leave a bullet hole in the door. Not so great. So Mother gave up and rodeo-ed the nasty little turd into the kennel....who proceeded to bite her, I should add. Despite my hatred and fed-upness with this cat I still would never have been able to shoot her. But it was entirely easy handing off the job to someone else. This cat, now showing the full effects of rabies or some other sort of mental brain eating disorder was clearly having issues.



She loaded her into the bed of her truck on her way out of town and lovingly dropped her off at the old abandoned school 16 miles away. I'm wondering if that's far enough. It was said that cat shot out of kennel and off truck bed at lightening force speeds, disappearing into thick river brush never to be seen again. Hopefully she is peeing her heart out and spraying every tree in the county while being feral and biting and hissing her way through life. She was given a place of shelter and a feast of mice and river rats along with an assortment of birds to dine on for the rest of her feral life. I assured the children she was definitely living the ultimate feral cat life. She began life feral and apparently feral is not so easily tamed..so she left our home still feral. And on the nights I do begin to feel even a little sorry for her I breathe in deeply and smell the sunny freshness of our Glade plug-ins...and not the horrific odor of cat urine. And when going through our nighttime routine I don't have to be bitten by a nasty little crapped out turd of a cat who refuses to do anything she dislikes. I no longer fear needing stitches put into the base of my thumb due to her hissing, biting little tirades. Here's to lavender vanilla Glade plug-ins, newly mopped floors, the smell of Charlie's Soap, clean clothes that stay clean, dirty clothes that remain just dirty and not urinated on, and strewn out crap in the floor that no longer is endangered by cat pee. And to fingers and hands alike that remain intact and still have all of their digits. To arms that won't ever be deeply cut by mesquite trees as one is fully entangled amongst them and to hair that won't ever have spider webs creepily and stickily woven through it again. And to a peaceful nighttime routine that no longer involves disliked cats.


So, to Lazzye...wherever she is. May she lead a good life and never return home.