Gettin' some pussy

No, no. It's not what you think. Though I did have a fabulously gorgeous girl over for dinner last night (hi, Nikki!), it was a relatively innocent evening. I grilled up some chicken kabobs, and after we ate, I started up a fire in the pit out back. The beer and conversation flowed, and as darkness took hold and the air chilled, the warm glow of the fire became more and more inviting to both humans and furry creatures alike.

I was mid-sentence when I was startled by the sound of crunching of leaves and spotted a small, furry form dash through the outer reaches of my peripheral vision. At first, I thought it was one of the many rabbits I frequently see hopping about the neighborhood. But then the shadowy figure came into view. It was a small black cat. It had no collar, but its lack of fear in our presence and the fact its front claws had been trimmed suggested that this was a house cat. Or if you will, a house pussy. After some petting and lap time, the cat contentedly plopped down in the grass near the fire and sat quietly as we talked.

When the fire began to die, we decided to head inside to watch a movie. The cat sat outside my sliding door meowing and yowling, wanting to come in. It was at that point that I realized I had left the remnants of the fire burning, so I deftly snaked past him while blocking his entry into the dining room. I doused the fire, and tried to be equally agile in my reentry, but no dice. The cat shot past me and into the kitchen and darted down the basement stairs with Nikki and I giving chase.

The irony of the situation hit me immediately. Not an hour beforehand, I had recounted a delightful childhood memory of our cat disappearing for several days. She eventually returned with an injured paw, jumped up into the ceiling through an unfinished portion of our laundry room, and DIED! Our clue that she had died was the fact that she no longer meowed when called. Oh, and the pungent stench of dead, rotting cat was a pretty good indicator, too. The smell soon grew bad enough that we had to move out of the house entirely.

Dad, anxious to find the rotting cat corpse (and who wouldn't be?), decided to cut a square hole in the ceiling and begin the search for there. Smoking one of his trademark Winstons to cover up the smell, he looked left--no cat. Looked ahead--no cat. Looked right--no cat. He turned around--dead cat right in his face. Yummers. Sliding a stick through the its collar, he hauled it away from the house and buried it deep. Mothballs and several days of airing out allowed us to move back into the house a couple weeks later.

With all of this fresh in my head, I panicked as the cat barrelled down the stairs toward my basement, which contains (are you ready?) an unfinished laundry room with access into the ceiling. (in slow mo) NOOOOOoooooo Muhhhthaaa Fuhhhhck...

Thankfully Nikki grabbed a hold of him after he hit the bottom of the stairs. I opened the glass door, and the cat was unceremoniously dumped outside from wence he came. I like cats, but I don't need to deal with insolent cats who die in hard to reach places.