Every day I'm learning in life there are few things that can strike more feral emotion from a total stranger than mentioning that you own a cat. There are two types of people in this world. First there are the cat lovers. Everyone knows a cat lover but when we think of a cat lover it normally doesn't entail the person we know in real life. Rather it entails a shabbily dressed older lady in desperate need of a makeover. She owns a 100 cats and she pleasures herself by scaring the little kids in by throwing spare cats at them if they go near her front yard.
I always wanted to be that women. I would sit and watch her on the Simpsons or read about her in the papers and think way to go women! After all she always had enough money to live and never worried about her hair. There was a societal freedom that she has that I knew I lacked. I was a girl who from birth was expected to be someone, to look a certain way, and to be perfect. This crazy lady was not expected to be anyone and she could just sit and pet cats or throw them at whatever random kid happens to piss you off.
I digress, that is a cat lover stereotype. It is facilitated by who I suspect, people that are not cat lovers. After all if they can say all cat lovers are crazed Mrs. Havershams, than their raw hatred of cats is understandable and in fact virtuous in protecting society from those crazed fur balls that will infect innocent allergy sufferers and kill all the birds.
My family were cat haters. My dad being the ringleader personally bringing about a kitty cat Holocaust. Before I knew guns were for shooting people or deer I knew they were meant to shoot cats. In fact I suspect my father bought a gun for the sole use in annihilation of the species.
I hate to use stereotypes but my father but my mother always said about my father: you can take the redneck out of the trailer but you can't take the trailer out of the redneck probably was a pretty good description of him. He was a very smart man but there were things like cat shooting that I think were in his DNA. My childhood with him was a cross between cocktails and Hank Williams.
Anyhow he would get out a gun every time a cat from the neighbors came on to our property. I don't think he ever got one. The problem is I think our next door neighbors had the same hatred for dogs and when you added in the mass amount of alcohol it was a no brainer. My father and their father always fought over the canals and water rights. The neighbor hated our dogs so much that one day he got drunk and attempted to shoot one of them (or possibly my father but I'm hoping it was the dog since they all still live together after 35 years). Unfortunately when you fire a gun at a nimble animal while drunk accidents happen. He shot his own pet goat.
The goat live but he always walked funny after that. I think that is when my father realized the sheer stupidity of shooting at cats. The gun disappeared which I'm glad about because I have a feeling something worse than a peg legged goat would have occurred. Nevertheless his hatred of cats continued.
Maybe that is why I like cats so much! Maybe it is because according to people I'm aloof and uncaring. Maybe it is because I love the smell of fresh kitty litter in the mornings... I hate being personal about life. I would rather make jokes, but whatever the reason I've had cats since I was 18. First it was Cat, than Woody, and now it is Bob and Henry (Kamikaze). During those last 12 years there has been a lot of joy for me but there has also been a lot of pain. From the time when I flew off a freeway or had my surgeries it wasn't my husband who was there for me. It wasn't my family. All of them were too busy caring for themselves. It was my cats who were there. They sat on my lap and napped on my head when I would nap. When I cried they would sit and listen.
That is the thing about pets and cats specifically. If you care for them they will always care for you. I don't know where I am going in my life. According to a lot of people my life is just where it should be but I want something more! I want to make my life my own rather than just taking care of everyone else. I don't know when I make the choice to move forward who will be standing by my side except my kids and my cats. Even when my kids leave for college my cats might still be alive and kicking. Than I can get a few more and start throwing them at the kids who keep throwing their balls in my yard after school.
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