Part 2
After Killer we got my Mom another cat. As a kitten he was insane; the type of cat insanity that caused him to go from walking to leaping/spinning/screeching in milliseconds. He earned the name Bates (as in Norman). We got Bates just before my 16th birthday. He grew out of his Psycho phase to become a really great cat. During my time at Auburn, he was always the first to greet me when I visited home. And usually slept in the bed with me when I was at home. I think that was because I was sleeping in “his” bed. Bates lived to be 15 or 16 years old. A couple of years ago he did as most outside cats do. He was getting weak and sick. He went out one day and never came back. I think my mom still misses him.
One day my mom and I went to the animal shelter for some unknown reason. They had a littler of the smallest cutest puppies I had ever seen. We adopted one. He was dubbed Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo was tiny and fluffy. He could fit easily in my two hands. A few short months later he was taller than me and weighed about 120 lbs. Jo-Jo’s love was as big as he was. He loved everyone, too much. He stayed in the backyard, and it soon became his domain. No one could go outside. If you did, Jo-Jo would tackle you and lick about 479 times before you knew you were on the ground.
Jo-Jo would eat anything. Literally. He loved to chew, as most puppies do. I gave him one of my old shoes: a leather Nike high-top. The next day it was gone. GONE! He ate it. The satellite dish was his undoing. He became infatuated with the satellite cables. He ate them. My dad fixed them. He ate them again. My dad fixed them again. He ate them again. My dad had had enough. This time the spliced them, taped them up, and covered the joint with cayenne pepper. That night he was lying in bed and heard a horrible hacking cough coming from the back yard.
Soon after that I went to Auburn and Jo-Jo “ran away.” Actually my dad drove him off to Waterloo and left him on a random farm. It took 3 tries. He drove there once and couldn’t leave him. He drove him again and Jo-Jo wouldn’t get out of the truck. The third time was the charm. I missed him a little, but I completely understood. Jo-Jo was better suited to a farm than a small backyard.
During Christmas break of my first year at Auburn I got a cat of my own. Erik was named after the Phantom of the Opera (remember what I said about my obsessions?). Erik usually came back to Florence with me on Holidays, and usually made the trip for weekend visits, too. There was just one problem: Erik got carsick. The first few trips with him all included a stop to clean up cat puke.
Eventually I called the vet and he prescribed a kitty tranquilizer. Those were fun! 15-20 minutes after I gave him the pill, Erik would stumble and stagger around the house until he finally lost consciousness. Once he tried to come down my parents’ stairs after taking his little travel pill. He made it about halfway before his legs gave way. He slid the rest of the way down.
When Misty moved to Auburn her two dogs, Honey and Legend, came with her (More on them later). We would take them for walks every few days. When we went Erik always followed us. He loved his walks. Erik came back to Florence with me during the summer. One day I came home to see him in the street stalking a squirrel. A dead squirrel. He crept up to it slowly; ignoring the cars that stopped honked and eventually drove around him. Finally he was within striking distance. He leapt onto the squirrel scooped it up with his mouth and trotted triumphantly back to the house. Unfortunately, his road kill hunting eventually led to his demise. One of the cars finally won.
My brother’s cat had kittens that fall just before I returned to Auburn. He promised one of them to me. I went to pick one out and there were only 2 left, a boy and a girl. I couldn’t bear to separate them. They became Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. (Again an obsession. This time with Hamlet.) Misty couldn’t bear to see me lose another cat. We had them de-clawed, and they were strictly inside cats. Ro and Guil, as they came to be known, had their own eccentricities. Ro (also named after Ensign Ro of Star Trek: TNG. I’m a huge dork, I know) liked to put her head in my mouth for some reason. And for some reason I let her. Guil drooled uncontrollably when you pet him.
Honey and Legend became well known in and around Ridgewood Village in Auburn. They had a fenced area in our side yard. I think they spent most of their time looking for and/or making ways to get out. Eventually they became very accomplished escape artists.
Luckily they had tags that the vet could trace. We got a call from someone in Gentilly Park (across Webster Rd. from Ridgewood Village). The best, though, was the day we got a call from a bar on Wire Road. They said that Honey come in, jumped in a chair and plopped her paws right up on the bar. Apparently she was thirsty from the walk. We picked them up from the bar 3 or 4 times. Apparently I was their designated driver.
Soon Misty got pregnant and we started thinking that school, marriage, dogs, jobs, and a child were too much. Then we realized they were miserable in their tiny little pen. We ran an ad in the local paper and gave them away to a nice family who lived in the county. I just hope there was a bar near their house.
Ro and Guil helped us welcome our first child home from the hospital. Guil seemed especially intrigued by our tiny little human. They moved with us from Auburn to Florence and from Florence to Birmingham. They made it through 4 moves all together. After the fourth they decided to become outside cats. They didn’t make it to our second child later that year.
Well, that’s a total of 2100 words and I’ve only made it to (read in your best falsetto voice) the year 2000. (In the year 2000.) I guess this will be a 3-part epic.
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