The Year of the Cat

I have a friend who unofficially runs a halfway house for stray animals.  She didn’t choose this occupation, it chose her.  She is the only person I’ve ever heard of who can pull up to any street, anywhere in the city or county, on any given day and stray animals will literally jump into her car.  No kidding.  This has happened to her more than once.  She is a lighthouse to neglected or lost animals and her spirit unknowingly emits a foghorn that only cats, dogs, and more recently, squirrels can hear.  She is the patron saint of all lost-cause pets.  She takes them into her home and puts the word out and somehow, she convinces people to adopt these forlorn animals.  Her generosity and openness are irresistible to animals and people alike.  So of course when I told her, without any agenda I might add, that I had to get rid of my cat, she made me promise I wouldn’t take him to The Humane Society or the APA, fearing that a four year old cat with “issues” wouldn’t be adopted out and whose fate would be doomed after a year or so.  She said, I’ll take him.  So last night, we dropped off our sweet kitty Pickles at our last resort, his very own kitty boarding house. 

I feel guilty having taken on the responsibility of a pet and then ultimately handing that responsibility over to someone else because I couldn’t deal with him anymore.  I understand now why it was so hard for my mom to give up that awful no-named kitty squatter.  When I begged the universe (in a previous blog entry) to stop giving me anthropomorphic cats to deal with this year, I was actually being serious.  But here I am once again, ashamed and upset over another one of those darn cats.

Pickles started out as our baby.  This is why all of the blame should be placed solely on my husband and I.  We adopted him about a year and a half into our marriage, when we were dreaming about having children but got a pet instead.  We lavished him with attention and gave him all of our affection.  He was the king of the castle, the master of his domain.  Then we had a baby.  He still received his fair share of attention and affection, though understandably not as much.  He seemed okay for a good two years.  Then when our world flipped upside down, his did too, and overnight he turned into a nervous wreck.  A perfect storm brewed in our house, one which turned our sweet cat into one anxiety ridden tornado of bad behavior.  Our son turned two and while becoming increasingly brave and mobile, would follow poor Pickles around the house for hours and corner him, get in his face, and try to grab him.  Pickles was used to having a certain amount of control over his environment and could no longer find any safe hiding places in the house to escape the unpredictable energy of a toddler.  After all of the events of last year, my husband and I barely had attention and affection left over at the end of the day for one another, much less for the cat.  The week that my father in-law had the stroke was what really set it all off.  Pickles sensed our anxiety and dealt with it like a lot of us do, he had abnormal bowel movements.  Only he pooped on the living room floor.  This seemed to be his favorite spot until he pooped under the dining room table, behind the couch and eventually, on the floor in front of the baby’s crib.  We took him to the doctor.  Then we tried to reason with him.  We tried to make him feel the proper amount of shame one should feel when one poops outside of one’s proper fecal boundaries.  Right now all of you cat people are laughing, because you know all too well that it was a futile attempt.  Cats feel no shame.  In fact, a cat is a lot like a political radio talk show host, he’ll spew crap all over the place because he thinks he’s right.  Tell him that he’s wrong and he’ll just spew more crap in even more inappropriate places just to spite you.  No, our kitty was not ashamed.  Our kitty was very smart.  He was sending us a very clear message that he was not okay with the way things were going in our house (yeah, join the club) and the you-know-what figuratively hit the fan, but literally ended up in our bed and eventually in our son’s bed.  

He had to go.

I am proud that we’ve been able to handle and overcome a lot of stressors this past year.  But one thing I can’t handle is a pet that poops in my bed. 

It was hard to let him go.  We were teary eyed as we said goodbye to him, our guilt mixed with worry.  We worried how he would handle his first night away from his family.  And that’s what pets become, like family.  When he wasn’t pooping in our bed, he would sleep with us, nestled in the space between our legs.  Our first night without him was brutal.  There were no nocturnal kitty noises, no playing, no meowing at the first crack of sunlight and no greeting us with purrs, begging us to pet him before the baby wakes up.  I know, I know, he’s just at my friend’s house about fifteen minutes away, at the most.  I can hop over there anytime and see him.  But he’s not here, in our house.  He’s not a member of our family anymore.  His presence is one that, even though was practically ignored before, is noticeably absent now.  My husband swore as we left my friend’s house that we will never get another pet "ever again."  I’m not as dramatic or resolved.  I know someday we might risk it and adopt another pet.  But there will only be one Pickles.  Our first family pet.  I will miss the little poop-smith.  I know that in the recently celebrated Chinese New Year, according to the Zodiac, 2011 is the year of the Rabbit but in my heart, it’s something else.  You know.

On the way home my husband recalled our night time prayer ritual with our son, who routinely thanks Jesus for Papa, Gaga, Mama, Dada, Pickles and the doggy next door.  “What are we going to tell him when he asks, Where is Pickles?” my husband lamented.  My answer was quick, almost too instinctual.  “We’re going to have to lie to him like all good parents do.”

Don’t tell me you’ve never done it.  According to a study in the UK, the average parent will tell about 3,000 “white lies” to their growing children.  “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”  No, it doesn’t.  “Santa Clause is coming to town.”  No.  He’s not.  “Your eyes will stick like that if you don’t stop crossing them.”  Nuh-uh.  “You’ll go blind if you don’t stop touching that.”  Not even close. The entire male population would need seeing-eye dogs if that were true.  If I told my son we gave away the cat because he pooped in the bed, I have a feeling he would be so fearful that he'd be constipated forever, literally scared poop-less. 

So far, thankfully, it hasn’t come up.  I guess he just assumes that Pickles is hiding.  Or, maybe his easily distracted two year old self just doesn’t care about it today, since he gets to go play at the mall with Dada and Papa.  But I’m sure it will come up.  I’m sure he will ask, “Where’s Pickles?”  And here’s what I’m prepared to say, which ironically, is the truth.  “Pickles is staying at Aunt (so and so’s) house for now.”  What I’ll really have to lie about is if I get asked a “why?”  Because the truth is, I don’t entirely understand the “why” myself.  But I guess I’ll say something like, “Because he likes it better over there.”  Which I hope will turn out to be the truth.