Cats can sense evil
Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link of the cat-washer in action at some kind of pet product trade show.
It's not a new clip, but it reminded me of the funniest cat story I know. Don't worry, this isn't one of those shmaltzy, heart-warming pet stories. In fact, I'm pretty sure thinking that this story is funny makes me a bad person.
My girlfriend has a down comforter with a cover on it. This cover has an opening that is easy for a cat to get into, but difficult for it to relocate once inside. I liken it to a man falling through the ice and not being able to find the hole he punched.
One bright, summer day I came strolling into my girlfriend’s bedroom. There appeared to be a cat under the comforter on the bed. It was moving slowly back and forth under the covers, as if it were looking for something under the blanket (turned out to be the exit).
Now, this cat is utterly terrified of me. My girlfriend is in school 4 hours away, so I'm at her place about once a month. Whenever this cat sees me in the house, his eyes get really big and he makes a mad dash for his hiding spot, sliding all over the place on the hardwood floors and smashing into shit as he goes. Don't see him for the rest of my stay. It's good stuff.
ANYWAY, the scairdycat is under the covers. I make some comment to the cat, calling it a dumb animal or something of the like, and he realizes that his arch enemy is in the room with him. I'm in the room, and he's trapped in a giant shopping bag, only someone has tied one end closed. Realizing the danger he is in he starts moving back and forth faster and faster to try and find the exit. Naturally, this strikes me as funny. I begin to laugh. Now that cat knows he's in real trouble. Not only is he trapped, but judging by the laughter this trap has been set by me, his nemesis.
He panics. Forgetting that the bag he is trapped in is on a bed and not the floor, he accelerates clear off the edge of the bed. The comforter slides a foot or so as he leaps clear of the mattress before it pulls him swinging back into the side of the bed with a satisfying thump. At this point, I lose it. I'm officially cackling and the cat starts going bananas, swinging from the side of the bed in the comforter cover. This is when is occurs to me that cats have claws. There is a deranged cat out of its mind in terror swinging around in the brand new cover to my girlfriend’s comforter. Fuck. So I run (still laughing) to the side of the bed to try and push the cat up onto the mattress, so it will stop shredding the cover. As soon as I put my hands underneath the cat it shoots up the side of the bed, across the mattress, and flies off into space on the other side of the bed. This is followed shortly thereafter by another thump and more hysterics on my part.
The cat hears this laughter and utters this long, low, rolling meow. If you could take the saddest loon call you've ever heard, the sound a coyote howling at the moon on the loneliest of desert nights, and mix it with the noise Lassie would make if Timmy were trapped under a bus and couldn't get his mom to understand, you would be close to the sound this cat made as it dangled helplessly from the side of the bed. Loosely translated the meow said this. "So you have defeated me, my old enemy. My will is broken. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more for ever." And he stopped moving. Completely gave up. Just sat there in a ball at the bottom of this partially shredded cover.
When my girlfriend finally came down the stairs to identify the sound of all the commotion, I was no longer laughing. I was lying on the ground about a foot from the motionless cat which was still hanging in the comforter. I was making that soundless, breathless non-noise that is all you can muster when something has completely shattered the comedy space-time continuum.
I'm not allowed to "play" with that cat anymore.
posted by DC Viking at 2:28 PM
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