I Must Confess...It's Tuesday #6

I'm a dog person. Which is good because Mr. Farklepants is also a dog person. Obviously our marriage is kismet. This, my friends, is the glue. But there was a once upon a time when I had cats. Two cats. And because of these cats I will never have cats again. EVER. I will admire them from afar. I will feed them for you when you go out of town. I will hold them and pet them and call them George, but they will belong to someone else...


The year was 1993. I lived in a kick-ass apartment (Dude, it was next door to the mall) in a trendy city. I had the best roommate ever. EVER! Don't tell me yours was the best because it's not true. My roommate and I had both grown up in apartments and we'd both only been allowed to have animals that lived in a cage, aquarium, or a bowl. We both wanted a cat. Long story short-ish on how we acquired them (yes, them, as in two) someone in our building had two kittens (they were kitten-ish as in more like teenagers) and they needed to get rid of them. We were suckers took them in. The smell of their apartment should have tipped us off, but ya know. Hindsight and all. After much discussion we flipped a coin decided on Bailey and Gus for their names. Bailey was a Short-haired Himalayan. Gus was your average grey, stripedy, house cat. It wasn't long before we discovered that Bailey was fucking nuts. I'm not even kidding a little bit. He was schizophrenic. He'd be all lovey and your BFF one minute and then have you trapped, naked in your closet after your shower attacking you with his razor sharp claws and an arsenal of teeth! And there you are screaming. Afraid of a little cat. And naked. If I had a dollar for every time I was stuck in that damn closet... Then there was that time I was eating cereal at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and Bailey launched himself onto my back. Like a backpack. All four of his paws buried into my flesh. And I can't get him off because he's literally unreachable. Luckily my roommate was home and came to my rescue. The same could not be said for her when she found herself with the cat attached to her face, while I was off on vacation with my parents. I came home to find her locked in her room with Bailey guarding the outside of her door and speaking in tongues [the cat, not the roommate]. But then he'd be all sorry and fine for a few weeks. If you were lucky, you could tell when he was going to just freakin' lose it. He would sort of sway and watch your every move. You had to be quick! Either shut the door of the room he was in or get yourself somewhere with a door between you. When I consulted the vet to find out what the hell was wrong with our cat, he suggested a pet psychologist. And I made a mental note to find another vet. [Note to self: find new vet]

At some point Gus had decided that soft, cozy piles of anything soft and cozy were the perfect spot to take a piss. Comforters, sheets, piles of laundry, the couch. None were spared. Bank accounts were drained for cleaning and replacing. Then the day came when Roommate and I went our separate ways. I got custody of the cats because I was moving into an actual house. Later, with my first baby on the way, I completely acknowledged considered that Bailey would have to go. He was just too unpredictable and definitely a safety risk. When one baby proofs a house one gets rid of roaming psychotic beasts sporting weapons of mass destruction and a bad attitude. Longer story not-short: Bailey was mauled by loose dogs in the neighborhood [he was nuts and all but that's a hell of a way to go...RIP Bailey] and Gus peed in my mother in law's suitcase. She didn't think that was FUNNY. AT. ALL. We took him to the pound. The end.