george the cat

George the Cat

        A cat is a recent addition to my entourage of animal acquires, as he was left to me by a friend? For years I avoided cats in my house as my ex-wife loved cats, too many of them so that you could not fully appreciate one without another making a mess out of things and degrading any humorous facet that a cat may have on its own. When treated as a group I had a tendency to lump them together as a pain in the ass hair machine.

      At times George has done little to change my opinion of cats in general, having achieved the success of filling the cat pan several times in a row and leaving fur balls from an ongoing shedding process as well as some things he yucks up once in a while just to keep things interesting. Still George has managed to carve himself a niche here in my house and although I told his former owners I would be glad to let them have him back if things turned around for them and then they could take him back , I would still have a hard time parting with George. Now friends who leave me cats are another story.

      At this point, if you feel I am getting mushy about cats and will become a cat person, please think again before bringing any strays my way . I had one heck of a time convincing Babe my dog that we needed to help George who had suddenly found himself homeless in the middle of one of the worst winters ever, and he was an outside cat that lived no less than a half mile away. Thankfully though he never bothered to venture this far, and it is only by way of a lifetime friend that he is here now. I wasn’t aware of his plight.

     To say the least Babe was reluctant to accept any cat homeless or not , but grudgingly accepted George as he was in ways too big to be pushed around , and had apparently learned some street skills that afforded him the knowledge of how to deal with dogs, even female ones.

   George took no time before he was swatting Babe and letting her know who was boss, once he was inside the house.  Now that he didn’t have to worry daily about eating or staying warm, George set about on a cleaning ritual that so far has helped shed 4 pounds, and has the ability yak up 2 pounds more of furballs it seems. Furballs can be seen hanging from his mouth and at times the floor of my trailer appears white as if the winter storms had invaded inside. It did in the form of George the cat.

      Another thing George has become good at and that is staying inside preferring to guard the interior of my home as opposed to viewing it from the outside. Even walking by an open door will cause him to veer suddenly inside to avoid the draft. This is a cat that spent a lot of time outside but when given the chance and a litter box to fill, he tried his best and still does to this day to avoid too much sun for fear of getting skin cancer I assume. As if the sun could penetrate the depths of that walking furball and cause him anything short of a mild irritation.

      When we did have a sunny day recently I managed to coax him out briefly and he appeared to have showed interest in being outside but then hurried back through the open door to use the litter box inside. Apparently the fat ass who couldn’t turn around in a regular litter box and required an extra-large litter box that he has enjoyed the luxury so much, he fills it is his duty to constantly share with me his gratitude by making sure I have plenty of tending the box, to keep up with in terms of deposits he has left there. I guess it’s his way of giving back to me.

        See once again I am slave to an animal who understands when feeding time comes round and will wake up out of a dead sleep to wrap himself around my legs and trip me up if dinner isn’t produced on a timely basis in his bid to suck up for his own shortcomings when it comes to providing for himself. And like Babe requires me to provide him with a special sustenance as to make their daily meal less boring. At first I learned quickly not to deviate the meal procedure to far away from  the regular cat food routine as suddenly yuk piles of uncertain digestive disorders would litter the house begging constant attention, so I have learned to give, but only in small amounts, and in pieces tore up so that it aids in digestion.

    I really believe that women in general will be the cause of the domestic cats decline as further and further they will slip into a reliance on humans to provide them sustenance. George did catch a mouse in my house but he insisted on playing with it as he had no idea he was supposed to eat it, he batted it around in the too small cat pan until I finally had to take the poor mouse outside as he was having a heart attack and was screaming, But George lost all inclination to forage on his own and had no intention of eating the mouse but instead thought it was a toy.. This has been a pattern with cats in general, and if humans are extinguished cats would soon follow having never even learned the skill of opening a dry cat food bag on their own.

    So George is a thing of wonderment to me, after having so easily slipped into the role of being enabled by me.  He to lounges daily coughing up fur balls and shedding and then filling the litter box and at times showing his appreciation by allowing me to pet him momentarily, till he swats my dog because he is jealous of any attention he gets( it happens just as I say, and I don’t get it myself). This is George a study in total reliance on, and the irritability of humans as he sees what he can get by with. He has taken to laying close by my feet in the event I may get up to feed him and he might miss it.  If I did I would have to trip over him to get to his food dish, thereby waking him up and with his nasty yell-ish cry that sends chills up my spine, as if I was extricating his eyeballs with a butter knife, and mostly I rarely even come close to hurting him. Still I will get a hissing damnation as if I was the one invading his privacy. This in turn makes me dance out of his way, till I realize he is ok and then I shoo him away, till he creeps back into my space  and assumes the same torturous position in my path as if once wasn’t enough. He will no doubt be stepped on, and will be hurt, it’s just when.

    George spends a good deal of time close to me , laying beside or in front of, I guess watching me as this seems to be his only job he half-heartedly does with any vigor,  except producing hair balls . Both jobs I guess are quite tiring and since he isn’t outside anymore and when the cat litter box is full I find George lays around and dreams of days in the sun with a human much like myself hourly grooming the litter box, opening cans of Friskie deluxe, and serving it to him on the fine china as I wipe his mouth with a linen napkin, I guess cats can dream , but I think he has the wrong white boy for this job. George  Is lucky that when he goes into one of is tirades after almost stepping on him,  that I don’t toss him out in the yard, so I can figure out what is  getting the ducks at night. Anyhow in the meantime, dream on George-summer is coming.