Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Catsitting is not all just cuddles and comforting – it can be perilous stuff
One of the biggest frights I’ve ever had came while I was out on my day-job catsitting rounds, feeding cats while their owners are away.
I’ve often attempted to describe just how dangerous catsitting is as an occupation. It’s not all happy, purring cats stretched luxuriantly across your lap in warm houses. Well, it’s mainly that, but there are hidden dangers – and none could have been more scary than the one I’m about to recount.
I’d been visiting two wonderfully vocal Burmese cats named Eva and Genghis, and everything had been going very well indeed. Each day, Genghis would greet me at the door, loudly “shouting” his opinions at me. I can’t be certain, but I think most of his opinions concerned my inability to serve food quickly enough.
Eva would then appear, shouting her support for Genghis from the hallway. After breakfast, I’d sit on the sofa and disappear under the cats as they settled on my lap. Eva, being the most violently affectionate cat I ever met, spent most of this period head-butting me and tearing holes in my shirts. I’d always found stroking cats a nice and relaxing thing to do until I met Eva.
Anyway, the week with them had been going fairly well, but that changed dramatically on my last visit.
I remember thinking something felt wrong when I first arrived at the house that morning. It was a strange feeling – everything looked OK, but just not quite right. I was greeted not by a shouting Burmese, but an unsettling silence.
I glanced around the hall. Had that door to the cupboard under the stairs been open yesterday? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think so. Had I left that light on at the top of the stairs? Instinctively, I shouted “Hello, anyone home?” I repeated this three times, until satisfied that I was alone in the house, except for the two Burmese that finally made their way downstairs to greet me. Silently. Very un-Burmese.
As usual, we all settled down on the sofa, and finally, I made my way around the house, alternating curtains to give it that lived-in-nobody-on-holiday-here look. Everything was fine.
As I reached the stairs and saw a man in his pyjama bottoms advancing on me with a baseball bat, I tried to hold that thought.
“ARGGHHH!” he cried, charging towards me.
“CATSITTER!” I cried, in response.
“Catsitter?” he said, slowly lowering his weapon.
It turned out my client’s son had returned early from university, unaware his mother even had a catsitter. Nobody but a student could have slept through an entire cat-sitting visit. So, not a safe job at all. Are there any other jobs in the world where you stand a chance of being killed by a student in his pyjamas?
Eva would then appear, shouting her support for Ghengis