The cat fight
Let me start by saying I love animals. I’ve been surrounded by little furry, and sometimes not so furry, creatures since birth and they occupy a huge portion of my day to day life.
Because of my work and travel schedule, I tend to favor cats for their self-sufficient-ness and compactibility. I am the proud owner of a beautiful two-year-old blue eyed siamese bengal mix … and the not-so-proud owner of an old, scrappy, longhaired gray “stray.” His name is Fatty.
Fatty is the result of a cat I rescued in my late teens who gave birth unexpectedly on my bed, ruining my sisters comfort set and leaving us with five kittens to rehome. Only four of which we did so successfully. This left me with Fatty, the first-born kitten named for his size and voracious appetite which he maintained for several years, until I moved to California.
Fatty and I are both East Coast natives, relocating to the West was a thrill for me, but not so much for my feline friend who quickly developed severe seasonal allergies. Every summer, Fatty would drop an alarming amount of weight and shed his long lush mane that accumulated in slimy hairballs throughout my home. I sought medical assistance for this on more than one occasion, but these expensive visits only offered temporary cures. After several years of repeat symptoms, we both began to accept our “new normal.”
My relationship with
Fatty began to strain after the arrival of my first human child. His emotional needs have always been higher than average, but his response to sharing me with a baby was downright abuse. I know people say pets are part of the family, and that taking one in is a lifelong commitment, but rarely do we see this type of loyalty propaganda in any other aspect of life. Don’t like your job? Go ahead, quit. Parents getting too old? Throw em’ in a home. Twenty-year marriage hit the rocks? Divorce is just a few forms away.
But to disown a pet, an elderly one at that, you become the most irresponsible scum of the Earth. So, needless to say, we stayed together, though I sometimes feel it was toxic for both of us. However, we did separate for a few years. Fatty moved out to the garage as a fulltime outdoor cat, while I remained in our residential home. He visited often, but it was clear we both needed our space.
Now that my baby has grown into a small human that spends her days bouncing between school and an ipad, Fatty and I have slowly started integrating ourselves back into each other’s life. As summer approached, I prepared myself for his inevitable loss in physical attractiveness and stocked up on foods to ease his sensitive stomach. Being so conditioned to worry about Fatty, it came as a bit of a shock last week when I discovered my healthy California house cat,
Spirit, had fallen ill. After calling in her symptoms to multiple local vets, it was determined she needed emergency attention. Over half a day and $600 later, Spirit was diagnosed with a severe case of “cat COVID” but was expected to make a full recovery, unlike my wallet.
I returned home prepared to scrounge around my pantry for a free meal, when I began receiving phone calls and long texts from a neighbor. Lets call her Karen. Karen is an older stay-at-home cat mom who gives her fur babies inappropriate names like Charles, Tamara, and Stephanie. I received Spirit from Karen two years ago, after one of her cats gave birth for the zillionth time. Her last litter was also a group of five, two of which I found homes for. The other three she kept and can frequently be found living in the crawlspace under my house. Karen was concerned over Fatty’s health and appearance, and said she had been keeping him inside her house but that her other cats were starting to fight with him. I assured her I was aware of his health conditions and that I’d prefer him to not be exposed to the aggressions of other half-feral cats.
She seemed determined to escalate the situation and accused me of abandoning him and starving my pet. I set down my phone and lightly laughed as I stared at the array of half-eaten Friskies in the mud room, followed by a collection of regurgitated piles waiting to be cleaned. I unloaded Spirit from her carrier, put her in her favorite sleeping spot, and decided to follow the advice of Paul Mccartney’s mother, “Let it be.”
A few minutes later, Karen came knocking on my front door. I sent my partner to deal with it as I no longer had the mental or emotional capacity. I sat in the other room listening as she then accused my partner of abuse and threatened to call animal control multiple times. My partner remained calm and sweet, but this only seemed to agitate her more. On her final, “No I’m calling,” I found my body lifting itself off the couch and walking toward the front door. All of a sudden I was outside yelling profanities I had no idea were in my vocabulary. My petite 90-pound frame shook with rage as it confronted this larger woman. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew my behavior was a bit bizarre and out of character, and a part of me was surprised and admittedly embarrassed that this was the scenario of my first potential street fight. Being from Baltimore, I expected more from myself. After 30 years, who knew a bit of cat drama would trigger me to fisticuffs with an elderly woman.
Thankfully, no physical blows were struck, but
I did send her running home with her tail tucked between her legs.
I shouted after her to go pay my vet bill and give me back my cat.
A few minutes later, Fatty was back on my porch. As I came off my adrenaline high, I started feeling guilty. My partner on the other hand was extremely proud and had already begun bragging to his friends about the incident.
The next day I dropped by my neighbor’s home with apology cookies and a small bouquet of flowers and assured her I had only the best intentions for my cats and her. Regardless of who was right or wrong in the moment, we both agreed that animal care was far too expensive for the average bloke to afford. Many of us can barely keep up on our own healthcare needs, let alone that of an animal’s.
In a system overrun with homeless pets, mediocre care in a loving family is comparatively better than nothing at all.
When in doubt, it’s always best to take the high road in these situations and I was relieved that amends could be made between us two fellow catwomen. While the Karens of this world may come as an annoyance at times, my dad always taught me you never want to have an enemy for a neighbor … especially when they have kids who have been to prison.