Dear Readers:
For almost seven years now, my owner has been taking cheap shots at me in this column and for seven years, I’ve put up with this literary assault, figuring it’s been worth a bit of aggravation for a bowl full of cat food and a warm place to sleep every day.
But the gloves are off now. I’ve had it. I don’t care if I have to go back to hunting for a living and crawling up on car engines to keep warm in the winter. I just have to fight back. I have to answer the charges he’s levelled at me.
First of all, he says I was found living by a wall under an air conditioner in a parking lot. What nonsense. I was actually residing quite happily with my family in a nice apartment and had just stepped out for a breath of fresh air when I was scooped up and taken to spend the rest of my life with him. Next thing I know, I’m at the vet’s getting spayed (thank you so much for that little pleasure) and being scolded 20 times a day.
The lies! The lies! Let’s look at some of them.
He has said repeatedly that I have been murdering mice and birds and he even claims he caught me with a half-grown rabbit in my mouth one day. False. The dead mice he found me with expired coincidentally when I ran up to play with them. The little birds I supposedly “chewed up” died unexplainably as I was trying to help them back to their nest. And the rabbit in my mouth? Hey! Give me a break! It was orphaned and I was just trying to mother it. You’ve heard of animals from one species doing that for the young of another species. Haven’t you?
As for my “crawling across linoleum floors” to throw up on his carpets, I can only say I was trying desperately to make it to the door and the outside before I tossed my kibble. But I’m only non-human. I’m not perfect.
Have I scratched my claws on the arms and backs of his furniture? No. Never done it. I know it might have looked from time to time as if I was ripping and tearing at upholstery but in actual fact, I was simply trying to rearrange the furniture. Hey! I’m here 24 hours a day, looking at the same four walls. He drops in for meals and a sleep. Is it wrong for me to want the odd change?
As for my so-called assaults on the male cat who also lives here, again, looks can be deceiving. We’re only playing, for Pete’s sake. It’s just a game. He runs as fast as he can away from me in apparent terror and I catch him and tune him up a bit. We both have a good laugh about it later. Has my owner never heard of good, clean fun?
And finally, this stuff about me attacking and wrecking his precious leather slippers. What a crock. Those slippers are almost 25 years old and he wears them all the time. He cuts lawn in them. Shovels snow in them. Paints the house in them. It isn’t my fault they look like they were used for target practice by the Canadian army.
He even has a picture which he says depicts me inflicting more damage on his footwear. If he ever shows it to you, don’t believe it. I was sleeping that day when his wife crept up, put the slippers around me in a compromising way, called me and snapped the photo the minute I woke up.
This was definitely trick photography at its worst.
In any case, he won’t be writing any more of his libellous comments about me in this newspaper. My lawyers – Sue, Grabbit and Run – have obtained a restraining order against him, prohibiting him from distributing any more slander.
And if I ever get my own column, you can bet I’ll be telling a story or two about him.
Sincerely,
Grumbles
©1994 Jim Hagarty
