Man vs. Cat

Vs.



Let me start off this "puking" by saying that a lot has changed for me over the past 5 years.  I went from being single, to having a beautiful wife, three wonderful step-children, and three cats.  Yep, THREE CATS!!!!   Now that might not sound like a big deal to some of you cat lovers out there, but to me, that was really going out of my comfort zone in a BIG, BIG way!!!   Cats?  Really? 

I'm one of those types of people that animals usually like immediately, but I have always been a "dog person".   I love dogs. I love they way they act all hyper when you come home. I love they way they want to play. I love the way they look at us masters for attention.  I LOVE DOGS!!!!  

Growing up, once my sister finally went to my Mother and asked her, "When Daddy dies, can we get a dog?" my Dad finally agreed to let us get a dog before he had to hire a Food Tester to check for poison.  We ended up getting a schnauzer that we named Benji.  He was a great dog.  Kind, loving and cuddly.  The only gripe I had about him was that he was a barker.  So if I tried sneaking in late at night, I could always count on Benji being at the top of the stairs from the basement to "greet" me.  I really could have used a tranquilizer gun on a few of those late nights.

 Then when I went off on my own, I had always wanted an English Bulldog.  So one day, I was finally able to afford one and I got the cutest little boy and I named him Kong.  He was my kid.  I loved that guy so much and he made me laugh over and over.  It was like having a little tank running around the house that likes to hump people.  Unfortunately, that was his greeting to just about every stranger that came around.  I just said that instead of shaking hands, he liked to shake legs.  He though came down with lymphoma at only five years old and I had to put him to sleep.  That was one of the saddest days of my entire life and I will never forget the moment I felt him go limp in my arms, whoops, teared up there.  His ashes are sitting on a shelf behind me as I type this.  Yep, I'm weird.

So after that, I thought I would eventually get another Bulldog, but I wasn't in a hurry.  I ended up getting another one named Bear, but he came at the wrong time of a bad relationship that was going downhill fast.  I ended up having to give him away and I also hated that, but it was just what had to be done in the situation that I was left in.

That's what brought my animal preferences to where they were a little over four years ago.  Dogs, Dogs, and more Dogs!!!!   I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever be a cat owner.  It just wasn't me.  I've had only a few cat experiences growing up and none of them I would call good.  I can remember when I was roughly 12 I was hanging out at a friends house and he had a cat named Morris.  Well I figured that a cat couldn't be that much different then a dog, so one day I was in his room and Morris was sitting between the wall and his bed and all I could see was his head.  So I just reached down and started petting her like a dog.  Not smart!!!  The next thing I know, Satan's arm came up from the bowels of hell, and with talons of fire and brimstone, Satan scratched me across my arm leaving a nice bloody mark of the Devil to remember this demon named Morris by.  Well from that "wonderful" cat experience, I learned right away that CAT'S SUCK!!!!  So I didn't have much to do with them from then on.  DANG YOU MORRIS!!!

Now in college, a friend of mine owned a cat named Rudy.  I stayed away from it, and it pretty much stayed away from me, perfect relationship, but oh how Rudy had a lasting impression on me.  One time that I went over to his house, it was cold out so I wore my nice trench coat.  Well I made the mistake of not hanging up my coat and instead left it on the floor in the corner.  Well sometime, that stupid cat decided to use my coat as it's litter box, because when I went to leave, the owner picked up the coat and immediately said, "Rudy peed on your coat.  Sorry dude."  So I took the coat and the smell hit me like a sledgehammer.  If you haven't smelled cat pee, all I can say is that it smells like vinegar and urine in the strongest concentrate that you can get it.   However, the bonus came from the other fact that if you get cat pee on your clothes, IT DOESN'T GO AWAY!!!!  Plus, another treat for me was that every time that coat would get wet, that smell would blast out of that coat like a teenage girl learning what dose of perfume is too much.  I would be walking to class and it would begin to drizzle and as soon as I got to class, that smell would be so strong that I knew whoever was sitting near me wondered just where I was hiding the cat I had on me.  DANG YOU RUDY!!!!

Don't get me wrong, I would never harm an animal or wish it to be hurt, but I just didn't have any use for those demon spawns called cats.  I pretty much went about the rest of my time able to have very little to do with cats at all.  That, of course, wasn't hard because it's not like they are busting their humps to come to me either.  We had a mutual agreement.  I won't pet you, you don't scratch me.   That is usually the good thing about cats, unlike my dog Kong that would make you his woman every time you came in my house, a cat will usually run and hide.

Well when I found out that there were three cats heading my way as soon as I finished my "I Do", I had to come to certain grips with issues.  I kind of just figured that I would not have much to do with them seeing as how for most my life I was able to manage it, but I also knew that they would be living in the same house that I lived in, so I knew that our paths would eventually cross.  Let's just say that at first, it was a bumpy ride.

The first time I met Kane, Prissy, and Matty, was picking them up to drive them 5 hours back to their new home.  Well they were in their cat carriers but about a half hour down the road I caught a smell that brought back flashbacks from college.  I swear I thought the ghost of my old trench coat had found me and had come to haunt my memory of just how stinky cat pee can be and how irresponsible I was to leave it on the floor around a cat.  I was thankful though that the whole car smelled the same thing I did, because my poor wife Linda felt horrible that the cats had already peed in my new car.  It turns out that cats don't like to go for rides like dogs do.  Didn't know that.  Just kind of figured they would be like dogs and be all excited to go for a ride.  Well maybe they were excited, so excited that they peed.  One QUICK trip to Walmart the very next exit, a bottle of Urine Be Gone, and a ton of air freshener. We got home without much more drama.

Things went pretty much as expected, they avoided me like the plague for the first couple of weeks but I started to notice that they were starting NOT to rush out of the room as soon as I entered so I knew things were going to change pretty soon between us.  In fact, two of them, Kane and Matty, had already started to let me pet them which I did very gingerly waiting for Satan's talon to attack again, but it never did. Lord help me, we were starting to tolerate each other!!!!

Flash forward a few months and the smallest cat Matty had gotten his first sets of kitten shots.  By this time, some of the cats were now sleeping in our bed and we had gotten on first name bases.  They were still cats, but I was now bonding with them.  Well around two in the morning the night after Matty's shots, I was sleeping like I normally do, no shirt and on my side, and I felt Matty jump up on the bed right in front of me.  I felt her climb Mt. Scott and then once on my side, he slid down my back to head toward Linda.  You know when something just doesn't feel right?  Well that is exactly what I felt.  I felt the cat slide down my back, yes. . . .SLIDE DOWN MY BACK!!!!!  I still felt where the cat slid down my back and the feeling wasn't going away.  So I reached back and felt my back in my sleepy state of mind and there was something gooey on my back.  I pulled my fingers up to my nose and . . .BAM . . . I shot wide awake.  Let's just say that this wasn't cat pee this time, but cat poo I smelled.  I shot up so fast out of that bed and Linda did to for she knew something was wrong.  She said, "What's wrong??"  Then in a not so calm voice I said, "Your cat CRAPPED ON MY BACK!!!"  She was floored. It appears as though when cats get their first shots, if can give them diarrhea.  So Matty decided to use the litter box then use dear old Scott as his personal toilet paper.  Talk about knowing where you stand in a relationship. 

The last main weird cat moment took place a few weeks after that "slip and slide" incident.  Kane was the first one of the three that took to me.  He just came up to me one day and jump up to lay with me.  He would actually start to seek me out in the house and so he became my little buddy.  I actually took to Kane and, as much as I hated to admit it at the time, I started to fall in love with the little guy.  *sigh*  So our bond grew as the days went by and he kind of became my cat which hacked Linda off, but hey, animals dig me, what can I say?  I guess he felt the same way, because one day while laying on the couch playing my PS3, Kane had jumped up and curled up with me in his normal position (see below) 

 

and all of a sudden, he stood up, turned around twice and then a liquid flew out of his nether regions spraying me all over the chest.  I was in shock for a moment because I just couldn't process what just happened.  I just got sprayed by a cat.  It didn't smell like vinegar and pee so I was confused. I finally let out a yelp and yelled to Linda, "YOUR CAT JUST SPRAYED ME!!!!"  Knowing that this was Kane's doing, she yelled back, "HE OWNS YOU NOW!!!!"  So I guess I'm now owned by a cat now, but I still am suffering over some of the trama of that moment.

So now here I am, four + years later and I feel as though I am in an AA meeting.

"Hello, My name is Scott and I'm a catoholic."  (clap, clap, clap)

I now love my cats and since the spraying incident, I know at least one of them love me.  Sadly, Matty died two years ago on Thanksgiving Day from health problems and that was also a very sad day for me.  His ashes are sitting up there right next to Kong.  I wonder how P.O.'d he is about that.

Kane, or as I call him now Snoopy Doo, is pretty much my dog now and he comes when I call and likes to be around me wherever I am. You can often hear me singing to him which gets some head shakes around here.  Prissy, I call her Momma, is more independent then Kane but she is still very sweet.  She isn't as loving as Kane, but she has her moments when she just wants some attention.  It's funny sometimes Prissy will jump up and take Kanes spot laying beside me in the same position that Kane usually does, and then Kane will come in and look at me like I'm cheating on him.  They both have my heart and I love having them around, more Kane than Prissy, but please don't tell her.  So in the Battle of Scott vs. Cats . . . .

Cat's Won!!!!

Smile!!!