So long, ya dumb cat

I killed my cat before I came to work the other day.

Pretty sad. Weird. Do you think other species on this planet mourn the loss of a pet or a possession?

Scrappy was a tortoise-shell calico mutt. I got her from animal control in 1986 or 1987. I remember the animal control officer told me the kittens in the cage were feral, “rescued” from a barn.

Scrappy caught my eye because she was the ugliest kitten I’d ever seen. She looked like the swirls of hamburger juice, cheese and condiments that drip off a Juicy’s triple cheeseburger mixed with spots as orange as a brand new basketball. At any rate, when I got her, she’d fit in a teacup, a little ball of hate-spewing fluff.

So here we are, 17 or 18 years later. Her immune system had basically shut down. She was getting persistent eye infections, drooling in six-inch strands, and I guess her kidneys had quit. It had been a long time since she’d been able to jump onto the bed, and she climbed stairs with a kind of galloping motion. She sounded like a freaking horse sneaking down the stairs. And then she forgot where the litter box was and started using the boys’ clothes. That was pretty much it.

I think she lost her mind some time ago, happy cat senility, hard to tell, though, she was pretty stubborn. In fact, it was only a few months ago that she got used to my son, Hunter; and I’ve had him for almost seven years. Fortunately, she didn’t have a problem with the vet and his electric razor. That would have been hard to take.

I don’t know why this is worth writing about. I don’t want to analyze it in that kind of depth. Maybe the way we treat our pets at the end of their lives says something about us humans.

RTV No. 17: WC-3, Washoe County’s animal shelter bond issue from the 2002 election, passed because people cared enough to vote for it.