Sunday, April 26, 2009

Feral Cat Nearly Kills Me


Ok, maybe not killed. Scared the shit of me though.

The girls have been enjoying the outside world ever since we got here. This house has the luxury of a screened in pool so the cats can come in and out as they please and I don't have to worry about them running away. They were never allowed outside of the apartment in Boston, so of course this is like a whole new world to them. They chase lizards. They chase bugs. They chase squirrels that are climbing on the outside of the screen. I once found Kat lying at the pools edge with her tail submerged in the water...I'm not sure about that one. As soon as they wake up in the morning, they are sitting in front of the pool door meowing for me to let them out, and they spend pretty much all day outside.

Pretty soon after they started going out, I was alerted to what I've come to believe is a stray cat. It was first brought up when Kay, my neighbor who rents out a little house in the back of ours, told me that she thought she saw Kat outside of the pool. I finally saw this other cat, and sure enough, it was a purely black cat, just like Kat, but noticeably bigger. Every once in a while now, I'll hear the cats outside hissing, and yelling, and freaking out, and when I go to check, the black stray cat is sitting outside of the screen, yelling right back. It usually runs away as soon as I come out. One day I actually saw two cats, the black and another, but I haven't seen the other since so it's not important to the story. Now to the good part.

My room is in the back of the house. One wall has two doors with big glass windows in them that used to lead out to a little brick stoop but has been permanently nailed shut. As I was sprucing up the room, painting and decorating and such, I put in new mini blinds, but the ones I got were about a half a foot too short for the windows. Whatever, a little gap at the bottom doesn't matter. I put the cat tree against these doors, it fits nice, lets the cats look out, etc. Last night, I am woken up from sleep by hissing and meowing and wailing and I just have no idea what is going on. If you know me, when I get up, my brain does not function at all. I have retarded thoughts and no interpretation of reality. I once went to the fridge in my just woke up stupor, shook the orange juice bottle without securing the lid and wound up completely drenched. So here I am, at like three in the morning freaking out, having no idea whats going on with all this hissing and stuff. I'm knocking everything off my desk trying to find my glasses and flip the desk light on, and after a few seconds I finally get my thoughts together and I realize what it is. That damn cat is outside tormenting my cats through that small exposed gap in the window. So I shout a few times, and bang on the window. I can't see out of it cause the blinds are down obviously. I bend down, petting Kat to calm her down and look out the little gap at the bottom of the window to see if the stray is still there. From what little light is bleeding outside from my desk lamp, the small stoop looks all clear, and I'm thinking, fucking cat, waking me up, grumble grumble, etc. I'm still looking out and not seeing anything. Then, all of a sudden, from the right side of the window, where I can't see it coming, the feral cat from hell comes screaming against the window, and actually hits the window with its paws, wailing away the whole time. It was straight out of a horror movie. I'm not afraid to admit I let out a yell and fell backwards onto my ass. Pure terror. All I can remember from that half second when the cat rushed the window is clearly seeing the pads on the bottom of its paws pressed against the glass.

I took a moment to compose myself, but I was seriously wondering if this cat was like some crazy mutant that was going to crass through the window and eat me. But I had been woken up, and my number one goal upon being woken up is to do whatever it takes to go back to bed. To prevent any more problems that night I slid a box in front of the gap in the window and moved the cat beds. I was still scared that the cat would come back but luckily sleep won out.

I thankfully didn't see the cat today but it makes me wonder what to do about it. Is it really a stray? I didn't want to call animal control on it, myself being such a lover of animals, but after last night's horror movie moment I don' t think I can handle that thing roaming around freely. We'll see how things go...but that cat is not getting a second chance from me.

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