Cats, Cat Memes, and Crazy Cat Ladies.

It's important to do your daily cat calisthenics.   
My neighbor is trending towards crazy. She has like 17 cats. She's not a cat lady...yet...she's not lonely; she still has her dead-head, live-in, pot-head boyfriend (who works about 8 hours a week)...but she is dangerously nearing that social stigma known as the neighborhood weirdo.

Some mornings, when I'm leaving for work, I'll hear my neighbor desperately call for one of her too independent cats: "Pooches, pooches, POOCHES!"  Of course, Pooches doesn't come. Cats respond on their own time. Pooches: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, lady, can't you see I'm skulking in this here long grass! I'm skulking, and pausing to lick my paw. Feed one of those other G-damn ferrel cats you love so much!"  

The Journey of Catty Gann.  
Maybe it's sadistic, but I sometimes wish that Pooches would die. Or I sometimes dream Pooches could freight hop a train going to Seattle, so she could live it up on Pike's Street seafood. Either the life of a hobo cat or death would be a better life than living with 16 other crazy ass cats.

The cat mafia is a dangerous lifestyle.
How do I know they are crazy? Because they climb the fence in my backyard every night and meet up right behind my patio door to either have crazy cat orgies, or to recreate the feline dramatization of Westside Story. Odd thing is, the noises of cats in their death throes, after being beat profusely by tiny cat-bike chains, or cats in the throes of passionate lovemaking, are nearly identical.  Both sound like a middle school child trying to play a miniature high-pitched didgeridoo.




The first few times I heard this sound, I thought my wife had bought a new relaxing music CD titled: Aboriginal Songs Butchered by Paul Hogan.  I could forgive Mr. Dundee for that sound, but not cats. It's not that I don't like cats. Cats in small numbers are fine. Multiple cats trespassing in your front or backyard at all times; and waiting until 3 am to consummate their love, or have an Anchorman style gang fight will drive anyone nuts.

In a moment of weakness one night, I shot an especially yowl-ish old cat.

Oh, don't get all high and mighty and PETA on me.  I pumped my BB gun one time, and aimed for the rump of a über fluffy white cat and pulled the trigger.  It yelped, turned around, and when it couldn't find the source of its love tap, merely moved six inches and continued its caterwauling.

In my defense, the cat I took a shot at was nowhere near
this cute.  The NRA should take this guy's gun away.  
It's not often I wish I owned a surface to air missile launcher, but that night was one night I would've called a nuclear strike on my own yard just to teach that fluffy feline bastard a lesson.

Needless to say, because of these cats, my neighbor and I aren't on very good terms. Actually, my neighbor has never said one word to me. Not one. In ten years. I've said hi, I've tried starters, she just runs inside her house like I'm an Animal Regulation worker trying to kidnap the last morsels of her sanity.  I have, however, talked to her septuagenarian boyfriend, which is as intellectually stimulating as talking to a hippy Patrick Starfish. I think the man has eaten one too many mushrooms--the poisonous kind.

Ironically Coincidentally, my brother and his wife also lived next door to a cat-woman back in 2007. Their situation was so bad, that the stink of the cat lady's house caused my brother's family to put their home up for sale. Before their home went into escrow, their neighbor was arrested for animal abuse.  Within one years time, animal regulators removed over 70 cats from that home.  It was so full of excrement that it had to be condemned. I told my brother he should leave a Hallmark card for the new owners:  Welcome to the neighborhood new homeowners; hopefully you like emaciated cats trying to claw their way into your home!

How does one get to this stage in life? I'm not going to even wonder about mental illness or loneliness or rescue-complexes, because that would probably require an advanced degree in psychology. Yet I have a degree in BSology and I think it's cat fanaticism, or the worship of cat deities. Signs of unhealthy cat zealotry include: daydreaming about ligers; excessively drawing Garfield, Heathcliff, Felix or Hello Kitty on notebooks; collecting porcelain cats; letting cats lick your face; eating cat food and bragging about it; and making/posting/laughing uncontrollably at cat memes.

The millennial generation loves cat memes. They wear cat sweaters and love ligers. I fear for them. I fear we will have an unhealthy amount of cat ladies and cat hermits living in feral colonies, studying Felinology. And while they stupidly and illogically fear the Zombie Apocalypse, they should fear a very possible scenario: a cat-tastrophe.

10 comments:

  1. Why don't you report her? It must be against some law to have more than 6 cats. As a side note, water seems to be a much more effective deterrent or just send Indiana outside to chase them away.

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    1. Indiana (our Jack Russell Terrier) is actually afraid of cats. He runs out and barks, and then they hiss at him, and he crawls back inside.

      I guess I could get a sprinkler, but by the time I walk outside...

      Most of these cats probably aren't hers (but feral) and she feeds them so they congregate around her home (and mine).

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    2. Why don't you try a Super-Soaker to aim water at them? You could construct a special gunrack over your back door. :)

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    3. You know...I might just do that. I always wanted a cool super soaker (too expensive when I was a kid)...and I always wanted to build a turret...

      Thanks Julie.

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  2. Hahahahahahahaha. I knew I would love this from the moment I saw the title. Very funny.
    I am one of those cat ladies who only has one cat, because any more and I just can't multitask. Also having that many is just irresponsible, not to mention unhealthy. During the time we had four cats (our cat had kittens, and this was before we found them all homes), the litter box was a nightmare to maintain, we spent a small fortune on food, and I was vacuuming daily to keep up with the fur. Never again.

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    1. Yeah, I hope you knew that you were not the intended audience (because of your web address)...
      Yeah, and multi-cat = multi-allergen.

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  3. Have you seen the EHarmony video of the woman who loves cats? Now that's a cat lady.

    Chris, you know I love what you do here. I don't see any reason to drag poor Paul Hogan into this. Can't you hear his majestic voice now? That's not a knife...That's a Knife. Brilliant!!

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    1. I was defending Mr. Hogan. I could (and would) listen to him butcher didgeridoo music...but if it's just cats yowling...well that's unacceptable. Mr. Hogan has had enough odd press lately with his "death hoax"...and I would never injure the man's reputation.

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  4. I'm deathly allergic to cats...like for reals...I went to the ER once when my cousin's four cats made my body decide that breathing was overrated. I appreciate their cuteness, but what your neighbor has going on does not sound the least bit cute. I'm all about that Super Soaker idea. I'd love to see that on video!

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  5. "...have crazy cat orgies, or to recreate the feline dramatization of Westside Story." Hahaha! (Stop shooting cats! Take down the owner instead.)

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