The Sunday Memory Drawer - My Semester with a Cat

It's no mystery to people who know me. 

I hate cats.

If you have a cat, God bless you. Love it with every fiber of emotion in your body. That doesn't change the way I feel. I still hate them.

Part of the reason why is that I can't spend more than five minutes in a room with one and not experience perhaps the worst allergic and asthmatic episode ever recorded in history. If it's been a few months since you flipped the on/off switch on your vacuum cleaner, the wheezes will intensify at a geometric progression.

If you've got a cat in your house, don't expect me to stay longer than five minutes. Don't wait for me to sit down because the odds are your cat has bounced over every piece of furniture and cushion. If I sit down, the cat hair gets on my clothes and comes home with me and then I can have that same pulmonary attack in the confines of my own sterile cat-less abode.

Now, by and large, I can control the existence of a dander-free environment. Friends acknowledge that and embrace my shortcomings. Thank you for understanding. If you want me to see photos of your home, please e-mail them in a .jpeg format. Just don't wait for me to step inside and watch your beloved Fluffy lick her paws while lounging in the dish rack on the kitchen counter. Or, even worse. Make me watch as the shit piles up in the litter box that's right next to the cookie jar. Hmm. Are those really chocolate chips? Yum. Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little.

But, beyond the health reasons for my dislike of this creatures, there's another factor at place.

I don't think they're cute. As far as I'm concerned, they're not lovable. Or adorable. While dogs love you unconditionally, cats are always looking to get the upper paw on you. "Screw you and your need to pet me. When the fuck do I eat?" I don't think they are capable of loving anything but themselves.

Okay, I admit some of this venom is deep seeded. When I was about five or six, I stumbled on a dead cat in our driveway and it just had its head steamed and pressed by a Goodyear tire. That image has stayed with me forever. Certainly not the poor cat's fault. But I can never shake that visualization.

My grandmother hated cats, too, for a completely different reason. She alleges, as only Grandma would, that the only cat she ever had tried to suck the life out of my father as he lay innocently in his crib. My grandmother claims she came in just as the cat was going to take a bite out of my dad's infant neck. For years, I have not been able to shake that mental visualization.

A psychiatrist might now reason that my cat allergy could be tied to those two childhood events. And perhaps the wheezing and runny eyes is a direct result. It makes sense.But, then, I open an innocent e-mail and it starts all over for me. Maybe you get them, too. Those adorable cat photos that some folks just find so irresistable. They are endless and so quickly deleted.

"Doesn't little Furball look so cute sitting on top of that halogen floor lamp?"

No, he doesn't. As a matter of fact, I am guessing one of the cat's claws might scrape a wire near the bulb and you'll find your home in ashes when you get back from Starbucks.

So, having just read all this, you will be mystified to know that I actually had a cat for three whole months.  This is long before I knew that their dander could be lethal for me.  And, as I remember it all, it all started very innocently.

It was my junior year at Fordham.  I had commuted to the Bronx campus for the first two years.   But, since my college best buddy was moving into a dorm apartment, we thought it would be cool to do it together.  Back in that day, there was a spanking new 12-story apartment building right off campus.  The infamous 555 as if 555 East 191st Street.   It was tough to score a place, but we managed to become two in a three-bedroom suite of six guys.  There was us and the other four guys who happened to be close friends.

Guess who immediately were the outsiders?

Because the majority ruled, we didn't have much say about what went on in the apartment.  We had our own bathroom, but shared kitchen and dining privileges.  Also the one portable TV was a shared option.  It was not an opportune arrangement.

So, when the cute girls from next door came to us for a favor, my roommate and I were not necessarily dealing from a position of power.

"We have two cats that aren't getting along.   Can you keep one of them for this semester?"

If you keep smiling just like that, sure.  A decision made not by body parts north, but south.

The Nazi overlords of our apartment were not happy by our kindness to the two nymphs next door.

"That cat stays at your end of the suite."

Yes, Adolf.

That meant virtually everything cat-related.  Toys.  Food.  Water dish.  Kibble.  And the worst?

The fucking litter box.  Under the sink in our bathroom. 

I had blacked out the name of this creature to this day.  It should have been called Laxative because that's all the damn thing ever did.  Neither my roommate or I had ever owned a cat before.   I certainly did not with my grandmother in close proximity.  So, in between taking four credits of classes, most of our semester was taken up by emptying the litter box.

Meanwhile, the cat often missed his aim.  There were times we stepped in it.  Right out of the shower. 

Cute girls or not, we started to formulate a plan of how to get out from under the cat's ass.  Literally and figuratively.

"It could go out the window.  By accident."

That was not an option.  Our dorm apartment was on the second floor.  The cat would land on his feet and then laugh at us.

"We could draw a bath.  And then it could accidentally slip in the water."

Holding the head underwater was necessary.  Neither of us wanted to do the deed.  Besides, we figured that we had the one cat who knew how to hold his breath.

Indeed, we did nothing.  We spent the semester walking in kibble and pellets and shit until the day around Christmas that we could hand this monster back to the cuties across the hall.   On second look, we didn't think they were as pretty as we originally thought.   What were we thinking?

I don't know just when my severe allergy to cats began.  Maybe it was the sight of the dead one in my driveway.  Or the live one shitting next to my toilet.

When a cat is near, I sneeze.  My eyes water.  My throat constricts.  I begin to wheeze.

And, somehow, as far as cats and I are concerned, that's a good thing.

Dinner last night:  Salisbury steak at the New Rochelle Diner.