My Cat is a Hitman

The Scottish, in America, aren't largely known as a pious bunch, but in the South East we are, for the most part, God-fearing. We're much more notorious for out propensity for hard liquor and for using profanity as an art from. I guess we have a good reason to be afraid.

I personally don't have any temptation from the "demon rum". I inherited my ability to drink from my maternal grandfather. My Gramma Alvis used to say, "You could hit that man in the ass with a rotten apple, and he'd be drunk." My one and only experience with alcohol left me with a hangover from hell. I swear the next day it sounded like a steel door slamming every time my eyelashes met when I blinked, and my entire digestive system became an Artesian well!

My vice is anger and the straight path from anger to profanity. In my defense, I have cats, and they are profanity's muse. Let me tell you about an incident in which my cat "inspired" me.

I have a beautiful orange and white cat. When she is napping she looks so serene, but then she turns into a hitman. She is an "exceptionally healthy" cat. (For those who don't speak Southern, this means Really Fat) Her tail is like a cane fishing pole, and it is this tail that brought on a wave of profanity one night that hung in the air for 20 minutes and left blue cobwebs as it finally dissipated.

Picture this vignette: I am sleeping peacefully in my bed when this 30lb, fur-covered behemoth comes bounding into my bedroom, leaps high into the air, and does a "cannon ball" right on my sleeping body. Of course the first thing one would do in such an instance is to bellow "What in the hell?" as they snap awake. I scolded the culprit with a "scat; get out" to which she promptly, and in my near state of stupor I took to be, obedient manner. I was very wrong. This cat knows me all too well. She knows if I wake up in the night, the next step in the process is a hasty trip to the bathroom.

She was sulking in the hallway by the stairs as I came out of my room. It was the usual swarm in which one cat seems to be at least 6 cats swimming around your feet. I am kicking and blustering frantically as I try to descend the stairs, bent on only the prize of reaching the bathroom in time.

This sneaky cat ran down two steps, sat down, and threw her big tail out, full-length, on the step where my foot was about to drop. I, as the vengeance-seeker had planned, stepped on her tail, which rolled and started a chain of events almost too diabolical to describe.

Of course, I started to fall. It was not one of those stumbles; it was a full on epic event of biblical proportions. As I started to fall, I grabbed the railing, but being "healthy" myself, this only slowed my descent and almost tore my arm out of its socket. Next, I banged my head on the uneven plaster of the stairway well, plucking some hairs out by their roots. My other arm, flailing wildly, scraped against the carpet, removing most of the hide from my elbow. My back and ample backside are banging down the stairs in a sleigh-ride-from-Hades fashion. When I finally came to a stop about 5 stairs down from the epicenter of this disaster, I had deposited enough DNA on the stairs to film a whole season of CSI!

As I was picking myself up, the profanity was crashing over the cat like a Tsunami. I questioned her parentage, where her soul would spend eternity, and stated in no uncertain terms that she was the male offspring of a female dog. All of this torrent of profanity was coming out in true Scottish form, at about 150 decibels.

At about this time, my Knight-in-Shining-Armour, also known as my husband, did not even get up to see if I was hurt of killed in this accident. He simply called from his nice warm place in bed "Are you alright?" I, in my seething anger, shot back, "Yeah, and the good news is I don't need to piss anymore."

Ah, the joys of living in a quiet, and peace-loving Scottish home with a cat who is a hitman.