Cat wrangling
by Julie Carter
There were five fat lazy cats living on the porch, two more
with babies in the store room and four “stupid” dogs.
With all this feline fire power, the ranch wife was quite
surprised when she spotted a fat healthy rat on an outside window sill of her
home.
Looking around, she noticed all the resident cats were
asleep on the porch. So she gathered up an armload of them and took them to the
rat. They looked, stretched and purred. She even held one up to the rat which
garnered only a swish of the cat’s tail and another purr.
With broom in hand, she swatted the rat off the sill and he
ran behind a big flower pot. The cats seem amused but never moved. The rat ran
up the wall and under the eaves of the house. It took another bat of the broom
to bring him down. The cats still didn’t move.
However, the “ranch security” dogs arrived to save the day.
They ran the cats back to their perches and in doing so, a huge cat and dog
fight ensued. The broom again became the weapon of choice for her to swat the
cats and beat the dogs off the cats.
The rat was back up in the eaves. Another broom swish
brought it down and it made another dash to the flower pot. The dogs chased
after it and the flower pot went flying sending potting soil everywhere.
The dogs chased, tossed and played with the rat, having a
grand time while the cats continued to sun themselves, lick their fur and
occasionally give a superior glance at the dogs. Finally someone took
pity on the rat and put it out of its misery.
And they say it’s a “dog’s life.”
One cat more or less
The
agitated cowboy was kicking up dust with his boot while he paced a small
circle, recalling the day with disgust as he relayed the story.
His
bride had promised to deliver a barn cat to a friend in need of one and his job
was to catch it and put it in the pet carrier. No step for stepper, he thought.
The
feline was overdue to have a new batch of kittens and the cowboy was sure her
cumbersome load would slow her enough for him to get a hold of her. He had
promised to carefully place her in the cage so she could be delivered to the
other side of the county.
As
far as he was concerned, a good cat was a long-gone cat.
Shortly,
the noise from the barn was a mixture of snarls, screeches and cussing, all of
which came from the cowboy and only some of which came from the cat.
Crashing,
banging and at last, the barn door flew open and a flash of fur gave meaning to
"running like a scalded cat." Moments later the cowboy wandered into
the daylight wearing a dazed look with his hat sitting slightly askew.
He
examined the blood running down his arm and with a cautious hand felt for the
claw marks across his face.
"I've
been to a hundred county fairs and a goat roping or two," he said,
"but I ain't never been as humiliated as I am right now. I've been bit,
scratched, hissed at, run over and outsmarted by a cat too stupid not to get
pregnant every time she passes by a tomcat."
His
degradation plummeted to rock-bottom when his bride came from behind the house,
still in her bathrobe and slippers, carrying the cat, petting and cooing
goodbyes to her as she tucked her inside the carrier.
Julie refuses to co-exist with rats and mice and runs a
successful trap line. She can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.
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