Gwen Cooper - Cat Carrier Tango: A Short Story

Cat Carrier Tango

Gwen Cooper

BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, TX

Copyright 2018 by Gwen Cooper

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

BenBella Books, Inc.

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e-ISBN: 978-1-946885-92-0

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Cat Carrier Tango

I was reading a book recently (The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez) in which a doctor acquaintance of the narrator explains to her that during the psychiatric rotation of his residency, hed been taught that having multiple cats could be a sign of mental illness. Observing that one does occasionally hear about cat hoarders, and expressing a general approval that this was something health-care professionals were being trained to look out for, the narrator asked her doctor friend what number of cats would be considered the tipping point as a possible indicator of insanity. And the doctor replied, Three.

I was glad that I first encountered this in the privacy of my home and not, say, sitting in a bookstore audience somewhere, hearing the author read it aloud. Im positive that I would have laughed long and hard (as I did when reading it to myself), and maybe it would have been one of those uncomfortable moments where youre the only one laughing in a roomful of silent, serious people. Because maybe three wasnt supposed to be the punch line of a joke. Maybe it wasnt a joke at all. Or maybe it was, but the joke was on usthe crazy cat people of the world (Look at those wacky people with as many as three cats!).

I mean, cmon... three?! Three is nothing! In my worldbeing in daily contact with any number of people who work in animal rescueit almost isnt even worth noting how many cats a person has until the number gets into double digits. And even then, so long as that number doesnt climb much above a bakers dozen, and you live in a home sufficiently large to give everyone their space, youre probably okay. Two of my closest friends live on a hobby farm in Tennessee with eleven catsalong with eight cows, four horses, a constantly fluctuating number of chickens, an apiary full of honeybees, and one three-legged dog. As a long-time urban apartment dweller, Ive always loved hearing their crazy stories about life on the farm. But Ive never thought of them as being actually crazy.

Still, Id be lying if I said that there were never days, back when I had my first generation of three catsScarlett, Vashti, and Homerwhen I felt like I might be cracking up, or wondered if maybe I needed to have my own head examined. It was possible that Id gone round the bend a long time ago, and that my friends secretly wished Id get myself to a therapists office posthaste without their having to intervene.

This impulse to consult a trained psychiatric professional was never stronger than on days, like the one back in 2005, when I had to take all three cats to the vets office at the same time.

A three-cat vet visit was a physically unwieldy and decidedly unpleasant eventuality that I tried to avoid whenever possible. Although Id adopted my cats over a three-year period, each a year apart from the other, their birthdays fell close together on the calendarMay for Scarlett and Vashti, and July for Homer (peak kitten season months, as anyone in rescue will tell you). This meant that the timing of their annual physicals also fell close together. Nevertheless, it was worth the effort of making two or three separate trips rather than bringing them in simultaneously.

Just getting the three of them into their carriers all at once was an ordeal. I had to take the carriers out of the closet the night before I planned to use them, because Scarlett and Vashti would go into deep hiding for hours once the carriers made an appearance. (I think Homer knew they were there, but maybe they didnt freak him out because he was blind and thus couldnt see them.) Right before I planned to load them in, I had to lure the cats into the living room/kitchen area with a rattling cat-treat bag and then close the doors of bedrooms and bathrooms, once theyd assembled and gotten their first round of treats, to bar any potential escape routes. Homer would happily munch away on his, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. But as each door in the apartment closed one by one, with the three carriers looming in a row before them, the expressions on the faces of the other two cats would flicker from surprised gratitude (hey! treats!) to betrayed wariness (oh... thats why were getting treats).

I always started with Vashti, because she was, surprisingly, the most difficult to catch. Id spend a good five minutes chasing her up and down the hallway; over, around, and behind the furniture; and underneath the dining-room tablerequiring me to shove it out of the way and thus allowing her to escape (a ruse I invariably fell for). I always heard the Benny Hill Yakety Sax music playing in my head as my fleet-footed feline nimbly evaded my grasp time after time, her fluffy white tail flying out behind her like a comet, untilwith a desperate lungeId snatch her up at last. Once caught, while I tried to hold the soft carrier open with one hand and shove her into it with the other, Vashti would splay out her hind legs like a jackrabbit, thwarting my efforts by making herself too wide to fit through the carriers opening. By the time I finally managed to prop the bag open with enough stability that it stayed that way on its own, one of my hands holding Vashtis rear legs together and the other firmly clutching the scruff of her neck as I wrangled her into it, I was already panting and exhaustedand I still had two cats to go.

Scarlett was on the chubby side and, although shed put up a token effort at running away, far easier to catch. Still, her wild hisses and snarls as I corralled her into her carrier informed me in no uncertain terms that I was the Cruella De Vil of cat moms. Homer, who never shied away from confrontation, didnt run away at all. Once I had him in my hands, he simply transformed himselfTasmanian Devillikeinto a whirling mass of fur and claws. I didnt so much place Homer in his carrier as blindly aim him in its general direction, holding him out at full arms length, until the physics of it aligned by pure chance and he was somehow safely inside, slashing frantically and popping his head out through the opening to the last as I held him down and zipped the flap shut above him. (A few years later, I would make the mistake of scheduling a routine vet appointment for Homer ten days before my weddingand then spend those ten days with my hands covered in honey, because Id read someplace that honey helped wounds heal faster, and the uncomfortable stickiness of it, even amid all the last-minute stress of wedding planning, still seemed preferable to standing up in front of everyone I knew, in my exquisitely pristine gown, while Laurence tenderly placed a wedding ring onto a hand as scraped and scabby as a tomboys kneecaps.)

Even under normal circumstances, I was never at my coiffed and perfumed best by the time I finally sank into a chair in the vets waiting room. But this particular day had been far from normal. My hair was frizzed up to outrageous heights, my mascara had puddled in black pools under my eyes, and I dont know if you could really call what was happening on my sweat-soaked shirt pit stains, given that the wet patches radiated out from my actual armpits to meet in the middle of my chest.