I hate cats.

Growing up, I had dogs. Dogs are great. They love you and act like they love you. You can play games with dogs and teach them cool tricks. The only time my dogs ever bit me, they were puppies and just playing. Dogs can be helpful, too. They can herd your sheep, bring you your duck after you shoot it, bring your paper to you (for the 2 of y’all that still get a newspaper delivered), make you exercise, or do cool tricks. In college, one of my friends’ dog liked to drink beer, and if a drunk chocolate lab isn’t quality entertainment, then, you’re dumb.

Then, one day I fell in love and got married. The downside was that the marriage came with cats.

When we were dating, she had a cool cat by cat standards. At least I wasn’t terribly afraid it would cut my jugular while I slept and eat my eyeballs as I was bleeding to death. That’s not an irrational fear; I don’t care what you say. It never clawed or bit me, but it could have just been lulling me into a state of complacency. I’m not sure.

Unfortunately, 5 days and several hundred dollars in vet bills after we were married, the cat died unexpectedly. Despair filled our new house and was smothering all the newlywed happiness, so I agreed to getting a new kitten. I didn’t understand the timeline on those things at the time, so I thought we’d look around and get a kitten in a week or two. 

When I got home from work that day, there was a psychotic black and white hell beast trying to escape from my house. This thing was crazier than bald Britney Spears. It had a bad habit of escaping from the large cardboard box we taped it in every night, opening the living room door and swatting its paw under my bedroom door while screaming like a banshee. The only thing preventing me from being murdered in the night was that old solid wood door.

One night we decided to slide the couch in front of the door to keep the kitten in the living room. Somehow, the 10 week old kitten moved the couch, opened the locked door and was trying to get under my bedroom door at 4 a.m. 

Sometimes I take artistic liberties with my writings to add a little humor, but I swear on my signed Will Clark baseball bat that actually happened.

Oh… The cat’s name was Christopher. 

As soon as the vet would do it, we sent Christopher to get lightened up in the shorts area. He needed to calm down, and I wasn’t interested in having him start marking his territory. We already had a geriatric, incontinent chihuahua in the house.

While he was getting his sack cut, we had all his claws removed, too. First of all, I hate getting clawed. Second, I don’t want my furniture to get shredded. And third, I have a really expensive air cushion in my chair that I din’t want to get punctured.

You can call me cruel or mean or whatever you want to call me for having all his claws removed. I don’t care one little bit. In fact, if I could have talked the vet into removing Christopher’s teeth, I would have.

Did I mention I hate cats?

Fast-forward 2 years…

One day, some of the neighborhood kids were over trashing the house or playing- whatever you want to call it- and one of them left the door open allowing Christopher to escape. Once it was noticed he’d escaped, the kid was beside himself with despair, going up and down the street yelling his name and knocking on doors asking neighbors if they’d seen Christopher.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I hated that he was so upset over his cat running away. I really did. Losing a pet is traumatic. I cried like a baby when my lab died. BUT… My soul was doing a jig and blowing a vuvuzela in a state of  absolute euphoria at the prospect of no longer having a 4 legged death machine in the house.

However, after three days, the kid was super depressed about the loss. So, I agreed to letting him get a new cat. Once again, when I got home from work, there was a new kitten in the house. This one was kinda gray/ brown. At least, I think it was. I’m a little color blind. It’s name was Zuko.

Two nights after getting Zuko, we were sitting on the front porch enjoying the night air when my wife heard a cat screaming from across the street and said, “That’s Christopher, and he’s gonna get killed by another cat!” 

I told my wife she was just hearing things. There was no way that was Christopher. But, she bolted down the porch steps and beat feet across the street in the direction of the shrieking cat.

I sighed and poured the rest of my scotch down my throat. Then, I put my head in my hands and thought, “Dammit! If I’d have stayed the hell inside and watched reruns of Gilmore Girls with her, this wouldn’t be happening. Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

Sure enough, a minute later she emerged from the darkness holding Christopher, and I began living in a two cat household.

I hate cats.