For cat people: a hilarious tail (tale?)

[glennab]

Hi volunteers

I'm posting this for our "cat people", because it's one of the best raps to come out of our 10+ years of living with 12 of the monsters.

Prelude:  I rescued this houseful because a neighbor was poisoning strays with antifreeze.  Since animal control was involved and was rounding up all the unwanted cats and hauling them off to certain death, I trapped, cajoled, carried and persuaded every feline I could find into the house.  I managed to arrange homes for a few, but most are unadoptable, because they're either feral or not cute little kittens.  Iron Man dealt with it, because he knows how ferocious I can be if an animal is hurt of threatened.  Most of the time he declares his unwavering hatred of the entire pride.  They're messy; they weave in front of him when he walks - he swears just to try to kill him, yadda, yadda, yadda.  We've maintained a truce, because when he gets overly angry with them, I ask him to pick the first few to go to the pound to be killed (then I suggest his favorites: Smoke, Scooter, Hemi...).  Usually that ends the conversation.

Prelude addendum:  Iron Man has been unemployed since October.  Hence he's had to spend extra quality time with the fur butts.  Usually upon arrival home from work, I get a disposition on how much he hates, despises and abhors each and every one of them.

Son of prelude:  Since the cats live in limited space, I try to keep toys aplenty around so they don't get bored and become even more destructive.  Many are stuffed mice, feathered and catnipped objects, ping pong balls and pipe cleaners.  They have a game that, if they've worked especially hard to capture one of the "mice,"  they'll run to us, "victim" in mouth, talking up a storm about the bravery it took to nab this particular morsel.  We can hear conversations of this sort in the middle of the night when the nocturnal poops wake us up with particularly lengthy odes to their prowess.

The story:  last week Iron Man was unloading the van of boxes from the shop he's liquidating, and in the process he lost the only keys we have for that vehicle.  He called me at work, in panic because he couldn't find them, we only have the one set, and he NEVER loses things. Quote, unquote.  I advised him to backtrack and look everywhere he'd been.  I received a call an hour later.  Still no keys, oh woe, what was he going to do?

Two hours later I get another call.  Picture this:  Iron Man, totally frustrated, stands in the middle of the living room and tells the cats "Okay, guys, help me find the damn keys!"  Ten minutes later, Star, our prime predator, prances from my office, keys in mouth, telling an incredible tale of honor and bravery, brings them to Iron Man and plops them at his feet.

As Dave Barry says: "I'm not making this up!"  "Incidentally," Iron Man has made no further declarations of his distaste for the fur monsters.

GK

[Hannie]

Glenna, hubby just about cracked up after I read him your story!  I can't believe it, Star actually went and took his time looking for the keys... it is an amazing story. 
Star deserves a nice roast beef served, of course, by Iron Man!

:hug:

Hannie

[cmpentecost]

Hey Margie, did you ever find your keys?  If not, maybe you can borrow Star from Glenna!!

Chris

[Mhayes]

No, we never did recover the missing key. I'm tempted to ask GK to ship Star over, but would be afraid that it would be a one way ticket only. I think perhaps one of ours is keeping the key in a very secret place that will only be revealed after the car is gone.  ;D

Margie

PS Personally GK, I think the cats were playing mind games with Iron Man!

[Charlene5]

Oh Margie, I agree.  Cats know.

They'll never let Iron Man forget.  Never, never, never.  He's indebted to the furry horrors  ;D  Good for them and good for you, GK!

MJ

[Tess (Tassie D)]

lol Iron Man just got outdone by the furballs.   :funny:

[glennab]

Prologue:

The question is "who snagged the keys in the first place?"  Did they fall out of Iron Man's pocket or were they left on the table that's supposed to be a "no cat zone?"  "No cat zones" mean "okay, fur people, go ahead and get up there if Iron Man isn't looking and make off with whatever catches your eye."  He hadn't been in my office, so SOMEONE had to have captured the "mouse" and dragged it there.

Chris and Margie:  Iron Man has offered a ONE-WAY ticket to send Star to anyone who needs lost keys found. No returns; no refunds.

Sorry, but GK says nuh-uh.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story.  I've chuckled my way through work ever since it happened.  Unfortunately you don't get the benefit of hearing one of Iron Man's tirades about the cats.  Sometimes it's plain old beyond hilarious! (i.e. when I was feeling my worst last year and threatened to jump off the Skyway Bridge, he said he'd be following me in the van with the pride, and as I jumped he'd be throwing them over after me so I wouldn't be lonely wherever I ended up in the afterlife.  That shut GK up in a hurry!)

MJ and Tess, since the cats have lived with Iron Man for so long, they know just how to get his goat.  And they do it every chance they can.  We can hear the "whispers" at night and know that there's a plot afoot. Sometimes Scooter (our Alpha) can be heard talking at the top of his lungs, and we can picture him with a cat-sized clip board, handing out assignments.  Vewy, vewy scawy!

Never, ever let anyone convince any of you that felines aren't smart as whips!

Hugs,

GK