By Ellen Kunasek (Challenge~Desperation~Victory)
I guess we never should have let her go outside. Some cats will live their whole lives inside and never want to leave their window seat, but Missy was always driven to get out there, to explore. She was a friendly little thing – half Siamese, we guessed, because of her large ears and loud voice, but not possessed of the Siamese stand-offishness. We did try to keep her in, but inevitably she would dart between someone’s feet and she’d be off. I don’t think she ever ventured very far, but she did go into neighbors’ yards, and that’s how she got noticed by the crazy cat lady.
The crazy cat lady. That’s what we called her, because we never did know her name. We never even knew she existed, till we got Missy. We didn’t know for sure how old Missy was when she came to live with us, but she must have been at least 6 months old. She was more than half-grown, already long and lean and graceful, like her Siamese parent. If she had been a tiny kitten, maybe we could have trained her to be content inside, but she came to us already loving the outdoors, and determined to be out there whenever she could. It wasn’t long – about 2 weeks – before the crazy cat lady spotted her. We first became aware of her when we saw her poking around in the bushes of the house across from us. She was dragging a cat carrier, and we first thought she had lost a cat of her own, but when we went outside, she came over to us and informed us that there was a stray cat in the neighborhood. From the description she gave, we knew it was Missy, and we assured her that Missy was no stray, and that we were doing all we could to keep her safe at home. Just from that one conversation, it was clear that she was obsessed with stray cats, and seemed to feel any cat she saw wandering around outside was a challenge to her, to be caught and dealt with. What she did with them if she caught one, we didn’t ask and really didn’t want to know. Now I wish we had asked. We might not have lost Missy, and the cat lady might not have….. well, I’ll get to that later.
In spite of our assurances that Missy had a very good home, we weren’t sure we got through to her – she had what my dad would have called “crazy eyes.” I’m sure you know the type. One day not long after our encounter with her, Missy failed to come home, and we never saw her again. Of course, we knew the cat lady had gotten her. We had no proof – didn’t even know where the cat lady lived – and after asking all over the neighborhood, and calls to the local animal shelter, we finally gave Missy up for lost. It bugged me, I don’t mind telling you – it bugged me a lot. Bugged me because I didn’t know what had happened to her, whether she was abused, or put to sleep, or kept prisoner at the cat lady’s house – it could have been anything – and it bugged me because Missy was OURS, and this crazy person had taken her. I didn’t realize how much it was bugging me until one day, weeks later, I was out for a walk and I spotted the cat carrier on the back deck of a house a few doors down from ours. I knew it was the same cat carrier – it had a splotch of green paint on it that I had noticed the day we spoke to her. So, that was where she lived. Once I knew that, it was like I became obsessed, and in time, obsession turned to desperation – I HAD to teach her a lesson. I owed it to all the cats she had probably done away with.
You might wonder about that phrase “crazy eyes,” and why it reminded me of my dad. Well, at one time, he said I had them. I didn’t, of course, but he made the mistake of saying I did, and it just BUGGED me, you know? He had to be taught how wrong he was - it was just a question of how, and when. There’s no need to go into all that now – it’s a long time ago, after all – but let’s just say he isn’t in a position to comment on my eyes or anything else these days. And even though he was wrong about me, I really have to thank him, because he put me onto the fact that there is such a thing as crazy eyes, and if you see them, it probably means trouble. Just like it did with the cat lady.
But, to get back to what I was saying – we knew the crazy cat lady had to be taught a lesson. A pretty harsh lesson, we figured. She probably thought I was alone over here, and she could get away with stealing Missy, but she didn’t know that we are a family… me, the big black tomcat called Arnold, the ginger and white tom called Peaches, Fluffy, and Silky, and Twinkie, and a few I hadn’t named yet, but they were family, and they were all in on this decision. (Sometimes I think that the reason I like cats so much is that we are alike in our single-minded determination to have our own way, and our lack of remorse when we have to do things that might seem cruel.) So – we took a few days to mull it over, and decide just what sort of lesson would be appropriate for the cat lady. We finally decided that since she seemed so concerned with cats, we’d give her plenty of them to be concerned about.
Peaches and a few of the girls took to sitting in her back yard – far from the house at first, but a little closer every day. She saw them – oh, she saw them the first day they were there – but if she so much as came out her door, they vanished. Till the next time, of course. Next time, they’d sit a little closer to the house, and just…… watch. A few more cats joined them each day, too – I had plenty of family members who were just dying to get in on a thing like this – it was like sitting at the world’s biggest mouse hole, and they loved it.
While Peaches and the others kept the cat lady’s attention focused on her back yard, Arnold and a couple of the younger tomcats made sure they marked every inch of her front steps and the front of her house. They were thorough – they hit the flower beds, her car tires, even her front door. When a tomcat does that, it’s meant to be a powerful signal, and let me tell you, this was powerful. I bet you could have smelled it half a block down the street. That was only the beginning, though. One of the younger boys found a corner of loose screen on one of her basement windows, and once that screen was pulled back a little more, he was able to push the window open and get in her house. He didn’t waste any time – he went right to her bedroom and left her a nice steaming pile in the corner, and because he was a big boy and a healthy eater, he was able to leave another one in her living room, behind her couch. Then he sprayed her couch, just for an extra layer of odor, and was back out the basement window and gone.
We didn’t see her for a few days after that, but I did notice a carpet cleaning service van at her house, and a couple of days after that, a truck delivering new carpet. We kept our distance until all the carpet people were gone, but after that, my girls and boys were right back to their surveillance of her back deck. This time, though, they came right up on the deck, and stared in through the patio door at her. She wasn’t nearly so willing to come outside now – she saw them out there, but just closed the curtain…didn’t come outside at all. She must have called someone, though – men showed up with nets and cages, and tromped all over her yard, looking under bushes and even up in the trees. My boys and girls were not so easily caught though – not a one of them was anywhere near the place, and the men left with empty cages.
A few days later, a For Sale sign appeared in her front yard. Arnold and his pals refreshed their marking on the front of her house and her front door, late one night when the neighborhood was asleep, and the bold young tomcat who had gotten in through her basement window sneaked in again, one day when she wasn’t home. He did his usual two-mess job – both in the living room this time, because her bedroom door was closed. He gave it a good spraying, though, and was quite proud of his handiwork when he slipped out the basement window.
A couple of days later, there was a pile of carpeting out on the curb, waiting for the garbage truck to haul it away, and this time, no new carpet came to replace it.
The summer wore on, and no one seemed interested in buying the cat lady’s house. One day we saw her having an argument with the realtor, outside on her front walk. He was gesturing at the front of her house and shaking his head, and she seemed to be almost pleading with him. We couldn’t hear what was said, but it didn’t look like she got what she wanted, and when the realtor left, he took his sign with him.
It was a couple of days later, or rather, nights, when we heard sirens in the middle of the night. We looked out and saw that there were fire trucks just down the street at the cat lady’s house, and it was almost completely engulfed in flames. We kept our distance – there’s nothing fire fighters hate more than a bunch of looky-loos underfoot when they’re trying to contain a fire. A few minutes later, the ambulance went tearing up our street – they must have had a passenger inside, because they wouldn’t be speeding like that, with the siren going, if they didn’t. We knew the cat lady lived alone, so we guessed it must have been her in the ambulance.
According to our local paper, she was burned, but survived, and was now being suspected of arson. Apparently, the fire was suspicious because it started outside the house, along the foundation, and there was gasoline used to get it going. She denied having done it, of course, and in the end nothing was ever conclusively proved. She left town, the remains of her house were demolished, and our neighborhood went back to being a safe place for cats to roam, if they so desired. Even though she was gone, though, I know she wasn’t forgotten, because when I was out for my walk a few evenings ago, I passed some neighbors talking, and I caught the words “crazy cat lady” as I walked away.
It’s too bad that the neighbors haven’t been able to forget her – after all, she’s been gone for months now. I had no idea so many of them knew about her. Maybe she got their cats too, before she got Missy. She won’t get any more, though, at least not in this neighborhood, and that’s a victory for Missy’s memory, and for any other cats whose owners still miss them.
As for me, I’ll keep my family inside from now on, no matter how much they beg to go outside. You just can’t be too careful these days – you never know what kind of crazy person might be just next door.
I guess we never should have let her go outside. Some cats will live their whole lives inside and never want to leave their window seat, but Missy was always driven to get out there, to explore. She was a friendly little thing – half Siamese, we guessed, because of her large ears and loud voice, but not possessed of the Siamese stand-offishness. We did try to keep her in, but inevitably she would dart between someone’s feet and she’d be off. I don’t think she ever ventured very far, but she did go into neighbors’ yards, and that’s how she got noticed by the crazy cat lady.
The crazy cat lady. That’s what we called her, because we never did know her name. We never even knew she existed, till we got Missy. We didn’t know for sure how old Missy was when she came to live with us, but she must have been at least 6 months old. She was more than half-grown, already long and lean and graceful, like her Siamese parent. If she had been a tiny kitten, maybe we could have trained her to be content inside, but she came to us already loving the outdoors, and determined to be out there whenever she could. It wasn’t long – about 2 weeks – before the crazy cat lady spotted her. We first became aware of her when we saw her poking around in the bushes of the house across from us. She was dragging a cat carrier, and we first thought she had lost a cat of her own, but when we went outside, she came over to us and informed us that there was a stray cat in the neighborhood. From the description she gave, we knew it was Missy, and we assured her that Missy was no stray, and that we were doing all we could to keep her safe at home. Just from that one conversation, it was clear that she was obsessed with stray cats, and seemed to feel any cat she saw wandering around outside was a challenge to her, to be caught and dealt with. What she did with them if she caught one, we didn’t ask and really didn’t want to know. Now I wish we had asked. We might not have lost Missy, and the cat lady might not have….. well, I’ll get to that later.
In spite of our assurances that Missy had a very good home, we weren’t sure we got through to her – she had what my dad would have called “crazy eyes.” I’m sure you know the type. One day not long after our encounter with her, Missy failed to come home, and we never saw her again. Of course, we knew the cat lady had gotten her. We had no proof – didn’t even know where the cat lady lived – and after asking all over the neighborhood, and calls to the local animal shelter, we finally gave Missy up for lost. It bugged me, I don’t mind telling you – it bugged me a lot. Bugged me because I didn’t know what had happened to her, whether she was abused, or put to sleep, or kept prisoner at the cat lady’s house – it could have been anything – and it bugged me because Missy was OURS, and this crazy person had taken her. I didn’t realize how much it was bugging me until one day, weeks later, I was out for a walk and I spotted the cat carrier on the back deck of a house a few doors down from ours. I knew it was the same cat carrier – it had a splotch of green paint on it that I had noticed the day we spoke to her. So, that was where she lived. Once I knew that, it was like I became obsessed, and in time, obsession turned to desperation – I HAD to teach her a lesson. I owed it to all the cats she had probably done away with.
You might wonder about that phrase “crazy eyes,” and why it reminded me of my dad. Well, at one time, he said I had them. I didn’t, of course, but he made the mistake of saying I did, and it just BUGGED me, you know? He had to be taught how wrong he was - it was just a question of how, and when. There’s no need to go into all that now – it’s a long time ago, after all – but let’s just say he isn’t in a position to comment on my eyes or anything else these days. And even though he was wrong about me, I really have to thank him, because he put me onto the fact that there is such a thing as crazy eyes, and if you see them, it probably means trouble. Just like it did with the cat lady.
But, to get back to what I was saying – we knew the crazy cat lady had to be taught a lesson. A pretty harsh lesson, we figured. She probably thought I was alone over here, and she could get away with stealing Missy, but she didn’t know that we are a family… me, the big black tomcat called Arnold, the ginger and white tom called Peaches, Fluffy, and Silky, and Twinkie, and a few I hadn’t named yet, but they were family, and they were all in on this decision. (Sometimes I think that the reason I like cats so much is that we are alike in our single-minded determination to have our own way, and our lack of remorse when we have to do things that might seem cruel.) So – we took a few days to mull it over, and decide just what sort of lesson would be appropriate for the cat lady. We finally decided that since she seemed so concerned with cats, we’d give her plenty of them to be concerned about.
Peaches and a few of the girls took to sitting in her back yard – far from the house at first, but a little closer every day. She saw them – oh, she saw them the first day they were there – but if she so much as came out her door, they vanished. Till the next time, of course. Next time, they’d sit a little closer to the house, and just…… watch. A few more cats joined them each day, too – I had plenty of family members who were just dying to get in on a thing like this – it was like sitting at the world’s biggest mouse hole, and they loved it.
While Peaches and the others kept the cat lady’s attention focused on her back yard, Arnold and a couple of the younger tomcats made sure they marked every inch of her front steps and the front of her house. They were thorough – they hit the flower beds, her car tires, even her front door. When a tomcat does that, it’s meant to be a powerful signal, and let me tell you, this was powerful. I bet you could have smelled it half a block down the street. That was only the beginning, though. One of the younger boys found a corner of loose screen on one of her basement windows, and once that screen was pulled back a little more, he was able to push the window open and get in her house. He didn’t waste any time – he went right to her bedroom and left her a nice steaming pile in the corner, and because he was a big boy and a healthy eater, he was able to leave another one in her living room, behind her couch. Then he sprayed her couch, just for an extra layer of odor, and was back out the basement window and gone.
We didn’t see her for a few days after that, but I did notice a carpet cleaning service van at her house, and a couple of days after that, a truck delivering new carpet. We kept our distance until all the carpet people were gone, but after that, my girls and boys were right back to their surveillance of her back deck. This time, though, they came right up on the deck, and stared in through the patio door at her. She wasn’t nearly so willing to come outside now – she saw them out there, but just closed the curtain…didn’t come outside at all. She must have called someone, though – men showed up with nets and cages, and tromped all over her yard, looking under bushes and even up in the trees. My boys and girls were not so easily caught though – not a one of them was anywhere near the place, and the men left with empty cages.
A few days later, a For Sale sign appeared in her front yard. Arnold and his pals refreshed their marking on the front of her house and her front door, late one night when the neighborhood was asleep, and the bold young tomcat who had gotten in through her basement window sneaked in again, one day when she wasn’t home. He did his usual two-mess job – both in the living room this time, because her bedroom door was closed. He gave it a good spraying, though, and was quite proud of his handiwork when he slipped out the basement window.
A couple of days later, there was a pile of carpeting out on the curb, waiting for the garbage truck to haul it away, and this time, no new carpet came to replace it.
The summer wore on, and no one seemed interested in buying the cat lady’s house. One day we saw her having an argument with the realtor, outside on her front walk. He was gesturing at the front of her house and shaking his head, and she seemed to be almost pleading with him. We couldn’t hear what was said, but it didn’t look like she got what she wanted, and when the realtor left, he took his sign with him.
It was a couple of days later, or rather, nights, when we heard sirens in the middle of the night. We looked out and saw that there were fire trucks just down the street at the cat lady’s house, and it was almost completely engulfed in flames. We kept our distance – there’s nothing fire fighters hate more than a bunch of looky-loos underfoot when they’re trying to contain a fire. A few minutes later, the ambulance went tearing up our street – they must have had a passenger inside, because they wouldn’t be speeding like that, with the siren going, if they didn’t. We knew the cat lady lived alone, so we guessed it must have been her in the ambulance.
According to our local paper, she was burned, but survived, and was now being suspected of arson. Apparently, the fire was suspicious because it started outside the house, along the foundation, and there was gasoline used to get it going. She denied having done it, of course, and in the end nothing was ever conclusively proved. She left town, the remains of her house were demolished, and our neighborhood went back to being a safe place for cats to roam, if they so desired. Even though she was gone, though, I know she wasn’t forgotten, because when I was out for my walk a few evenings ago, I passed some neighbors talking, and I caught the words “crazy cat lady” as I walked away.
It’s too bad that the neighbors haven’t been able to forget her – after all, she’s been gone for months now. I had no idea so many of them knew about her. Maybe she got their cats too, before she got Missy. She won’t get any more, though, at least not in this neighborhood, and that’s a victory for Missy’s memory, and for any other cats whose owners still miss them.
As for me, I’ll keep my family inside from now on, no matter how much they beg to go outside. You just can’t be too careful these days – you never know what kind of crazy person might be just next door.