> Leaving cats when you go on holiday (some offensive language)
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Peridodically, we all need to go on holiday.  Being British, thoughts 
> inevitably turn to Europe.  Sun-drenched Mediterranean coastal bays, 
> free-flowing wine, sparkling swimming pools, beaches draped with soiled 
> Union Jack condoms and lots of drunken fighting - it makes a man happy 
> to be alive.  However, there is always a cloud on the horizon, and in 
> this case it took the form of a tabby and a black & white, and what to 
> do with them for two weeks.  They both knew we were planning a holiday 
> from the moment I arrived home with the brochures and they promptly sat 
> on them.  Although it is said that cats can't form facial expressions, I 
> could read their saddened faces like a book.  Like a child on Christmas 
> morning who's just unwrapped an anthology of biblical fables, hidden 
> craftily inside a Nintendo 64 box.
> 
> My wife tried to console the tabby, stroking his head:
> "There, there...don't worry...you'll have a great time at the kennels"
> His thoughts were obvious.
> "Oh yes, a great time.  We'll get our heads kicked in again by that big 
> ginger bastard who's still got his plums."
> "Yeeeeees...and you'll be able to be with all those lady cats again."
> "Well I won't be bloody able to do anything with them, will I?  Not 
> since you had our spuds whipped off, you vicious bitch.  Have you any 
> idea of how insulting a midnight chorus of  "Tabby can't get a woody" 
> can be?   Maybe we can just hold paws or something.  Me-fucking-ow.  
> Anyway, I'd rather go upstairs and moult on your clean underwear pile".
> 
> There was one benefit on leaving at this particular time.  The cats were 
> starting to moult.  Anyone who has ever lived with a cat who is moulting 
> will know the absurd amount of  hair that a cat can actually lose in the 
> approach to summer.  The state of our house during moulting season puts 
> you in mind of a 1970's Army barbers shop floor if The Jackson Five had 
> ever been drafted.  I could annually stuff a quilt.  And the bloody 
> stuff gets everywhere.  I've been getting into the bathtub before now, 
> and had to pause first to tease a few inexplicable tabby wisps from the 
> crack of my bottom.  But, you would surely think that the modern vacuum 
> cleaner would cope with a few cat hairs.  Our twin turbo super electro 
> vac could easily whip off a tightly glued wig, but point it at a sofa 
> covered in cat hairs, and a few seconds later the motor smokes, 
> whimpers,  then belches last week^Òs cat litter spillage all over the 
> cushions.
> 
> I made the arrangements for the kennels.  After hours of poring over the 
> Yellow Pages, I decided upon the advertisement which had a picture of a 
> beaming cat, with the lie "reasonable rates" printed underneath.   The 
> woman I spoke to on the telephone actually sounded like a cat. She gave 
> the impression that she'd much prefer to go in each kennel in the 
> evening, stick her bottom in the air and shout "Wiaooooooo", than be 
> cleaning out litter trays on a daily basis.  But finally the dates were 
> arranged.
> 
> And eventually, slowly, the holiday date came around.  Oh, the joy of 
> the last day at work before a holiday.  It's so difficult not to look 
> smug as you leave.  When the clock ticked to five-thirty, and I had 
> carefully hidden my preferred pens and mouse mat, I skipped out of the 
> office like Bambi, and drove home.  Now we were ready to go.  We had 
> everything we needed for the trip.  Camera, sun cream, and various 
> remedies for "Tummy upset".  (Point of note - none of these actually 
> work.  You still end up spending hours on the lavatory groaning "Oh 
> Please God make it stop coming out" whilst your partner paces up and 
> down outside shouting "For the Love of the Lord get a move on in there, 
> I can't nip these buttocks together a moment longer and I'm wearing your 
> shorts").
> 
> All that remained was to get the cats to the kennels. I thought I had 
> this one nailed.  Our pet doors have a cunning mechanism that allows you 
> to make them one-way.  Cats can come in, but not go out again.  So, all 
> I had to do was set the doors in that mode, and wait.  In practise, 
> however, what really happened was that the cats gambolled merrily 
> outside, occasionally sticking their noses against the window and 
> shouting "Loser" in cat language.  There was no alternative, I had to go 
> out into the garden and catch them.  This started out being a bit of 
> fun, until one of the cats disappeared under the hedge - his favourite 
> toilet location - and the spot where my wife had tenderly nurtured some 
> delicate roses.  I had to get him out before it was too late....
> I haven't been getting on very well with my neighbours recently.  We 
> live in an adjoining house, and I believe I can trace the start of the 
> discord - somewhere around the time I used my wife's library ticket to 
> borrow "How to learn to play the drums using only your household pots 
> and pans".  However, any trace of reconciliation was shortly to go out 
> of the window, and it was so unfair.  You see, I genuinely didn't 
> realise that my neighbour was inches away from me - grubbing around in 
> his side of  the hedgerow with a trowel, getting his balding, wispy pate 
> all covered in leaves. All I knew was that I desperately wanted my cat 
> to go back in the house before he made his latrine, and therefore a 
> raucous shout of  "For fuck's sake don't you dare shit under my hedge 
> you ugly moulting bastard" seemed perfectly justified in the 
> circumstances.
> 
> It worked, too.  Whether the cat was more frightened by my outburst or 
> the subsequent one from my neighbour was unclear, but one of the cats 
> bolted back to the house, with the other hot on his tail.
> 
> In a previous story, I have described the nightmare of getting a cat to 
> go into a cat basket when he doesn't want to.  I have no wish to go 
> through the pain of the memory again.  It's enough to say that during 
> the procedure, you will come to learn how much your humble nose can 
> actually hurt when it's got a couple of claws in it,  and your cat will 
> do more growling than Grizzly Adams applying his haemorrhoid ointment.
> 
> At last it was done - both cats boxed up in their stout wicker baskets, 
> looking angrier than a WWF wrestler who's just discovered that he 
> performed his last bout with a post-it note saying "I am a homo and my 
> mother farts" stuck to his back.
> 
> I put them in the back of the car.  My wife and three-year old son 
> jumped in as well, everyone put their seatbelts on, and I had a quick 
> look around.  Everyone buckled up, with my son giggling delightedly 
> saying "Pippin and Tog are in the car".
> 
> The journey started off well.  I knew exactly where we were going, and 
> it wasn't a long haul.  The sun was shining, and everyone was content.  
> Except, that is, for the two prisoners on the back seat. As we drove, I 
> started to hear low growling and murmuring.  Then - the worst sound of 
> all - claws going to work on wicker.  I decided to ignore it. 
> 
> Conversation is essential in a car, and, depending on whether or not our 
> son is present, our conversation is either on along the lines of "Did 
> you see that Big Red Fire Engine going "toot toot" down the road?", or 
> "Look at that twat in that Ford haven't you got any indicators on that 
> bloody thing you clueless fucker".  However, the next two words my son 
> said were probably the most grave that had ever been spoken in that car. 
>  He was so amused he could barely get the words out between giggles, and 
> he quite clearly didn't appreciate the magnitude of what he said.
> 
> "Pippin's out".
> 
> I span round to look at what was going on, and immediately got a face 
> full of cat. I desperately tried to see the road, peering over the top 
> of a mouth full of angry tabby wrapped around my chops.  "MffmffmFFFF", 
> I yelped, to which my son replied "Tog's out as well, Daddy".
> 
> The other cat had seen what his brother was doing, and also leapt up 
> onto my seat back.  My head was now completly engulfed by fur and claws, 
> and it looked like I was wearing two really angry Russian hats.  An 
> elderly gentlemen who was leisurely overtaking us caught a glimpse of my 
> huge wriggling furry beard and spat out his dentures.
> 
> With my wife reaching over to grab the steering wheel, I eventually 
> managed to pull the cats off my head, but it was quite clear they 
> weren't in a mood for curling up and going to sleep.  This was a shame, 
> and unusual.  There is a lesson to be learned from cats in the sleeping 
> department.  It can be the sunniest, brightest day, and you can be 
> playing your stereo so loudly that your deaf neighbours come round and 
> complain about it in sign language, and yet your cat will saunter into 
> the room, curl up by the sub-woofer, and drift off to sleep instantly.  
> Three minutes later he will decandently stick his legs in the air and 
> dribble a bit.  Five minutes later his whiskers will twitch.  Ten hours 
> later he'll reluctantly shuffle up off his arse and go to eat a plate of 
> food only slightly smaller than him.
> 
> Anyway, that was not happening now.  The damn things were more lively 
> than James Brown after a refreshing holiday and a course of Ginseng, and 
> were performing a wall of death around the car windows.  Until one of 
> them decided that he'd had enough, and was going to hide.  Under the 
> brake pedal.  Now here was a problem.  We were travelling at 70mph on 
> the motorway, and the only way I could stop the car was by flattening a 
> cat.  Since I didn't fancy having tears from wife and child throughout 
> the holiday, I had to find another way of stopping the car, and the only 
> thing I could think of was the handbrake.  Personally, I thought it was 
> quick thinking.  But moments later, when my wife was peeling her nose 
> from the windscreen and massaging the seat belt weals in her shoulder,  
> the only  thanks I got was "You stupid knobhead" whispered right in my 
> ear.  I took my trouser belt off, put both the cats in one basket, and 
> fastened the belt around it tighter than it had ever been fastened.  
> Including immediately after Christmas dinner (when it is so tight that 
> the leather turns white and makes creaking noises).  My wife put the 
> basket on her knee, and we set off again.
> 
> "Let the cats out again, Daddy"
> "No."
> 
> We arrived at the kennels.  The woman who I had spoken to on the 
> telephone came out to meet us, and I was astonished to find that she 
> actually looked like a cat.  When I think of her now, I actually picture 
> her with a great bushy tail, which started swishing moodily when I asked 
> to pay with my Visa card. 
> 
> We walked over to the kennel area.  I have never seen as many cats in 
> one place in my life.  They all froze in mid-preen as we entered the 
> area and I felt a hundred green eyes burning into us.  Then they started 
> chattering.  Quite obviously they were fascinated by our arrival, and 
> were presumably making scathing comments about the quality of our cats'
> fur (cat fur is of incredible quality, but you never see Vidal Sassoon 
> producing a new brand with "Contains Cat Spit" flashed all over the 
> box).  However, because of the time of year, every cat in sight was 
> moulting.   All Tele Salvalas would have had to do is stick a bit of 
> glue on his bonce and rummage his head around in a few of the kennels.  
> He'd have had a freshly carpeted thatch in seconds.
> 
> I couldn't wait to get out, but my wife and son wanted to spend some 
> time saying "good bye" to our two, which predictably didn't get a 
> tearful response.   The two cats sat looking disinterested, sniffing 
> grumpily at the bowls of food in front of them and turning their nose up 
> because it wasn't their favoured brand of that particular hour.  
> Eventually we got back in the car.  The kennel's proprietor gave us a 
> jaunty flick of her tail, with a cheery "They'll be fine, and they'll be 
> looking forward to seeing you again". 
> 
> We had a wonderful holiday, enjoying the usual five "S"s - sun, sea, 
> sand, sickness and stolen wallet, and I came back home feeling refreshed 
> and invigorated with my lightly tanned skin and purged bowels.  
> Immediately after our arrival, my wife and son wanted to go pick up the 
> cats, insisting that they^Òd have been missing us.
> 
> We drove back to the kennels, with my wife frantic about the state of 
> the cats.  This was starting to wear a little thin, and I got a bit 
> snappy.  "Yes they'll be fine for God's sake and no they are not your 
> babies - I'd like to have seen you breastfeed those two on the bus", 
> which predictably didn't go down to well. 
> When we got to the kennels, I paid an amount of money which would have 
> kept a Third World family in food and footwear for generations, and got 
> our cats back.  "Oooooh" squeaked my wife, happy to see them.  On the 
> way home, the cats sat quietly in their baskets, presumably knowing that 
> they would shortly be returning to a place where there were no 
> restrictions on the damage they could do.
> 
> When we got home,  our neighbour welcomed us back with a tight, thin 
> smile.  However, even that disappeared when he noticed that one of our 
> cats had scooted under the hedge and was,  with a quivering tail and a 
> very serious expression, shitting on his rhubarb.
> 
> ------------------------------
> Matthew Gaunt
> matthewg@firtree.u-net.com
> Story 4 out of 4.
>