A week or so ago I mentioned a story I wrote about shoving a cat in a mailbox. Several comments were made about it so here ya go. It’s a true story. I hope you enjoy.
There are things that kids learn. These things don’t come from a teacher or parents, these things are the little life lessons that become fundamental truths. They can’t be taught, they have to be experienced. I believe they differ from region to region but all of them build the foundation for a basic wisdom that all kids must acquire, or be thought of as a fool forever.
Baptizing cats.
Almost everyone I know has tried it. It’s one of those things that only get tried once. I don’t know what it is that makes kids decide to save cats’ souls but inevitably on every lazy Sunday afternoon kids all over the country decide to try and baptize a cat. I’m sure that at some time in the long and torrid history of kids and cats a successful baptism was performed. I am equally sure that with many skin grafts and a skilled plastic surgeon the Cat Baptist recovered limited use of his or her arms.
The type of Baptism attempted on a cat depends of the religion of the child. Catholic kids generally sprinkle, Baptist kids go for full emersion. They all end up with a half-crazed wet cat climbing their arm while making a sound that most of the time is only heard in the deepest pits of hell. I have a theory that cats are demons that did something merciful in hell and got sent to earth as punishment for that transgression.
Cat Baptist recognize one another, as kids it’s by the fading scars on arms and faces. As adults just saying “Baptizing cats” will cause a laugh or big smile. I often wonder if Jewish kids have a similar experience. If they do a part of me hopes it more along the lines of a Bar Mitzvah and not a brisk.
The Cat Baptism made me think of another truth I learned as a kid that also involved a cat.
A standard size Post Master General approved mailbox is the perfect size to hold a demon cat
I have a sister that is ten years older than me. When I was about 8 years old she decided that she was an adult and my mom and dad’s rules were not to her liking. She moved out on her own. About two months later my mom and dad’s rules were not as bad as she remembered and she moved back home. She brought a cat. Now I had grown up with cats and having recently failed as a Cat Baptist I really didn’t want much to do with them. This particular cat is the one that made me come up with the idea that cats are demons.
We had always had cats that were indoor/outdoor. The idea of an animal not being allowed outside was completely foreign in my house. But this demon/cat was not allowed outside. The only place it wanted to be was outside and it spent a great deal of time plotting its jail break. This was the type of cat that only one person could get close to. It spat and clawed anyone else. I was its target of choice and the cat and I had on ongoing battle. My sister would say I was being mean to the cat, I would say that cat is being mean to me. It had attacked me from every possible direction and would change its tactics all the time. It did things to annoy me intentionally. One of its favorites was walking across the piano in the middle of the night. I would get up to shut the lid over the keyboard and it would attack me.
As much as a disliked that cat I was afraid of my sister. She was 6 feet tall and was the kind of sister who would beat you within an inch of your life and then tell you that if you told your parents she would beat you again. Now in all fairness to her, I had my own brand of evil and for every beating I got there were 10 things I did to bring my own brand of justice to the house that there was never enough evidence to convict me on.
So one fine summer day I was heading out into the world to find my own way, as I opened the door the cat made its escape attempt. It had made a good plan and instead of trying to dodge around me it charged right across my feet and legs. It being summer in the south shoes were not an article of clothing I wore often so it drew first blood that day and escaped. As I watched it tear off across the yard and disappear down the street I knew I had to catch it. I knew if I didn’t my sister may well kill me. As a debated the merits of running away vs catching the cat I saw it taunting me from the neighbor’s yard. As god as my witness it flipped me the bird, and turned its back to me and marched away. The hunt was afoot and my prey was cat.
The cat and I fought an epic battle that day. I saw myself as Gunther Gabel Williams, the famed animal trainer from Ringling Bros circus and the cat was a beast that had to be captured for the good of all mankind. As I made it to the neighbor’s yard I again caught a glimpse of the cat. It was stalking a squirrel. Its back was turned to me and I charged it, it ran across the street and took refuge in the one place I feared. A solid hedge row holly bushes, these things were 8 feet tall and six feet wide. They were a thing of legend in my neighborhood. Many balls and toys had been lost forever to that hedge row. It was impossible to retrieve anything from them without getting scratched to death. I had once wrecked on my bike and went into them headfirst. I will admit I almost gave up at the hedgerow.
I could hear the cat moving around in the hedges. I went up and opened the branches, suffering the pokes and prods of the holly leaves and caught sight of the cat. It was cornered and I knew I had won. I lunged and got the cat.
This is where another one of the truths of life comes in. When you think you have caught a cat you haven’t. It has actually caught you.
That cat proceeded to howl and scratch me in every possible way. It was clawing my arm and climbing my chest at the same time. It was biting at my face and I swear at one point it was on top of my head. I had made it across the street somehow and realized that I had to let the cat go. That when I saw the mailbox.
I shoved the cat into the mailbox and slammed it shut. My plan was to go home and get a pillow case to transport the cat in, but I confess I did take the time to throw a few rocks at the mail box as well as toss a few of my best curse words around just because I felt the need. I was covered from head to toe in holly bush scratches as well as bore the wounds from the cats counter attack. I staggered home, bandaged my wounds, and got a pillow case.
As I was going back to resume the good fight the mail jeep was coming down the street. I will admit that I had used the mailbox as a holding place in the past. I had put frogs, beetles and other boyhood treasures in my mailbox from time to time and the mail man and I had an ongoing battle. He had spoken to my parents about my actions so in my mind he was even more of an enemy than the cat. He had developed the habit of opening our mailbox a little and making sure it contained nothing evil. The thing was I had shoved the cat into a mailbox a few houses down the street.
I watched him think he had cleared the minefield that was our mailbox and he saw me as he passed. I just waved. A part of me thought about warning him about the cat but I didn’t. Now I am convinced that cats work under a whole set of physics laws that have yet to be discovered. That cat had gotten turned around in that mailbox. I was expecting the mailman to open the mailbox to the south end of a northbound cat. What he got was a full frontal attack.
As he opened the mailbox the cat launched itself. I swear it was just a blur. That poor mail man had no idea that was in the jeep with him. It passed through his window making a sound I had never heard from any animal and have never heard again. It crossed his lap and hit the tray that held all the sorted mail, I swear I saw a mushroom cloud of letters mixed with shreds of Postman uniform and fur form in that jeep.
This is where another of life little truths come in.
Properly motivated, a full grown man can scream better than a teen aged girl.
The Postman screamed a long loud scream that seemed to vary in pitch and tome with the position of the cat in the jeep, Later in life when I learned about a banshee’s moans I realized that was the sound the Postman Made . His scream mixed with the unnatural sounds coming from the cat made this weird harmony. They hit a resonant frequency together that was both terrifying and beautiful. We were only a second or two into what became known as the Cat-Mailman Incident and already I had seen things that defied nature. It was about this time that the cat started doing laps in the jeep. It was heading from front to back about 60 times a second. The cat-mailman duet took on the sound of an air raid siren except that there was no an occasional sob from the mailman. The mailman was in a state of shell shock and the neighborhood kids had taken notice. They were looking at each other and the mailman and then, all at once they realized that someone was going to get blamed. It took less time for those kids to scatter than it had for the cat to clear the launchpad-mailbox. The mailman drove the jeep forward enough to get the door open and he bailed out like he was escaping from a B-17 on fire. It was a full face first dive. I guess he failed to set the brake because the jeep and cat rolled on down the street. I saw the cat leap out just as soon as the jeep hit the curb and came to a full stop.
I made my way home and took refuge the rest of the day. Now I was suspected of putting the cat in the mailbox but no one had actually seen me do it. I was questioned at length because I was the usual suspect in crimes of this nature. From prior experience I had learned to keep my mouth shut, that no matter what the adults said they would not find out anyway, this was where I learned about what I later came to know as the 5th amendment. The cat came home on its own. We had a truce of sorts. The mailman took up heavy drinking and was later the victim of the largest snowball in the history of my neighborhood. But that’s another story. I need to talk to a lawyer before I tell that one. The statute of limitations may not have expired.
