Sarah Nigbor

My animals never cease to entertain me. Trapper the Bagle hound and Snuggles the cat are a comedy show in themselves. I keep telling them to get a job to earn their keep; maybe I need to hire them an agent.

Last night, I was sitting on the sofa minding my own business when I heard an ear-shattering “Scree, scree, scree” sound. It seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. At first I thought somehow a bird had gotten into the house, but I soon realized that was not a bird sound. Trapper leapt off the couch barooing ferociously, when suddenly a ball of fur streaked by me and flew into our sunroom. Aha, I thought. Snuggles again caught a mouse. Sure enough, the beady-eyed little monster escaped Snuggles’ mouth and cowered in a corner behind my antique desk. Hubby grabbed the fireplace shovel and I armed myself with a poker. The cat darted back and forth like a lunatic, but the mouse got by all three of us and raced into my great-grandmother’s organ. Really? A trap is now set with a luscious piece of cheese, but Snuggles needs to stop bringing his prey upstairs to share.

My grandma, who died exactly one year ago, was a firm believer that animals belong OUTSIDE. As a no-nonsense farmwife, dogs and cats were not pets, but animals with jobs. Cats were meant to live in the barn as mousers. Period. Growing up I begged and begged to turn one of the barn cats into an indoor pet, but Grandma staunchly refused. I spent a lot of time with them in the barn and they followed me like the Pied Piper to the house every night, where I gave them a generous helping of Pounce. Grandma admonished me to stop feeding the cats on the back stoop, but I rarely listened. She kept a broom by the back door for the specific purpose of sweeping the cats off the stoop like dry leaves.

During one family dinner, as I innocently dined on turkey and gravy, my favorite barn cat Snowy made an appearance. Snowy was snow-white with orange ears and deep blue eyes. She was also mute. Grandma’s eyes grew enraged as Snowy climbed up the screen door and hung there desperately looking in at us, silently meowing, begging to be let inside. Grandma shot me a dirty look and went for her broom, scolding me for the 20^th time not to feed the cats on the steps.

One fine summer afternoon, Grandma decided to hang her freshly washed sheets on the clothesline. There is nothing like fresh sheets dried in a fragrant summer breeze; unless those beautiful sheets are ruined with cat urine.

Cuddles the tom cat, the leader of the barn cat gang, was not fond of Grandma. I think he resented being swept off the steps like a common speck of dirt. He was a handsome cat, white and gold, with green eyes and a muscular body. As Grandma happily hung her white sheets on the clothesline, Cuddles just as happily backed up to them, his tail aquiver. Before she could say boo, Cuddles sprayed those sheets with steaming, stinking pee. I heard the shriek from the house and immediately ran and hid; I knew nothing good could come from a sound like that.

The back door slammed open with a bang and Grandma stomped into the house like a mad wet hen, carrying her clothes basket. She took a soiled sheet out of the basket and stuffed it under Grandpa’s nose. “Smell that? Do you smell that? That’s what that cat did to my CLEAN SHEETS,” she roared. I hid behind my cracked bedroom door, witnessing the melee in horror. I silently told Cuddles to run while he still could, praying telepathy was real. Let’s just say I stopped feeding the cats on the back stoop.

Stay tuned another time for when my piano teacher’s cat jumped on Grandma’s head during my lesson. I think cats just knew she wasn’t fond of them.