In the beginning of April, I wrote a column in the Airdrie City View about the dog my husband and I recently adopted.
I received a ton of feedback on the article so I decided to follow it up with one about the cat we adopted five years ago.
You may wonder why I wrote a column about my dog after only having her for a couple of months and it has taken me five years to share any stories about my cat.
That question has one simple answer: Our cat Chester is evil.
I know what you are thinking. Why did she get a cat if she doesn’t like them? I do like them, well I did. I have had seven cats in my lifetime and I have loved every one. They have had names ranging from the obvious – Tabby and Marble, to the odd – Dookie and Binkie. Each one has had its own personality, but they have all generally been loving, furry animals who curl up on your lap and sleep, while you watch TV.
Not Chester – In five years, he has never sat on my lap. My head, chest and even arm, while on the arm rest of the couch, have all been perching places for our feline, but never once my lap.
Chester is a vocal cat. That doesn’t mean he gives a soft meow when he is hungry or that he purrs a lot. He likes to scream, loudly any time day or night just to hear his own voice. If anyone walks into our house, he serenades them with primal screams and growling and sometimes, if they approach him despite our stern warnings, a hiss.
He attacks your feet if you are walking around the house (or in the case of my in-laws, trying to take care of him while my husband and I are on vacation).
He even thwarted some big, tough construction guys from working on our house when we weren’t home because he attacked them every time they tried to walk up the stairs.
When I say attacks your feet, I don’t mean bats at them playfully without using claws. I mean he tries his hardest to rip your leg off from the ankle. If you stay still long enough he will get his teeth in on the fun too.
In fact, he broke one of his front fangs off and we are not sure who he was chewing on at the time…
We think his delightful disposition may have something to do with the fact that he is almost certainly inbred. He was born on a farm where the farmer was going to drown him and his two siblings but was saved by someone who brought him to the veterinary clinic in Chestermere where my aunt worked at the time.
There are two things you must know about my family:
A) We love all animals (I mean all. My aunt – the same one mentioned above – has shared her home everything from hermit crabs to hedgehogs to a disabled duck and a 200-plus pound pig named Winston who lived in her kitchen).
B) We take in all waifs and strays. From friends who want to stay for dinner or need somewhere to crash for a while to stray animals of all kinds.
Another thing you need to know is that my husband does and always has despised felines. His whole family is on the “Cats are Evil” bandwagon. Before we (read: I) took Chester in, I spent several years telling Matt how wrong he was and how great cats are…Oooooops! Being an incredible man and loving husband Matt agreed to let me take Chester home and he now recalls that as the biggest mistake of his life.
In all seriousness, Chester is a brat. He really does attack people and scream at nothing at all hours but we love him. If the Earth is in the correct orbit and the stars align, he will snuggle on your chest and he lets Matt and I pet him … occasionally. In short, he is a handful. It’s a good thing we got a dog to put him in his place.
