5:36 p.m. - 2004-08-18
Pallet Cats I have known

Pallet Cats I Have Known

Pooh Bear, our pallet cat was both adorable and bad today and got me to thinking about Midtown Pallet and the cats we have had.

Dusty, was a tiny kitten. Dan's cat had kittens and he brought one to Midtown pallet, only 8 weeks old and smaller than the rats she would have to fight. I had no pets at home and my husband forbade us to have any animals...especially a CAT!

I started bringing Dusty home every day because she was too young to leave alone. I thought my daughter would get a kick out of having a kitten to play with. Every day, my husband would ask "when is that @#$)% cat going to live at Midtown Pallet?"

Every day I would answer sadly "When she is bigger than the rats".

Michelle and I fell in love with Dusty and I knew the day was coming when I would no longer be able to bring her home. One day, I was feeling particularly strong....it hadn't dawned on me that Mike had stopped asking about the cat. I picked her up and said "say good by to Dusty...tomorrow she stays at Midtown Pallet"

His face fell...he looked like he was going to cry...after a minute or so he asked, "Does she have to go?"

I almost did handstands....he actually fell in love with her too...seems that she was such a good cat and such a good pet that she shatterd any pre conceived notions he had about cats.

Dusty was a good hunter and loved to be outside. She soon had us well trained as servants and could be out at any time of day or night. When she wanted in, she would simply find the window of what ever room we were in and pluck the window screen, causing a harplike sound and we would wake up or stop what ever we were doing an let her in. We hardly ever had to clean her box because she shat outside and ate out too. She cleaned the entire neighborhood out of field mice. Often, I would come home to a headless mouse carcass with the entrails spilling out of it's belly as a reward for being such a good cat servant.

She hunted birds and that bothered me, but she left my pet cockatiel, Alex, alone and the two lived in peace not paying much attention to each other.

When Dusty hit breeding age, she had 3 boyfreinds and the four of them kept the entire culdesac up at night caterwalling at each other. Then came the kittens....

You know...world peace could be achieved if everyone had a lapfull of kittens.

We eventually got her fixed because the kittens were hard to place and I didn't want to ever risk having kittys that would have to go to a shelter.

Dusty was also a hero cat. I remember being out in the yard when a viscious, large dog came charging around the corner. The little girl who owned the dog was running after it with a leash and it was not happy...the little girl was afraid of her own dog. Dusty was sitting on the ledge of the house and the dog was about to spring on me, it's lips pulled back in a snarl, when Dusty, the flying cat, flew like superman (she didn't have time to put on her cape) and flew between me and the dog, distracting the dogs attention long enough for the little girl to slip the leash on and we were all saved.

Sadly though, we live 1 block from a large forest preserve with several coyote families. Dusty used to love to hunt in that forest and one day, she did not come home. We waited for her for several weeks. It was November. I cried every day. Eventually we realized that Dusty was not coming home. There was no sign of scoop up on any of the roads and all I can figure is that a Coyote got her....either that or a hawk.

After a few weeks we NEEDED another kitten. Was I wrong to replace an animal I loved...No...it was for the memory of Dusty, who taught us that because of her,....we could never live again...without a cat.

It was nearing Christmas and kittens that you can't give away during the rest of the year, suddenly become worth 90.00. I couldn't bare to wait until after Christmas and the shelters did not have kittens...I wanted a kitten. One day, my boss passed a farm that had a sign that read, "Kittens $15.00"....Michelle and I drove out to that remote farm in a terrible snow storm where we got Abby....We don't let Abby out....we don't want her to become Coyote food like Dusty...It is sad...but she is alive and 8 years old.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about another Pallet Cat. Abby is not a pallet cat and being that she lives a boring life cooped up inside, there is nothing more to tell you about her except that she is very very fat and loves to do nothing but eat and sleep....Oh...and she is epileptic.

Tomorrows installation...."Pallet Cats I have Known...Part II."

P. I. Yarnsmith

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