Chapter 4 - The Cowboy, the Critter and the Cat Sitter
The cat eyed me from a distance with a smug look, one that implied ‘I’m a cat – don’t mess with me gringo...’
Ok, I realise that cats might not actually be fans of spaghetti westerns but this one had a definite swagger about him, as well as unusually long fur on his legs which reminded me of the fringe on a Mexican bandit’s poncho. But although I felt that all-too familiar sinking feeling, I decided that I wasn’t about to let this particular feline get one over on me. It was time to show this cowboy exactly who was in charge...
Who was I kidding; this cat had me by the proverbial short and curlies, or would have if God had given cats thumbs. He was a big boy with a square jaw, the kind of cat that if he’d been human he’d have been Charlton Heston, and he could sense my apprehension, just as I could sense his mounting confidence. He was a brand new client and it was one of those jobs where, although the cat was allowed outside when the owner was at home he was to be kept indoors when they went away. However, it was agreed that I would allow him out for a sojourn around the garden during my visits, being given absolute reassurance that if I were to shake a packet of Dreamies he’d come scampering in.
“He does it every time, you won’t have any trouble!” the owner had said.
Hmm, the behaviour of this ‘no trouble’ cat took the biscuit, or Dreamie to be exact. At least I’d wished he’d taken the biscuit, then he’d be safely back indoors and I’d be merrily on my way to my next visit. So, having decided that this was war I implemented my fail-safe cat ensnarement battle plan:
Strategies That Didn’t Work:
Strategy 1: Ignoring the cat, nonchalantly going back inside the house, hoping he would follow. Have you ever tried to fool a cat and succeeded? Silly question.
Strategy 2: His favourite toy.... or so I was told.
Strategy 3: Tapping his expensive-looking porcelain food bowl against every hard surface in the immediate vicinity (without breaking it).
Strategy 4: Edging my way around the garden and making a lunging grab (an even sillier idea than Strategy 1).
Just as I was about to give up, leave the little darling outside and sentence myself to a night of sleeplessness, worrying about the perils he would face, or worse the fact that he might disappear completely, I had a brainwave. On my way to the house thirty minutes earlier, I’d driven passed a deceased squirrel on the road. To be quite frank I try not to spend my time looking at anything deceased on the road, let alone have cause to recall the gory image later, but it could be that this squirrel was just about to receive a posthumous award for bravery.
I quickly shut all the doors and scrambled back into my car so I could retrieve the squirrel before the council got their grubby paws on him (so to speak). I remembered exactly where he was. Just a few yards further on from a sign indicating where there was a bend in the road. I remember thinking it was ironic and that if only the squirrel had taken notice of the sign things could have turned out very differently for him. However, luckily for me, he wasn’t ‘au fait’ with the Highway Code and there he was, where I’d remembered, stiff and unmarked, looking like some gruesome piece of taxidermy.
Being completely unprepared for a mission of this nature, I suddenly realised that I neither had disposable gloves with which to handle the dearly departed squirrel, nor a suitable receptacle in which to deposit him. Nevertheless, I knew I had to do whatever it took to win the battle of wits between cat-cowboy and cat-sitter, so pushing all thoughts of health and safety firmly to one side, I picked up the squirrel with as few fingers as possible and swung him into the boot of the car, feeling like a felon furtively disposing of a body.
Now you might be wondering what the whole deal is with the squirrel. Well, I’d remembered the owner telling me that this particular cat was a big hunter. As it turns out, a ‘big game’ hunter, apparently bringing home, at regular intervals all manner of large beast. I was hoping that squirrel would turn out to be one of his favoured delicacies and that he liked it served fresh and very, very rare. Ok, so there were a few question marks about the absolute timing of the death of this no-longer fluffy-tailed rodent but I was really hoping that the cat wasn’t about to get finicky and send it back.
I arrived back at the house with a sense of anticipation. No doubt, when he saw me leave, the cat thought he’d won this particular encounter, but little did he realise that this time, he’d met his match. I entered the kitchen, opened the back door and surveyed the garden, naively assuming that the cat would be where I left him. However, to my frustration he was nowhere to be seen.
“Bugger, bugger, bugger,” I shouted loudly. Now whether or not this was how this cat’s owners normally called him in I’ll never know, but hearing my expletives I saw his head pop out of a bush as if it had a life of its own, his square jaw tensing as he watched me intently.
I hastened back into the kitchen and placed the squirrel on the tiled floor, making a mental note to give that particular tile a thorough going over with Cillit Bang or some such, later. To my mere mortal nose the smell being produced by the squirrel was already pretty noxious so I was counting on the cat’s far superior sense of smell to guide him towards his prey. However, as I looked at the motionless body I realised there was something missing in this whole scenario. Movement! Of course it would be no fun if the squirrel wasn’t wriggling around, so I opened up the large bag full of cat toys and catnip that I habitually carried around with me and pulled out an extra long shoelace from within.
As I tied the shoelace to the squirrel’s tail, I noticed its fur rippling in little sections, giving it an eerie sense of.... God forbid that it was still alive?! As I peered closer, holding my breath (and my nose), I noticed that the ripples were in fact being caused by swarms of fleas, frolicking in the squirrel’s fur. So great was my relief that I hadn’t been playing fast and loose with an alive, but fatally wounded squirrel, that I forgot to think about the consequences that the fleas might pose.
Shoelace now tied firmly in place I manoeuvred the squirrel over the threshold of the back door so it sat half in the kitchen and half on the patio. Meanwhile, the cat I noticed was watching my activities, a look of bemusement playing on his macho face. I hid behind the granite-topped kitchen island and tugged on the shoelace, making the poor old squirrel look like he was performing a quasi-hip-hop movement that had gone terribly wrong. What an undignified end.
As I came out of my musings on the pros and cons of tying the shoelace to the squirrel’s neck, rather than his tail, I realised to my surprise that the cat had been creeping up to the door. I held my breath and gave the shoelace another little tug. The cat was entranced; could he be falling for it?
As I jerked the squirrel around the kitchen island the cat followed, until I’d got us into the position where I was closest to the back door. Now what? Should I take a flying leap at the door hoping to get it closed in the quickest possible time, or should I tippy-toe over to it like a villain in a child’s nursery rhyme, and hope the cat wouldn’t make a bolt for it. I chose the latter option, but I needn’t have worried, the cat was busy devouring the squirrel, fleas’n all.
My next dilemma was whether or not to try and extricate the squirrel from ‘Jaws’ or leave him to it. It was then that the penny finally dropped; I had knowingly introduced fleas into the owner’s pristine home. Paranoia struck. Did the cat already have fleas? If not, would the fleas on the squirrel pack up their bags and head south for their winter break on the skin of an animal that had lovely warm blood coursing through its veins? Could I de-flea the house without the owners realising, and if they did could I pretend I was simply being pro-active, and risk offending them? Did they have cameras secreted around the house which were recording my every move?
I quickly glanced around, trying to ignore the crunching and slurping as the cat continued to enjoy his gourmet feast. I couldn’t immediately spot anything that looked like a camera, and at least with the cat being so focussed on the t
ask ‘in-paw’ I felt reassured that any potential flea infestation could be temporarily contained within the kitchen, assuming of course I was careful and kept the door between the kitchen and the rest of the house firmly closed, until I’d dealt with what was left of the unlucky rodent. With that in mind I decided to go in search of a large bin bag in which to wrap the squirrel remains.
Now you’d have thought that bin bags would be one of those indispensable items that are usually kept in the kitchen, but too much time spent over the years searching for them in peoples’ homes, along with items such as paper towels, newspaper and dustpans and brushes, had made me wise to the fact that they could be absolutely anywhere. This kitchen was large and modern with two rows of fitted cabinets lining three of the four walls, their half-moon shaped door handles giving the appearance of grinning idiots, teasing me mischievously. There was also a small utility room with yet more cupboards. I started my search by looking in what I thought would be the obvious place, the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Row upon row of cleaning products stared up at me, along with sponges, cloths, towels, grout whitener, plug hole sanitiser (I knew a few people whose plug holes I’d have liked to sanitise, I thought), a measuring tape, a wire coat hanger, bin-fresh powder and a collection of old knickers, used as emergency dusters no doubt.
This was a household which took its cleaning seriously. There was even one of those automatic soap dispensers on the sink, the kind you don’t have to touch. I have trouble with these; not only do I invariably spend a ridiculous amount of time waggling my hand about to get it in exactly the right position to trigger the dispensing of the soap, but they usually dish out such a huge quantity that I’m almost always left with a sticky residue on my hands even after lengthy rinsing. This dispenser was no different, and despite the fact that I’d been using it non-stop since handling the squirrel I still felt as if I should be carrying a bell and shouting ‘unclean’ to anyone who came too near; and was it my imagination, or was that an itch I could feel on my arm? I dreaded to think how the lady of the house would react if she could see the furry tail and matted carcass of what used to be a squirrel on her once gleaming kitchen floor, not to mention the now severed head which had rolled away from the body and had come to rest just inches from the fridge door.
I desperately needed to find the bin bags, but infuriatingly the one thing that was missing from the under the sink cupboard was this much longed for item. One by one I opened every cupboard door and drawer in the entire kitchen and utility room, looking ever more disheartened as each turned out to be a dead end. Under such desperate circumstances even a hole-ridden supermarket plastic bag would have done, after all I could always double-bag. Trying to think logically (generally a mistake) I reasoned that every kitchen has a special place where they keep their plastic bags, quite often stuffed in some odd animal-shaped drawstring bag hanging on the back of a door where you pull the bag out of what would be the animal’s mouth, or if it’s in particularly bad taste, out of its bottom, not unlike the rubber dishcloth holders in the shape of a cat’s rear end. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I pictured either one of these items in this very tasteful home with all its expensive looking artefacts. No, if the owners kept plastic bags at all then they were likely to be with the bin bags. As I cursed myself for not establishing their whereabouts with the owner at the outset, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Outside in the garden was a small outhouse, not far from the kitchen door... could they be hiding in there?
Experience had taught me that looking for bin bags in an outdoor location wasn’t as silly as it might seem, but there was no way I was going to risk opening the back door again, there were only so many dead squirrels I could scrape off the road in one day. So I decided to exit by the front door. Making sure I had the house keys in my still soapy hands, I took leave of the kitchen and made my way to the front door, then around the side of the house to the garden, praying that the door to the outhouse wasn’t locked. It wasn’t, and not only that, but ‘surprise surprise!’ inside I found some industrial strength bin bags, just the job! I tore a bag off the roll, plus another for good measure and closed the door to the outhouse. As I passed the back door I glanced through its leaded glass pane, but even before I could rearrange my face into a look of smug self-satisfaction, believing all would be well and I was completely on top of the situation, I saw that the cat was no longer where I’d left him, and neither was the furry-tailed carcass. All I could see was the squirrel’s head with its crooked grimace, looking like some sad consolation prize.
I charged around to the front door, opened it up and ran into the hall.
“Bloody hell!” I’d forgotten to close the door which led from the kitchen to the hall, meaning that the feline equivalent of Attila the Hun could have wandered throughout the house, leaving a trail of squirrel in his wake. Not only that but it wasn’t until I returned to the kitchen that I realised how foul the ‘eau de squirrel’ was and how it appeared to have permeated throughout the house. At this stage I was of the firm conviction that it would have been a better idea to have left the cat outside after all.
Following the blood-spattered path it wasn’t difficult to find the cat, sitting on top of the master bed, licking his paws daintily as if he’d just enjoyed an afternoon tea of cucumber sandwiches and fondant fancies. About a foot away from him laid the remains of the headless squirrel. In one way it was a relief to know that I wasn’t going to have to wrestle it off him in some barbaric tug of war competition, but on the other hand the fact that the remnants of the squirrel were now soaking into the otherwise pristine, white and expensive looking duvet, was a sight that nightmares are made of.
I quickly scraped the squirrel remains off the bed using the cat litter scoop picked up en-route to the bedroom, this was one time that I was grateful for the owner’s fastidious nature as the scoop had been scrubbed clean, unlike many that I encounter that usually come with pieces of old litter stuck to them, coated in cat wee and other unmentionables. With the squirrel safely tucked up in the bin bag I turned my attention to the stain on the bed. I knew in my heart of hearts that this was going to be a dry cleaning job, which would probably cost more than I was charging to look after the cat in the first place. Dejected, I ushered the cat indelicately off the bed, stripped the duvet cover from the duvet and bundled both downstairs, being careful not to tread in the blood soaked patches of carpet as I went.
Back in the kitchen, I revisited the cupboard underneath the sink, this time confident that I would find exactly the right cleaning product for carpet stain removal, although I’d have been surprised if I’d seen ‘squirrel-innards’ listed as a stain that could be easily tackled on any of the product labels. I immediately recognised a bright pink plastic bottle that housed carpet stain remover and grabbed it, along with a particularly lurid pair of old knickers that quite frankly deserved to be used for this particular task, and hastened about my cleaning duties. To my astonishment and delight the blood stains came out quite nicely, although it did help that the carpet itself was one that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a 1970s sitcom – swirling patterns of chocolate and burnt orange leapt out of it, quite easily making one feel like one had taken an illegal substance. However, being a hippy chick I quite liked it and felt sure it must be some sort of expensive statement piece.
Cleaning accomplished I was now able to fulfil my remaining cat-sitting tasks. I refreshed the litter tray, re-filled the water bowl and topped up the cat’s biscuit bowl. At this stage I would normally devote time to play and cuddles should the cat want them, but on this particular occasion I really did feel that I’d gone above and beyond the call of duty. So, satisfied that I was now ready to leave, I gathered up my belongings and headed for the door. As I turned the latch I felt another itch, this time on my ankle. I’d forgotten all about the ruddy squirrel fleas.
I wearily trudged back into the kitchen and headed straight for the cupboard housing additional supplies of wet and dry food
, cat treats, grooming brushes, spare food and water bowls and, worryingly, a packet of natural calming supplements for cats. However, my concern at finding out that the cat required calming supplements was overshadowed by an obvious omission from the stash of cat paraphernalia, there were no signs of either cat worming or flea treatments and certainly no household flea spray in evidence which, given the obviously fastidiousness of the owner, surprised me enormously. Should I telephone the vet and find out if they had sold the owner flea treatment lately? If they had it would certainly alleviate my fears about the cat being susceptible to the current infestation, but if they hadn’t I would potentially be ‘dobbing in’ the owners who no doubt would be given a lecture by the vet about the merits of regular de-flea-ing at their next visit. The risk of them finding out I’d been checking up on them was too great. I decided to ignore the potential for them arriving back to find their white -coated cat obviously covered in fleas (after all, he could easily have picked these up in the garden), and at least make amends by spraying the house. It was one thing for the cat to be scratching but quite another for the owners to discover fleas springing about on their arms and legs with gay abandon. I was either going to have to search the house for flea spray, or I was going to have to go out and buy some. The thought of the going through all the cupboards AGAIN was almost worse than the effort it would take to go out and buy a tin of household flea spray, but I decided to give it one last shot. Surely if it was going to be anywhere, it would be in the dreaded under the sink cupboard? I spent the next few minutes crouched on my haunches sifting through the various containers to ascertain their suitability for the task, but once again it soon became apparent that I wasn’t going to find what I needed in that cupboard. So I continued my search by taking a re-visiting all the others, even those containing foodstuffs, crockery, glassware and oven trays. Bingo! Nestling in the cupboard under the oven, besides the oven gloves, plastic measuring jug, rolling pin and potato ricer was a tin of ‘Doom’ insect spray. I did wonder what a tin of insect spray was doing in such an odd place. Perhaps someone had experienced a senior moment and thinking it was oven cleaner, stored it in the place closest to its intended target. I dreaded to think of the consequences should they actually use it as oven cleaner, but I had enough on my plate to worry about without pre-empting the possible poisoning of my clients with ‘Doom’. Strictly speaking it wasn’t even flea treatment, but I felt sure it was the closest I was going to get so, having shut a reluctant cat in the utility room I set about spraying all the carpets and the soft furnishings as if my life depended on it, ignoring the plaintive miaows and vigorous scratching sounds coming from behind the utility room door. Such was my eagerness to get the job done as quickly as possible that I only realised that I’d hadn’t yet cleaned the original site of squirrel-gutting near the kitchen island when I slipped on some bloody vestiges and went base over apex, arms and legs flailing like some cartoon character slipping on a banana skin. I landed squarely on my rear, the momentum forcing my back down on the floor followed by my head, hitting the ceramic tiles with a thud. I lay there for a second, dazed and winded, but the thought of what I might be lying in swiftly brought me round and I got up as quickly as my bruised posterior would allow.
For a split second the noises from the utility room had stopped and I imagined the cat sitting with his ear hard up against the door, paw cupped against it, listening for signs of life. It wasn’t long before I could feel my head start to pound so I quickly opened all the windows and waited whilst the sprayed areas dried and the acrid fumes of ‘Doom’ dissipated, before closing the windows, cleaning up the mush I’d just slipped on and allowing the cat back out into the kitchen and main part of the house. Despite his endeavours to get out of the utility room, when he was finally allowed to exit, he took the cautious approach, nose twitching like a rabbit’s as his sense of smell went into overdrive, taking in the still pungent aroma of insect spray. I knew better than to reassure him with a friendly tickle under the chin, I’d tried that once before with a cat that was on sensory alert and felt the full force of his adrenaline-fuelled angst re-direct onto my hand. So I instead carried out my customary final check around the house before putting on my coat, picking up my belongings, along with the duvet and its cover and, exhausted, made my way to the front door.
On my way I passed a mirror in the hall and noticing that my hair was ruffled at the back where I’d bashed my head, I instinctively smoothed it back down, dropping the duvet as I did so. When I went to pick it back up, I noticed my hand leaving a fresh patch of blood on one of the areas of the white cotton not already smeared in blood. My first thought was that I’d cut my scalp open on a piece of squirrel bone. I craned my head around to try and examine the wound further, but quickly realised that unless I had the same ability to spin my head 360 degrees like the girl in ‘The Exorcist’ I was wasting my time. So letting the bedding fall to the ground for a second time I went in search of a hand mirror. I’d seen a little mirror in the downstairs loo, though I dreaded to think why it was there seeing as there was also a perfectly serviceable mirror attached to the wall.
With my head still thumping I imagined a Tom and Jerry sized bump emerging from the back of it and growing at an alarming rate. However, when I examined it there was no bump and all I could see was bloody matted hair. Hold on, what was that? Was it my imagination or could I see larger bits of something stuck to my head? Given that I was thinking lucidly if not quite rationally at this point, I assumed it wasn’t bits of my own brain, and with a feeling of disgust realised that the blood must belong to the squirrel and not me, and that the gelatinous attachments must surely be squirrel bowels. The disgusting thought made me wonder what other bits of my person had succumbed to the blood-fest. However, by that time I was running exceptionally late so I tried to park the thought until I was at home and able to give myself a boil wash, and headed off to my next visit where an unsuspecting cat was about to be greeted by Stig of the Dump.
I closed the front door behind me, battered and bruised, and threw the bedding into the carpeted boot of my car, completely forgetting that it was probably already infested with fleas. Neither did I realise that I’d left a trail of bloody footprints in the shape of my boot leading from the kitchen to the front door, and it certainly didn’t occur to me that if I happened to go in the utility room the next day I might just spot some very obvious claw marks on the back of the door, the result of Clint’s attempted jail-break.
Yes, the cat’s name was Clint, so perhaps he was a fan of spaghetti westerns after all.
The Hairy Tails of a Cat Sitter Page 7
