Today has been one of those days where events have led me to fall back on my long-time belief that if I'm going to laugh about it later I might as well laugh about it now.
The morning started early with Clint's beeper going off (4:12am), and me never really falling back asleep. Mostly because I was laying in bed trying to plan how in the world I was going to catch our wild cat Harley (thus her name) in order to take her to the Vet for some surgery. As in not a diamond, but spade. She showed up here about one day away from dead and still a kitten late last fall. She was wilder than wild then and she has tamed down to just plain wild since. Aside from her brief stint of "niceness" while she was caring for her new kittens, she has always been markedly averse to any pats on the head or ear scratching or anything closely resembling affection. She's more of a "give me your dang food and leave me the heck alone" kinda girl. More than one expletive has been murmured in our dealings with her. Well, from me, not Clint. She won't come within a mile of him.
Knowing our history I dreaded the hunt down but thought that once I got her in the car she'd settle down like she did on her first visit to get her shots. At 7:40 I put my wallet in the car, the keys in the ignition, and opened the garage door so that when I caught her I could just get in the car and go. At 7:42 I opened the front door and to my great astonishment Harley was sitting right there by the door looking at me. "Wow! What luck!", I naively thought. I picked her up (still amazed at my further good fortune because picking her up just doesn't happen) and managed to make it into the vehicle and close the door thinking I was home free. She fought a little but I had her by the nape of the neck and thought she'd settle down once we got going. At 7:45am we had made it almost to the end of the driveway alright, but right about there is when all hell just plum broke loose. I'm not exactly sure which I noticed first, the simultaneous clawing of my arms and chest and face and legs, or the overwhelming, eye-watering, nostril incinerating smell of cat feces that threatened to knock me out cold. I jerked her up to find a nice large piece of evidence of her love for me, threw the FJ into reverse and slung back up to the house where I honked the horn until Erika came out to see what was the matter. All it took was for her to walk up to the rolled down window...she didn't even have to ask. Poor girl got a crash course in clorox wipes, wal-mart sacks, and cleaning up messes (I figure someday it'll be good experience for her when she has children). All this time I still have a death grip on the nape of Harley's neck not daring to let go....our 8:15 appointment is fast approaching. Before I began driving again I made a monumental mistake and rolled the window back up so there was less temptation for her to jump out. I start back down the driveway, this time with a towel in my lap (like that was going to do any good...the damage had already been done!) I guess I figured it would catch anything else that came flying out of her body on the ride to the clinic. As if all of that wasn't excitement enough, I spent the next 20 minutes driving with one hand, and holding her suspended body in the air by the nape of the neck with the other because every time a paw landed anywhere she started clawing for dear life. To make matters worse I had rolled the dang window up. Which meant the stench of her love for me had no way of escaping. If I let go with one hand to roll the window down I would crash, if I let go with the other I would literally have my eyeballs clawed out. I began to wonder if anyone had ever died from toxic levels of inhaled ammonia. I also began to wonder what it would look like if I really did crash...they'd open the door to a possessed cat and a soiled and bloody driver. Needless to say, I have never in my life been so tempted to drop an animal out on the side of the road. In fact, at one point I even started to slow down and pull off. And then, I don't know if it was the toxic levels coming off the remains of the poop, or the adrenaline, or just my plain warped sense of humor, I began to laugh hysterically because everytime I turned the wheel the cat would swing to one side and as I corrected she'd swing back to the other. So there I was, passing cars while holding a crazed, swinging cat up in the air, tears rolling down my face from the odor and dying laughing while trying to keep my mouth closed so I can't taste the smell all at the same time. 8:10am I arrive at the clinic, soiled clothes, bloody arms, and crazed cat in tow. Sit one seat over from a lady who has the fattest cat I've ever seen in my life curled up in a ball dead asleep on her lap. I still have Harley suspended in air. Lady looks at me with eyes as big as saucers and says "What happened to it?!?" I reply with a perfectly calm and straight face "I have no idea." Fast forward to 8:30am: Return home and scrub the daylights out of the seatbelt where half of her present landed. 9:20am: Leave for Erika's cello lesson 35 minutes away. Go approximately to the end of the driveway before we realize we have to ride with the windows down because it still smells as potent as ever. 11:00am: Leave cello lesson and once again drive 35 minutes home with the windows rolled down (87 degrees and humid as all get out) back home. 11:30am: Pick up poor stranded puppy on the side of the road. Wondered at the irony. 11:35am: Go back out to reclean the seatbelt and perform a more thorough check which lead to the discovery of another present under the driver's seat. Cleaned daylights out of vehicle for second time. 3:00pm, Take Dog to the Vet for recheck and to pick up Harley. 3:30pm Drove home with Biggun in the front, and Harley in the back seat. In a box. With the lid taped shut. Dog was happy. Harley was playing pinball in the box attempting to escape. And once again, I was dying laughing. Moral: Go right ahead. Crap on me. I guarantee I'll have the last laugh.
