Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Revenge of the itty, bitty, little stray kitty by J. G. Fabiano Whenever you think you are having a bad day, remember, it can always get worse. Last Friday started like most weekdays. Being a schoolteacher I got up early and had coffee and breakfast with my wife like I've done for the past three decades. On the way to school I organized the day ahead in my mind and felt a bit more relaxed. It was the last day of the work week and would mostly involve papers being completed and reports being handed in. I arrived at school and went in through the same door I've used for the past 15 years, walked down the hall and greeted my colleagues and friends with a cheerful good morning and the heartfelt cliché': "Thank God it's Friday!." Then, one of the younger teachers came to me and told me she had a problem and wanted to know if I could help. It seemed one of her students had brought in a stray cat with its head stuck in an empty soup can. Ok, what would you like me to do? I asked helpfully. She went on to tell me that the students and some other teachers had got the cat's head out of the can but as soon as they did the cat went crazy. The student who was holding the cat at the time had her arm scratched and the cat had escaped into the shop room where it was acting, well, a bit crazed. My first thought was I would act a bit crazed too if I got my head stuck in a soup can. My second thought was the surprised realization that I haven't done it yet. I told the anxious young teacher I would go to the shop room to see if I could be of any help. This is where my day took a turn for the worse. Entering the room I observed four teachers staring up into a corner. One held a large sheet of cloth while another had on a catcher's mitt and looked like he was waiting for a long fly ball. The other two were pointing up at the cat, which had perched itself atop a cupboard, and were trying to coax it down. It was a black cat, of course, and it was showing the sharpest looking set of teeth I had ever seen. The cat's back was arched and its fur stood on end in a way that I had only seen in cartoons. My first impression was that this was no ordinary cat, that it must have had some past relationship with a saber-toothed tiger. The first thing I asked was if anyone had a gun. This did not go over well with the liberals in the room who seemed more concerned with the safety of the cat than their safety, or mine. I told them I was only kidding. With hindsight I now wished I'd had a gun. Before I could consider our next move the cat leaped toward a hole in the wall that led to what I thought was the school ventilation system. My immediate reaction was that the cat had solved our problem for us because it was sure to suffocate and die in a system that had been built some time in the late 1930's. However, before the cat could disappear into the hole one of the other teachers leaped up and grabbed it by the tail. He then told me to go to the room next door because the hole did not lead to the ventilation system at all but to the other room. I did what he asked and started a sequence of events that were destined to take their place among the dumbest memories of my life. Once on the other side I climbed up to the exit hole from where I could see the cat struggling to pull itself free of the teacher who held it by the tail. I remembered that the best way to handle a cat was to grab it by the scruff of its neck. This is how their mothers treated them so I assumed I could do the same. I actually surprised myself because even though the little beast was hissing and scratching at anything that came near I was able to grab it by the back of the neck and pull it out. At first I was in a bit of a tug of war with the other teacher until he heard I had hold of the cat and let it go. Needless to say, this did not relax the cat at all. I pulled it out and, keeping a firm grip, looked around for the cage that was supposed to be ready for me to put it in. But, before I could do this, a young female teacher, whom I will remember for the rest of natural life as Pollyanna, told me not to be so rough because, after all, this was just an itty bitty frightened little kitty cat. Looking at the crazed eyes and sharp teeth of the cat there was no chance I would ever consider it a kitty cat. Not wanting to become the kitty killer of my school, I relaxed my hold on the cat's neck. It was just enough for the cat to turn its head and clamp its sharp little teeth down on my pinky finger. The cat was now a part of me and I was part of the cat. Immediately, I strengthened my hold on the cat's neck, not the back of its neck, but the neck itself, found the cage and threw it in. Looking down at the little black monster I swear it was smiling at me. While everybody fussed over the cat I turned my attention to my little finger, which was bleeding, swelling and turning blue as I watched. While the school resource officer took the cat to the vet I took myself to the school nurse to see if I should put some ice and maybe some antibiotic ointment on the wound. She told me ice and antibiotic ointment wouldn't do it. She said a cat's mouth was filled with the kind of bacteria that could kill an elephant. Not having the constitution of an elephant I called my doctor and when I told him I had been bitten by a stray cat he told me to get my butt in right away. I was shocked. I was hoping for an appointment some time in November. Driving to my doctor's office my finger burned like it was on fire and the pain started to spread through my entire hand. Then a foul smell filled the cab and I panicked, thinking the cat's saliva was some kind of witch's brew that would rot my flesh and all that would be found of me would be a withered corpse in my truck where it had run off the road. Then I noticed I was following a truckload of manure and heaved a sigh of relief. When I got to my doctor's office the first question he asked was what had happened to the cat. I thought he was worried that my blood had infected the cat but then he told me he wanted to know if it had rabies. Rabies? I thought. Remembering the arched back, the fur standing on end, the crazed eyes' it sure looked like it had rabies. The other option was for the vet to keep the cat under observation for 10 days to see if it was rabid. At this point I started to root for the cat. My doctor decided to play it safe and gave me some antibiotic pills the size of hubcaps, which he told me to take twice a day. He also advised me to stay away from all wild animals. I told him I had learned a better lesson that day. The next time some mangy stray cat got stuck in a black hole at school I would send Pollyanna in after it! The End.
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