For years I had my children convinced I was allergic to cats. I told them the reason we couldn’t have a cat as a pet was that my head would explode in a fiery ball. They wanted a cat. They asked regularly and finally accepted that I was allergic.
I’m not allergic to cats. I’m not sure how they found out, but the cat-pet requests are back. Frankly, I want nothing more to do with anything that requires fuel or any sort of sustenance from me to operate, be that cars, boats, cats, birds whatever. My wife and I have four kids, too many cars, one dog, and share responsibility for a boat. And I’m weary of giving birth to, parenting, raising, collecting or owning creatures or things that need me.
Buckatuna, Mississippi is a nice stopping point between Oxford, Mississippi and Mobile. We stopped there coming home this past Sunday. We had five people in the car, and it was time for a fluid adjustment in some way for all of us. The ladies in the car needed a bathroom, and I needed something cold to drink to keep me awake for the final stretch of road and the boys just needed to walk around.
There at the door of the service station sat a cat. We noticed another and then another. My wife and kids went toward them using their kitten voices. There were a lot of them. Another car stopped and the driver got out, watching my wife and kids. “I want all of them,” my wife said. She is now the pro-pet cat camp. “All you gotta do is catch one,” the driver said, “But, be careful what you wish for. My daughter,” he told us, “came home with one and said ‘I rescued a cat!’ Well, I said, that’s your cat. You have to figure out how to feed it. Then she came home two months later with another. Two months after that, we suddenly had nine cats and my daughter was struggling to feed them all. Then one day I came home and there was a dead snake on my porch with its head gone. I found out that cats help clean up vermin in the yard. Rats, mice, and even snakes. They bite snake’s heads of and bring the body home as a gift. So now,” he said, “I’m feeding those cats.”
“So,” he said again, “be careful what you wish for.”
The holidays are on the horizon. Kids making lists for themselves. You, perhaps, making lists for your kids. I’ve begun the tradition of making lists, making copies, and leaving them in places around the house where I know they will be found. Toilet seats. Front seats of cars. I’ve even put them in cereal boxes. No one can claim they don’t know what to get me. Cats are not on the list. Neither are dogs or anything alive or inanimate needing food or fuel. As a child we had a pet rabbit that ate through the power cord of the deep freeze. It wasn’t until all the food was spoiled that we realized it.
Anyway, just like cats and that rabbit now’s the time of year to be careful what you wish for.
I’m Cam Marston, and I’m just Keepin’ It Real.
