smokey

Chapter 1: Cats do not have nine lives.

In my opinion, someone really stupid must have come up with that statement, cats definitely do not have nine lives. What would it mean to have nine lives, would you be reincarnated 9 times before you finally died? Maybe, but even if that is the case, no one would know. Cats, like any other animal, or living thing for that matter, have one life, and then they die. And after they die they do not come back to life. Or do they? If it is said that cats have nine lives, then when they are killed the first times, they must do it when no one is watching so no one will know they came back to life. But I still do not see how cats can have nine lives. Take Dusty, a cat I had for a good 6 years or so. Dusty was a very dumb cat, in fact, the breed of cat he was is known for being naturally stupid. So, when we got this cat we were told to keep it inside, or it would be stupid and try to cross the road in front of a moving car. So in the years we had Dusty, I hardly think he could have used up 8 of his lives, unless you count jumping on a bed and falling off as losing a life.
But one fateful day, the cat got out. Out of the house, that is, not the bag. So the cat got out, and went under the neighbors' porch, where he could not be retrieved. So being the clever little kid I was, I went to bed, and decided I would get the cat in the morning. The next day, however, we went to a fair or something, and spent all day there. We came home, and a little while later the doorbell rings. A policeman is standing there, the bearer of bad news. He breaks it to me gently, and of course I'm upset, there's even a little blood stain on the road where the accident occurred. But that is beside the point. Dusty, a cat with a pea-sized brain, spent his whole life indoors, and the one day he gets out, he is killed. Now I'm not looking for irony here, although it is present. My point is that this cat could not possibly have used up all of his lives, and yet he was brutally killed anyway. Life is not fair. I really liked that cat!

Chapter 2: The joys (and sorrows) of running under moving cars, and why cats have more than nine lives.

Although Dusty managed to kill himself in this fashion, another cat of ours, faithful Smokey, has proven himself adept in the acrobatics category.
Smokey came from a very poor background. Hypothetically, his mother, unable to take care of her new litter while living in the streets, decided to abandon one or more of her kittens, and dropped baby Smokey off in our garage. Our garage is not attached to the house, instead it is at the end of the driveway, in the corner of the yard. So one day as we drove up the driveway, the car headlights reflected off a pair of yellow eyes, a start to a long friendship. At first we could not go near the scruffy ball, he was not accustomed to people and very wary. We gradually started feeding him, leaving the food in the garage for him to come and eat when he decided the coast was clear. We got closer to him, but never ventured near enough to touch him. One day, a year or two later, Smokey, now a full-grown cat, although in reality still nameless, decided he had had enough. He sucked himself up and strode over to my dad and made the permanent switched from alley cat to domesticated pet. We adopted him, and he became our first cat, back in about 1991.
Now, living in a garage for two years is evidence enough that cats have more than nine lives, but a few more examples might back up the case.
1. Case in point: running under cars. This seems to be one of Smokey's favorite pastimes, he must do it on a weekly basis. One time we were walking along the street, and Smokey was on the other side of the street. He noticed us, and decided to come join us, at the same instant a car went zooming by. This car was not going all that fast, maybe 20 MPH, so we actually witnessed Smokey go under the car on one side and come out of it on the other, while the car was in motion.
2. Coming from the alleys, Smokey was a natural fighter. He fought with every neighboring cat, and had numerous scratches and scars. The vet even claims that if you were to shave his head, you would just see a mass of scars. One time, he was fighting with the cat next door, and someone who lived there (there were about 10 kids in that house) decided it would be a good idea to throw a rock to break up the fight. The rock hit my poor kitty square in the back, and for weeks he could not jump, not even from the floor to the radiator, it was very sad.
3. The urinary tract infections. Yes, that means pee all over the house. The cat just about gets these on a regular basis now, about every few months, probably 4-6. First he starts peeing on the plants, and in the laundry. Then it gets worse, sometimes there will be a little trail of pee towards the litter box because he could not make it to the basement in time. He strains to push out what is not there, and when there is something there, it comes out way too quickly. As soon as we start to notice it, then it's time the whip out the drugs, particularly Valium. The cat takes Valium, it calms his muscles so he doesn't hurt himself or accidentally push his bladder out. It's nice when he has Valium, he's very calm and becomes a nice cat. Not that he isn't usually a nice cat?
So if you look at it this way, each time a cat has a near death experience, it loses one if it's "lives", and I believe that cats, or maybe just Smokey, have more than nine lives.