The Cat

Last night while we were making dinner Eric went to take out the recycling and found a cat. In the recycling bin. Someone had wrapped a cat up in a blanket and stuffed it in there. Like, to kill it. He called me out there, and of course, the kids followed. We got it out and it just kind of hung out by us, obviously nervous, but not wild. Dirty, stunned, but otherwise healthy looking. A full grown cat, declawed. White with orange spots. A house cat.

I thought of Tara's story about trying to help the feral cat and ending up in the ER and cautioned the kids not to touch it, but Eric had not read Tara's blog and so, of course, did not know the risks. He picked it up. It did not bite him. I ran in the house to get it something to eat, my mind going a hundred miles an hour.

I love cats.
I am allergic to cats.
We have two dogs.
I was not going to just leave that poor cat to fend for itself in the mean suburban streets.
How the fuck did it get in there?
Who would do that?

I came out with some left over fish sticks and did the "Here kitty kitty kitty" thing. It ran right up to me. Sniffed the fish. Decided to chew on some day lilies instead. I told Lucas he could pet it, but not to pick it up. It did the head butt, roll over on the ground move of a cat that has been petted a lot and knows the routine. Lucas was already begging to keep it.

I figured we could keep it in the garage over night and then decide what to do.  So Eric opened the garage door and I picked it up and carried it in. It had started to squirm in my arms and I was still a little nervous about the potential biting so I quickly put it down, but as soon as Eric started to close the door it darted off, down the driveway and across the street and away. Probably back to the house it came from.

I can only hope that it was not a person in that house that stuffed it in the garbage in the first place. And I hope that whoever it was who did it burns eternally in a special hell surrounded by my cat urine scented recycling.

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I just had another thought. Eric said that the cat was stuffed in the bin in a weird angle all crumpled up. Just lying there blinking at him. Now, from what I know about cats, that doesn't seem right. Cats will twist themselves and scramble in every direction to right themselves. I wonder if, whoever put the cat in the garbage thought it was dead. Like it was stunned or unconscious, maybe hit by a car or something. So they wrapped it up in the blanket and put it in there.

By still, why my recycling?

Weird.

I hope he's OK.

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Great. Now I'm thinking that my recycling bin is some sort of Stephen King's Pet Cemetaryesque life-recycling bin. I always thought it was a little creepy the way I've never, in the more than three years that I've lived here, gotten a bill for garbage collection.