Throwing Cats

I've seen 2 cats thrown through the air by human hands dozens of times in my life. I think, above all, responsibility and maturity means keeping the little frustrations in check so you don't release them by throwing a cat. I've got kids now, so I can't be seen throwing cats, or animals of any kind, across a room. To be clear and take a little of the tongue-in-cheek out of the comment, I don't support throwing cats, and very rarely did it back in the day, but I have to be honest and say I did very little to stop it when I saw it happening.

It disappoints my son to no end that I am not a “cat person”. I am extremely fortunate in the fact that one of my daughters is allergic to cats so owning a cat is simply not an option for us. Most of my hatred for cats comes from the days of living with them.

Victor Stinkass was Krink's cat and he left it behind when he moved out of the house in Aberdeen. So Victor was an unofficial non-rent paying room mate who occasionally shit on the carpet. Victor had serious rage issues due to a mix of living in a party house, and thereby having to deal with a bunch of drunks who wanted to “stroke the pussy”, and extraordinarily large balls. That cat was backed-up and was not happy about it.

The favorite game with Victor was to play Cock The Cat. Someone would reach back behind the couch and pull Victor up, hold him with 1 hand holding his hind legs and the other hand holding his front legs, point his ass at someone's face, and cock the cat like a shotgun. Sounds awful and cruel, I get it, but I laughed. Today, if someone were to shove a cat's stinky ass in my face, mock shotgun or not, I'd probably be pretty pissed off on a number of levels. If that's not a sign of maturity I do not know what is.

We gave the cat a fighting chance by not clipping it's claws and I have the scars on my arms to this day to prove that. It got so bad towards the end that we would not dare to approach Victor without wearing long sleeves and working gloves in order to protect ourselves.

I don't remember the year or the month. I can tell you for sure it was a Sunday morning, well before noon, when Moose first Spiked the Cat. The night before had seen a very successful house party shake down in our house behind The Zoo, so successful in fact that both Wipf's and my head still felt the aftereffects of that night the next morning. It was that deep-stomach-wanna-vomit kinda head-hurt. You know what I'm talking about.

The night before we had a group of drinkers at the house who had taken a liking to Moose's extensive collection of Star Trek memorabilia. Moose had a LOT of Star Trek memories he couldn't wait to make. Some potential future memories included boldly going somewhere, seducing alien women, punching evil-doers, and illustrating a comic book. Yeah, that last one is only sort of related....

So, a bunch of drunken revelry later, we all wake up the next morning. I can't exactly recall why I was so hung over that next morning, but it must have been a good time because I've only been -that- hung over 5 or 6 times ever and I've remembered each “morning after” vividly. The nights of, not so much.

I'm on the big couch which doubled as the other wall of our make shift hallway while Wipf laid on the smaller couch or, “love seat” (patent pending) as we called it. I was watching the TV that set atop the refrigerator in our living room and Wipf was laying with his head facing his room, away from the TV, so presumably I was watching some sort of World's Wildest Roller Coaster Rides on TLC. Wipf had the advantage on me here as, by chance, his position on the love seat also allowed him to see into Moose's room. So while I only heard the chaos that ensued, Wipf witnessed it all.

Moose was in a bad mood that morning. He wasn't hung over, as we were, but he definitely wasn't operating at 100% Moose-pacity. He woke up late and was in a hurry to get to work and nothing was going his way. The shower was cold (and, presumably, encrusted with stale vomit or other fluids from the night before....we wore flip-flops in the shower for a reason), and we may have been messing with him in one of any number of ways from calling him an odd nickname to doing complex math. Any Given Sunday....

At one point, Moose finally realized something was amiss in his room. The night before, while admiring his Federation memorabilia, and while messing with Victor, the inevitable had happened. Victor's “go-to” safe spot was under Moose's bed. Moose's bed was a fold out couch with a disturbingly large amount of oil cans stored underneath it cause the Bronco, sometimes, needed a little extra juice. The oil cans and general disgusting atmosphere of the underbelly of the Moose Den provided the perfect hiding spot for Victor, but for whatever reason (most likely built up dirty laundry) the cat could not enter sweet sanctuary that night. In an attempt at escape, Victor tore through the room, up the wall, and bolted across a couple of shelves containing models of everything Star Trek and, in the process, fucked some shit up.

There were some minor scratches, a couple of stray phaser blasts, but for the most part all was well. However, Victor did happen to knock Moose's prize possession, a replica of the Starship Enterprise, off the shelf and some parts broke off upon impact with the floor. Drunken hands tried their best to repair the damage but after 13 seconds or so they realized how little they cared and moved on to more important things like social lives and women. For whatever that was worth in Aberdeen.

To say Moose was pissed when he finally noticed the damage seems like a dilution of the phrase “pissed.” He was Batshit Insane Angry and the only answers lie on differing sized davenports in the living room, too hung over to give a shit.

“What the FUCK” shouted Moose.

I un-squinted my good eye to look for answers from a very unsympathetic Wipf . “What's the problem, Moose?”

“Who broke the Enterprise? When did this happen?”

“What are you talking about, Moose?” I asked.

“The fucking Enterprise is broken, guys! Who fucked with the Enterprise?”

“Klingons?” Wipf offered with a smile in my direction. I could see where this was going.

“NOT funny, Wipf! What the Hell happened in here?”

“Relax, Moose” Wipf said. “It was an accident. Someone got Victor all riled up last night and he ran crazy through your room. He jumped up, hit the shelf, and the Enterprise fell, hit the ground, and broke a little. Nothing some glue, duct tape, and elbow grease can't fix.”

Moose wasn't having it. A couple of day's worth of pent up frustration was about to come erupting out and, possibly figuring correctly that focusing that frustration on Wipf or I wouldn't pan out so well, Moose turned his anger towards Victor.

“God Dammit, Victor! Get in here!” Knowing better, Victor bolted to the only non-Moose related safe spot in the house: under Wipf's bed. We'd all hidden out there at one point or another.

“Fucking Cat...” he mumbled as he stormed out of his room into Wipf's. Shit was about to go down.

Moose was having a bad weekend anyway. His beloved Bronco had broken down, his job was a massive frustration, finals were approaching, and he lived with Wipf and I. That was always a blade of stress hanging above his neck.

I still couldn't move. Wipf wasn't all that quick either but he described everything as he saw it too me.

“Moose got Victor, dude. He's heading back into his room...”

“God Dammit, Victor! Look what you did!”

:...he's holding Victor by the neck and showing him the Enterprise.....”

“You have to understand that you DO....NOT.....FUCK …WITH....OTHER...PEOPLE'S....PROPERTY!!!!”

“Yeah” shouted Wipf from the couch. “Especially when it's Federation Property!”.

“What's he doing now, man?” I asked.

“He's really pissed, dude. He's still got Victor and he's....HOLY SHIT! Moose just spiked the cat!”

In his frustration and rage, Moose had had enough. He had spiked Victor like a running back who had just crossed the goal line on 4^th and 2. Fortunately for Victor, he did it on his bed and not the floor. An angry Moose was still a self-controlled Moose.

“He just spiked the fucking cat, dude. Like a football. Right on his bed!” Wipf was convulsing with silent laughter on the couch.

Victor had bounced once off the bed and, Scooby-Doo style, had started his legs running before they had even hit the ground. He tore off, quite safely, through the apartment to the front door and, upon realizing there was no freedom available at that time, retreated once again to the underside of Wipf's bed.

“Oh my God, dude” I whispered through the hung-over laughter I was trying to contain.

"He fucking spiked the fucking cat, man.” Wipf said. “Shit, here he comes.”

“Don't say a word, man. Let him pass. Just let him pass.”

Moose stormed out the door, satisfied in the swift and distinctly non-Federation style justice he'd just dispensed to our unwanted room mate.

The second cat I've seen thrown the air was named Banshee and had nothing to do with Moose and we'll continue with that story tomorrow.