The Mock Dock

It’s nearly the one year anniversary of the day I had to put my beloved cat, creatively named Kitty Kitty, to sleep.  I thought it appropriate to write a tribute post in her honor, even though there are maaaaybe two people reading this who will care.  But that’s the beauty of being one of this site’s owners - I get to write about whatever I want and you can’t stop me.  Mnaaa!

Anyway, I adopted Kitty Kitty from the Humane Society in January of 1988 when she was just 4 weeks old.  Four weeks, coincidentally, is about the same amount of time that Kitty Kitty was friendly to people.  It took her no time at all to decide that people were, for the most part, total jerks with whom she was being forced to share the planet, and that the lone exception was me, who she merely tolerated.  Barely.  Even Bunny, who loves animals more than anyone I know - couldn’t get through to her.  Bunny could have covered herself with catnip and held two open cans of tuna out to Kitty Kitty, and still gotten scratched and hissed at, or worse - ignored.  There’s nothing worse than cat contempt.

Like all cats, Kitty Kitty had her quirks.  I once heard her making noise in my hall bathroom, went in to see what all the fuss was about, and couldn’t find her anywere.  I looked in the tub, looked behind the toilet, looked in every possible cat-enticing corner, and…nothing.  It wasn’t until I glanced in the mirror that I noticed the reflection of her TEETERING ON TOP OF THE DOOR. She had jumped from the counter to the top of the door, which is approximately an inch and half wide, for no reason, except to cause me to get up off the couch.  This is how bitchy she could be.

Kitty Kitty started her midnight howling once she hit 19 years of age.  This was the most aggravating, horrible noise you can imagine.  Worse that that cat-puking sound - you know, when they start that gulping noise and you know you’re about to have a tuna-covered hairball deposited on either your bed pillow or the lightest colored carpeting in your house?  Yeah - worse than that.  To this day, I have no idea how it was even physically possible for a sound that loud and that permeating to come out of such a scrawny cat.  Scrawny, that is, except for the flap of belly pooch that would swing back and forth whenever she ran.  (She gets that from me).

Kitty Kitty developed cancer in her mouth and was put to sleep at home, in my arms, just four months before she was going to be the big 2-0.  You guys, I am not ashamed to say I SOBBED.  Like choking, sputtering, guttural sobs.  19 years is a long time to have a cat, especially one that hates everybody.

She was evil…but I loved her.

p.s.  Dame also lost her old cat at about the same time I lost Kitty Kitty.  August of 2007 was not a good month for mockdock cats.  RIP, mockdock cats.  RIP.