The Day of the Cat...part two.

“Here kitty kitty!” Jarred called calmly. Stephen had “borrowed” the clippers his dad used to cut his and brothers hair with. “Mrs. Crow wants to use them.” he said running out the back door. Then darted back to catch it before it slammed. That would have been a 10 minute lecture on “this house is not your playground” and “if you break it, it’s going to come out of your hide….money does not grow on trees”, followed by a round of stepping in and out of the door way ten times, not allowing Mr. Myers to hear you do it. Otherwise you would have to start from the beginning.

The cat took a few steps forward, hesitated, and then darted up the tree into the club house. “Perfect!” Jarred said. The boys would plug the clippers into the extension cord they had hooked up a few weeks before. They had a sleep over and wanted to stay up late and watch the Late Show on Jarred’s older brothers 5 inch black and white TV. So Stephen brought the can of Crisco he bought from the stores damaged bin, and Jarred brought half of a tuna sandwich to try and entice the cat. It squirmed, scratched, and hissed, but the boys were on a mission. At one point Jarred asked “did this thing just say HELP ME?” They both raised an eyebrow in a mirror type glance and then continued shaving. Then just as the cat seemed to begin to calm down, with out warning”Hisssssss” and just as swift as a female streaker in an all boys school, through the air a claw went swinging and made direct contact with the crotch of Stephens hand me down, warn out, Wranglers. “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh” oh the pain must have been like a giant 5 pound sewing needle being dropped on your……well you know. He looked. He HAD to. The damage was merely a scratch, but if felt like a gaping gash wound. The Crisco would have to wait until the girls gym class first thing on Monday Morning. They would feed and keep the cat in a dog carrier until then.

During the girls gym class, the boys would have their health and hygiene class. And as usual, every other week the teacher would send the boys out to wander the school and yard looking for evidence of good and bad examples of health. So the boys had the perfect opportunity to hide in the equipment closet where they had stashed the cat just minutes before. Miss Krisonplas, the girls gym, health, and home economics teacher had the girls for the first 45 minutes, and Mr. Stone had the boys for the same except the boys had wood and metal crafts. And as it was routine for the boys, these two had rhyming nick names, though they were still working on Krisonplas. “Kissin’ *ss”..….”Piss in Grass”…..and because she was so old, nearly 25, Krison-hag. Kids!?!

When the cage was opened and the cat slid out, oh the calamity. The chaos that followed would turn into a day the entire town of Gruberville would remember as “The Day of the Cat”. It didn’t help matters that they used most of the Crisco, but the cat was fairly large. They packed it on the hairless thing as well as they could, and now it was dropping and dripping all over the place. The other thing contributing to the folly was the new waxed gym floor. The custodian spend the better part of 10 hours on it over the weekend. So close your eyes and imagine a class of 17 5th grade girls first screaming at the sight of what looked like a Naked Greasy Rat, and then trying to catch the poor creature. Once the tennis shoes and shortening met with the fresh coats of wax, it was like “First time ice-skaters” meets the “Crisco Rodeo”. Round ‘em up, Mooooove ‘em out.

Girls were sliding everywhere. Some fell on their butts, others did splits, and at one point two of them, trying to hold each other up, looked like they were doing the Charleston. Stephen was reminded of some old silent Keystone Cops movie he saw. And Jarred had visions of Cartoons running through his mind. Any way you looked at it, it was just too funny, right up until Miss Krisonplas slid across the floor right into the slat vented door the boys were peeking from behind. BAM ! Right into the door. BAM ! Right into the boys heads. BAM BAM! Busted!

The punishment didn’t become as famous as the prank, but the boys thought that giving a bath to every cat in the neighborhood was a rotten way to start two weeks of reprimand. And because so many were involved, it just kept getting worse as the next set of parents got to invent a new and creative afternoons chastisement.

You “usually” learn as kids, that sometimes thinking that the Principles car looks good in toilet paper, or that melting crayons all over the new kids tuba mouthpiece, or even greasing a shaved cat sounds cool in your head. But exploring these things outside your heads, can sometimes have a direct impact on your backsides. These two boys never learn. And as for me…I’m a dog. If it were up to me, every cat in the neighbor hood would have been shaved. I still laugh as I dream of the calamity.

Henry the Dog.