After fight festivities

It was just before sunrise when I pushed through my door. Needing to recuperate after the fight, I headed back through my cat-door, to my feral villa in the garage. As I curled into the straw to lick my wounds, I heard that food-lady calling for me, but I was too weak to want to come out. Exhausted, I passed out for quite sometime, not a catnap, this could have been hours, maybe a day.

Eventually, I was violently awakened when the burly guy with the loud man-voice lifted the roof off my villa and stuck his face inside. Face to face, what a sight. Holy shit! I thought as a sprang from heated bed and headed towards my cat-door: Plan-A, exit the escape hatch to outside.

Bam! My face slammed into the rubber flap door that for the first time doesn’t flap. Stunned, I realize the door is sealed shut and I don’t have a plan-B. Come on Moo, I think to myself, you’ve got to rally and get safely away from the loud-guy.

Damnit, I’m trapped in this garage. My mind reels and my claws click on the concrete while I desperately scramble for somewhere to hide. Loud-guy stands abnormally quiet and motionless as I slink along a wall piled high with pellegrino. Finding refuge behind of bunch of random stuff piled haphazardly on metal shelving I think to myself,…..someone needs to declutter. While this isn’t nearly as comfortable as my villa, if it keeps me free and clear of danger, it’s an okay alternative.

Sometime later… Clank, scrape, rustle…..I’m woken up AGAIN by loud-guy, who is now moving the random stuff and cases of pellegrino around the garage. Now what? I need more activity like I need a knot tied in my tail. Can’t a cat just lay in a hiding spot peacefully around here? The noises are getting closer to my refuge, the light of a bright flashlight hits my eyes, not helping my headache.

He sees me.

What in the hell is loud-guy up to now? I’m wondering as squeeze backwards trying to make myself invisible. While I make myself as small a target as possible, LG now looks goofier than normal and out of his mind wearing a bulky jacket and oven mitts. I say it to myself again slowly: oven mitts? People are strange. He’s closer now, and I’m a sitting duck. Like a loaf of bread sitting on the shelf, he reaches for me with those oven mitts. Holy shit! I think again as I struggle and squirm to escape, but LG is so big, and I’m so tired. I give up fighting has he stuffs me into a portable plastic jail. This can’t be good.

Wait a minute,… things are looking up because I hear the food-lady’s voice. LG hands my portable prison cell to the food-lady who puts me in a car, for my first ride. Up until now, I’ve spent my whole life avoiding cars and coyotes at all costs, and I never considered it would be a pleasant experience to be inside either. Given the choice, this is the better alternative. I wonder what’s next?

The gentle motion of the ride coupled with FL’s smooth voice brings my heart rate down. But oh shit, a vague memory crosses my mind. I HAVE been in a car before. A long time ago, shortly after I was born, I was just a wee kitten, a man put me in a box and dropped me off at night outside a barn. I must have blocked that out. Some memories are better not remembered.

We drove for about the length of time it would take me to eat a small bluejay then car turns and slows, shaking me back to the present. We stop and I hope not to get abandoned outside an old barn again. I’m in no shape to deal with a new gang of barn cats at the moment. As the car stops and the doors open, I brace myself for today’s next shitshow. I try to stay calm as the whole time FL continues her soothing noises. I don’t know what she’s saying, but I like the way she says it.

Whew, that’s a relief, I see no barn in sight through my cell door, but I’m not out of the woods yet. FL sets my plastic prison down on the linoleum floor in the vestibule of a sterile smelling building. It never seems to stop, but at least no one has on oven mitts. The plastic prison crate rattles and clinks as they carry me through doors and down hallways stopping in a small, even more sterile smelling room. Someone opens my cell door. There are at least three people here, nobody I recognize, but I don’t see an unfriendly face. Because of today’s physical and mental mayhem, all the fight is out of me. I submit to let them do what they want.

Just great, the fun starts, for what seems like an eternity, I’m needled, prodded, and squeezed. The three of them wrap me in a towel like a cat burrito, cut my nails, drip smelly liquid between my shoulder blades, and listen to my heart. The team of friendly savages shaves patches, draws blood, and takes immodest actions unmentionable in a family friendly cat story. While not the best time of my life, nothing too traumatic goes down. I’m feeling woozy when they put me back in the plastic prison then things happen in reverse, carried back through the sterile building and I’m set down again in a vestibule like cheap luggage. I’m happy to hear FL’s voice as she puts me back in the car and begins to drive us somewhere else. I can hardly wait….