Apr 5, 2002 4 min read

I suppose I should have known better than to imply that I’m cruel to animals. Backlash from last week’s column in which I confessed my seething hatred for birds of any feather was at first met with, “Way to Go!” from those in agreement.

I hadn’t counted on two things. One that birds can read and that they are full of opinions that they felt compelled to share, not in the form of a Letter to the Editor but in bombs dumped upon my car. When I went outside last Friday morning I thought my car had been requisitioned as an incubator for the West Nile virus.

But enough about them.

The thing I hadn’t counted on were the number of people who think I neglect, mistreat, abuse or otherwise torture the poor housecat. Mustard made just a cameo appearance in the column but I made the mistake of calling him the “the cat that is barely tolerated.”

I have tried to explain that I exercised a bit of literary license when engaging in verbal cat bashing to a number of worried people who were ready to rescue the cat. I have been asked to apologize publicly and explain that I am kind to this cat, why I have a cat if I’m not a cat person and pledge to write something nice about him.

In the interest in restoring harmony to the solar system, I submit this confession.

I came to have a cat because my youngest child – who fears very little – was petrified of animals. If she spotted the neighbor’s cat in our yard, she wouldn’t walk to the car. The sight of a dog sent her running and squealing. Her father thought that if she had a pet she would conquer the fear. I, of course, thought a golden retriever would work well but didn’t want to go through all that puppy stuff.

He, being a cat person, thought a kitten would be better and easier as it would require less hands-on training other than feeding and changing the litter box (which he pledged to do). And since he believed strongly that he was always right, the kitten came to live with us the beginning of September and right from the start worked wonders on a little girl’s fear.

She drapes him around her neck to wear as her fur stole. She buckles him into a baby doll stroller. Attempts to feed him, dress him and would paint his nails if he’d sit still She does occasionally fight with him and tattle that he won’t play and is hiding from her. I can’t imagine why.

He won’t hide from me though, and I can’t seem to hide from him. He follows me like a puppy, getting under foot, and when I sit he jumps onto my lap. I find him deficient in manners. For example, if I want to shift positions on the couch, a dog would just naturally scoot over. This cat looks at me as though I deeply wounded its pride to even suggest that it move. And he drinks from the toilet bowl.

This cat waits outside my bedroom door, as I won’t let it sleep with me, and starts pawing the door in the morning if I fail to respond to the alarm clock. It weaves between my feet on the way to the shower, waits for me to finish and then sits in the kitchen batting its dish and meowing until I add food, even if the dish is already full.

I still know very little about cats. I suspect I never will break him from jumping on the kitchen counter. He thinks just because I don’t see him I don’t know he does this. But he’s left enough paw prints and knocked over enough glasses that the evidence mounts daily.

I know little about training this cat so I doubt he will ever advance in his domestic lessons as the cat trainer died and left us to figure this all out on our own.

I suppose it’s the ultimate joke on his part that I’m destined to be one of those old cat ladies.

This is why I will not, no matter how much reader pressure is brought to bear, admit that I like this cat. To do so might just bring strays running to the door, crying for me to let them in. I am as certain this would happen as I am that this morning my car will be coated with bird droppings.

Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor. E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.