Yes, I've Killed Your Cat; No, I'm Not Sorry...

The best evidence against either the existence of an all-powerful Creator, or of Intelligent Design, is the common housecat. No other animal I can think of is as useless or pointless.

The Overlord is not a wickedly cruel man. In fact, those who know me well will testify to the fact that I possess abundant supplies of compassion.

I'm just judicious in it's distribution.

For example, I cannot ignore a child in dire straits. Likewise, I have been -- after my own fashion -- an advocate for the mentally ill. A wounded or sick dog tugs at my heartstrings. I have, on many occasions, gone out of my way and made personal sacrifices to help others who needed it. If you're "one of my own", I will gladly turn over a kidney, blood, an eyeball, whatever it is that you may need, no questions asked, as an act of selfless love.

I take care of Mrs. Overlord, who suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy that leaves her unable to breathe without a supplimental oxygen supply.

I take care of my people.

And no, I don't expect a medal for it.

However, this dialectic is turned upon it's head when The Overlord is aware of the questionable circumstances that created an undeserved expectation of compassion. I have no compassion, for instance, for people who fuck up their own lives and expect everyone else to un-fuck it for them; I bear no sympathy for people who find themselves in extremis as a result of their own stupidity, particularly when the consequences of moron are plainly foreseeable.

If you want sympathy, empathy, compassion, kindness, or commiseration from me, well, then you had damned well better be worthy of it, or a true victim of circumstance.

Which brings us to some asshole's cat.

There is a problem, or rather, I should say I have a problem, with the neighborhood cats. For a start, I'm not a fan of cats, anyway. I have not met a cat in my lifetime that is as sociable or as agreeable as a dog, nor one that didn't disgust me. Between litter boxes, spraying, coughing up hairballs, the indifference, the scratching, the peculiar and disgusting smells, the average housecat strikes me as being as attractive an option in a pet as a vasectomy performed with a rusty coping saw appears an effective form of birth control.

I would rather crawl naked over hot coals and broken glass than to have a cat as a pet. When I finally achieve the mastery of the universe that is my just due, I will announce an edict that cats shall be raised solely for their meat and hides, so that we may feed the hungry and clothe the naked. A cat, in this instance, would be far more useful than as a pet that drags other dead animals into the house and hides them.

Which brings us to the other disagreeable fact of cat ownership, which is the necessity of letting the little bastard out at night. It is this particular circumstance which brings us to this missive, and it is the greatest example I can give of both the mental instability of the average cat owner, and their complete disregard for other people.

And this, more than anything, is testament to the inconsiderate nature of the cat owner: you have chosen -- deliberately -- an animal for a pet whose activity cycle is mostly nocturnal. In order to avoid having your own sleep interrupted by the screeching, the clawing, the begging for attention and food that undoubtedly makes cat ownership something on the order of caring for a newborn, you have instead inflicted this nonsense upon your neighbors, you selfish fuck.

The neighborhood cats apparently use my backyard for a variety of purposes: convenient shortcut on their little kitty wanderings (you can actually see the path that has been worn through the shrubbery by the passage of thousands of cat feet); as romantic rendezvous point (since I've been here, three litters have been born in or under my shed, and cats routinely screw in the flower beds under my bedroom window); as outdoor litter box. Cats apparently have no idea of property rights, nor understand the meaning of the word "trespassing".

If the neighborhood cats were doing something useful, say, keeping the local vermin population in check, I might not hate on them so much. However, the cats in this area are so well fed they don't even bother to hunt, even as recreation. Field mice, possum, and lately rats expelled from the local housing project, are common sights at night in this neighborhood. The cats ignore them, instead preferring to tear open garbage bags or knock over garbage pails if the whim for a snack strikes, scattering more trash everywhere.

The fare in our garbage bins rates 5 stars, it seems, to judge from the amount of time I spend cleaning up after the cats dine.

I hate fucking cats, and I hate useless, nuisance cats, even more.

Which is why I almost literally jumped for joy late two nights ago.

The Overlord needed coffee at approximately 2 a.m. that morning. The Overlord had neglected to buy milk earlier in the day. Therefore, the Overlord was forced to get in the car to go to the nearest store and get some milk at 2 a.m. Until, of course, he got 3/4 of the way to his destination and discovered he had left the house without his wallet, necessitating a return home.

Que ominous music.

Rushed back into the house, got the wallet, rushed back out of the house and back into the car. Back out of the driveway and....did I just run over something?

And sure enough, there it was: a cat. Well, it used to be a cat. It was now a misshapen lump of fur and broken bones with a tread mark running down it's flattened middle. Blood and other effluvia were expelled in something resembling a starburst pattern upon the white concrete, showing up a vivid pinkish-red in the glare of the headlights.

The best I can figure, stupid cat was doing something I've often seen cats do regularly --which is to travel in an indirect line from place to place, seeking as much cover as possible to hide their passage, or, in the chill air, the stupid animal was drawn to the heat from my warmed-up engine and stopped to shake a bit of the frost off and was too slow or dumb to realize the car was about to move.

In my defense, I don't often look under my automobile before I move it, and spotting an animal mostly clad in black fur makes for difficult spotting, particularly when the animal is a) not initially visible, b) not at eye-level, and c) not smart nor spry enough to dodge a R-75 radial headed it's way.

So, what does one do?

My initial idea was to find a garbage bag and a shovel, scoop the stiff little fucker up, and deposit him in the trash, ready to use the power-washer in the daylight to come. But then it occurred to me that this was someone's pet, and I had a momentary vision of a crying little girl, so I checked to see if it had a collar and corresponding ID tags. No dice.

Then I remembered something about animals being "tagged" with a microchip, so I decided to bag the tangled mass of guts and fur and call the ASPCA in daylight. After being informed it would be more convenient -- for THEM (as it was a Sunday on a holiday weekend)  -- for me to bring the dead feline to their office so that they may check for a microchip, I decided "fuck that", and momentarily entertained the idea of sending the deceased to them via FedEx next day delivery.

And after I stopped laughing at that, decided it was more trouble -- and expense -- than it was worth.

 Into the trash John Doe Kitty went.

And then the doorbell rang this afternoon.

I was confronted by a puffy mass of teary-eyed, raw, wind-burnt, corpulence. I would guestimate it's age at approximately mid-30's, if one can utilize double chins in the same way one can count tree rings to determine the age of the tree.

The woman is looking for her lost cat, which apparently failed to return from it's usual nocturnal dalliances. She has a a flier. It reminds me of the photos on the side of the milk cartons which concern themselves with missing children. She has even gone to the trouble of providing the feline's vital statistics; weight, specific coloration, eye color, distinguishing features, which in this case included one, extremely-long discolored whisker.

It was at this moment that I was swept away from reality into an episode of Law and Order, for the cat she described was just as the one presently decomposing in my garbage can, sans the tire tracks and exploded insides.

I led her to the garbage pails, opened the one now entombing The Flat Cat, and opened the bag for her to identify it's mortal remains.

Sure enough, it's her cat. Penelope, I think it's name was.

Naturally, she began to cry. This is where I begin to lose patience. So, I stretched my arm out and offered her the bag of furry offal.

You would think I had just asked for a blowjob. Maybe anal sex.

"You've killed my cat!"

"Obviously."

"What am I supposed to do with a dead cat in a garbage bag?"

"Bury it, eat it, put it in really bad Christmas sweaters and post pictures on Instagram. Why the fuck should I care? It wasn't done intentionally."

"You could have called me!"

"I don't even know you. If you hadn't rung the doorbell, I wouldn't even know you were alive. The fucking thing had no collar or tags and ASPCA wouldn't come out here to read the chip."

"Why didn't you at least give it a decent burial?"

"I didn't know what denomination it was. Seriously, I'm supposed to dig a hole in my lawn to bury your cat? You let it out; you bury it."


I dropped the bag at her feet and went back inside the house, ignoring the persistent doorbell and the pounding on the front door.

Until the police arrived.

Long story short, I face no criminal charges, as this is a civil matter. Both officers looked mightily annoyed at having to respond to this call, and one of them told me, in an aside, "this woman is nuts".

No shit.

In any case, I expect to be sued in small claims for the cost of one replacement cat, plus damages for "sentimental" (emphasis on "mental") value, and I wouldn't doubt that should this caper ever see the inside of a courtroom, Penelope the simple housecat will have retroactively been elevated to the level of "support animal", and Ms. Cellulite 2017 will have rehearsed the entire drama of the awful trauma, sleepless nights, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and exorbitant therapy bills, she has suffered ever since Penelope met my Firestones, to act out in front of a judge.