Hello,
Great stories so far, please keep them going.
Okay, I have decided to tell you about my cat Panzer.
Way back in the winter of 1987, when I was a junior in high school, my sister adopted a stray cat dubbed, "Sweetcakes". Gradually my brother (the one who recently got out of the army) and I noticed that Sweetcakes was gettting larger and larger. Sweetcakes was becoming very, very pregnant.
One Spring morning I was doing my usual morning cavorting, when I noticed that Sweetcakes had suddenly lost a great deal of weight and her belly was flapping as she strode by, "Oh Crap!" said I. The family spread out on hands and knees looking for the kittens.
Deep in the corner of the living room, nestled in the nightmare orange shag carpet of 70s lore, were 5 tiny kittens. Each one could fit in the palm of your hand. Their eyes were closed and they could barely meow.
Quickly we put them into a small shoebox. As the Spring progressed they grew and their eyes opened. Chaos quickly ensued.
By the beginning of summer, and the arrival of the 17 year cicadas-who are due back this spring btw-, we were forced to build "kitten containment units". The small cage we had was not big enough, so we built all kinds of cages from scratch. Every afternoon I would come home from school, go into the den and look in the cage: no kittens.
I would remain still and cup would move across the counter by itself, a bag of catfood would suddenly tumble from a high shelf and the curtains would sway with no breeze and no fan on. One by one, I would pluck the kittens from their spots and put them back in the cage. The five were: the 'trazans (the two kittens who always led the escape from the cage were named after Alcatraz prison), panther (all black), panzer (a small grey furball with golden eyes) and hulkster (named after Hulk Hogan).
Eventually we were only able to keep 2 cats: Panzer and Hulkster. Panzer was my cat and Hulkster was my brothers. My sister being the youngest, had to share with us. Don't feel too sorry for her, she got away with a lot of other things, believe me.
Anyway Hulkster was the runt of the litter and he always took on at least 3 other kittens at a time. Both Panzer and Hulkster were incredibly, incredibly smart. My brother in one his more infinitely brillant moves, put Hulkster in a box and shook the box. The box was silent, nobody moved. Paul bent down to peer in the box...(if you had blinked at this point you would have missed it)...hulkster, using cat-like reflexes
leapt straight out of the box, a foot in the air and nailed my brother across the cheek. As blood dripped down my brother's face he said, "Yeah, that was pretty stupid on my part." Hulkster also bared the distinction of being the only cat I have seen to hug a human being.
I am not exaggerating here. My brother and and just got home from school and went into the dining room. Hulkster spied Paul, issued a loud, "meow!", jumped on the table, stood on his hind paws, stretched his front paws around my brother's neck and hugged him.
Hulkster eventually disappeared around 1991. We looked everywhere, called the SPCA, nothing. Never saw him again.
Panzer, is still with me. After some of my more major surgeries he stayed by my bedside night and day until I had recovered. In 1992 in the spring, I left my house to catch the bus to head to university. I had crossed the street and was waiting by the street when saw something truly amazing.
A cat had come right up to the edge of the street and stood, waiting patiently in front of the cross walk. He looked both ways, waited for the cars to go by and then using the crosswalk made across the street.
"Wow!" said I, "that's pretty cool." "Hey, wait a minute I know that fluff ball, its my cat!" I wanted to be angry at him for crossing a major street, but I was so proud he used the crosswalk that I couldn't be. I missed my bus but got my cat back inside.
More later,
LanceMan
) and is my cat.
