The Cat Who Wouldn’t Be Denied

Let me state clearly from the outset: I am not a cat person! In fact, I am not even a pet person. That said, I have “inherited” or been hostess to a number of pets during my eighty years on this planet, all of whom were brought home by my children. Each ismemorable in its own way, but there is one who quickly jumps to the top of the list. Yes, you heard me right! JUMPS! 

In the fall of 1989, I was still a newcomer to South Carolina, having made a difficult move from my old home in West Tennessee more or less alone. My four children were all either in college or living on their own, until one by one they made their way to SC, and to my home. Among these four was my daughter Jeannie, who had just graduated from college and was job hunting. She was not alone! With her, she brought a dainty littlekitten who was several months old. The cat’s name was Whiskers.

As I said before, I am not really a cat person. In addition to other reasons, I am somewhat allergic – not to the extent of some who cannot even be in the same house with a cat; but I do have to be careful about close exposure, which yields all the usual symptoms of sneezing, wheezing, and a feeling that someone has closed my nostrils with a clothespin.

After meeting Whiskers, I quickly made the determination that with a cat, one does not decide to have a cat; the cat decides whether it will have you! Whiskers immediately determined that I was to be her person, and most of this story is about the lengths to which a cat will go in order to achieve that goal.

Whiskers was a beautiful cat – silky black with pretty white paws, slender with long legs, and a tail that could stand straight up, or could curve around some desired object. I came to know that I could tell a lot about her intentions by watching that tail. My daughter loves to tell about the time Whiskers decided to explore a lit candle, and caught her tail on fire waving it through the flame! She seemed dainty, but that was strictly an illusion.

But I digress. Immediately upon deciding that my house was suitable to become her domain, Whiskers began her campaign to lure me into her web. One of her favorite tricks was to dog my footsteps, curling that tail around my legs to trip me, or rubbing her body against my legs in order to get my attention. If that didn’t get some sort of reaction, she would run in front of me and flop down on the floor with her belly and feet in the air, hoping for a scratch or a cuddle. With no positive results from that ploy, she would then begin to tear around the living room like she was being chased by a wild animal. She would streak back and forth across the floor, then leap onto the sofa, streak across the back of it and take a flying leap to land right in front of me.

Her exploits were legendary! I was dating a nice man whom I later married, and he had sent a peace lily houseplant home with me to see if I could nurse it back to health. It had been recovering nicely, and I was about ready to return it to him when I noticed that its leaves were turning brown, and it was beginning to look a bit droopy. 

You guessed it! Whiskers had decided to make it her litter box! I have a sneaky suspicion that she figured that act would finallygain my undivided attention. 

Since that ploy didn’t succeed the way she planned, she decided that befriending my male friend would surely be the key to my heart. He was definitely a cat person, and between the two of them, it was practically love at first sight. What an interesting love triangle we turned out to be! She would do all her tricks for him, and he would fall for every single one of them. I, however,was still hanging back.

To say that everything changed when Whiskers came into heat for the first time would be a gross understatement. She yowled and howled like a banshee, and Jeannie took her to have her spayed. Even that didn’t stop the unmitigated howling, and I was fit to be tied. When Jeannie then announced that she was going out of town for the weekend, I was not a happy camper. Jeannie appeased me by setting up an automatic feeder, a litter box, and a large water bowl in her bedroom upstairs. I would check on her occasionally, always being very careful to see that she did not escape her erstwhile domain.

Whiskers, shut away upstairs, knew that there was fun to be had below, and she made her displeasure known. My friend had arrived for an evening of movie watching and cuddling. We quickly discovered that if a cat in heat isn’t enough to drive one insane, a jealous cat really adds fuel to the fire. There’s nothing like a howling, yowling cat to take a romantic date to a precarious edge!

Jeannie’s upstairs bedroom had actually originally been the central part of the attic. The previous owners had finished it beautifully as a sunny bedroom with doors to the attic at each end. It was a spacious area with two dormer windows on one side. There was plenty of area for a frustrated cat to play – and take her howl to a new level.

Downstairs, we tried to watch a movie, but the yowling and howling were so loud that we finally gave up and my friend went home. I managed to get a few hours’ sleep, even with the noisy cat. The strange thing was that where the howling had always seemed to come from right overhead in the living room, which is directly below the upstairs bedroom, it now seemed to have shifted to directly over my bedroom. I was puzzled by that, especially when I realized that the sound seemed to have become fainter in the living room.

Still mulling this over, I went off to church the next morning, and returning a little after noon, I realized that the howling had certainly lessened while I was gone. It seemed quite intermittent now. I went upstairs and eased open the door to the bedroom butsaw no sign of the cat. No noise, no nothing! Thinking this a bit strange, I returned downstairs, and began a diligent search of the whole area, thinking she had somehow escaped. My last stop was the master bathroom, where I could now hear faint howling, more like sad meowing. 

The heating ductwork was all in the ceiling of that house, and looking overhead at the bathroom duct, I got this strange feeling that the cat was right there just above my head! I quickly went for a screwdriver and opened the vent cover. Out came the dust-covered cat right into my arms and then onto the floor. 

I don’t know exactly how to describe what she looked like. Her eyes were rolling around like a cartoon cat. She looked a bit likeWil E Coyote after one of his explosions intended for Roadrunner has backfired and gotten him instead! Her normally silky hair was standing straight up and sticking out in all directions! Her legs were wobbly. She was a pure mess! I set her down and put some water down for her, which she lapped up quickly. 

Somehow, she had managed to get into the closed off part of theattic and into the heating duct itself. I have puzzled for years about how that was possible. I have never found a satisfactoryanswer. I can only affirm that cats have their ways.

By late afternoon, Whiskers was pretty much back to normal, but now everything had changed between the two of us. She had captured the attention of her person, and things were never again the same. My reluctant heart had been won. A grateful cat, a rare thing indeed, is at least twice as persistent as a determined one, and she definitely sensed I was at last fully hers. Now she was also a loyal cat.

Sometimes in the morning I would be sitting on the side of my bed, still half asleep, eyes closed, chin in hand, elbows to knees, when I would feel a soft paw batting me on the nose. Other times she would just sit under the table while I ate. I could never hold her in my arms because of the allergic reaction, and I think she sensed that; but she was never far away. When I would sit at my piano to practice, or in my rocker to read, she would lie on my feet with her tail curled around my legs, purring contentedly.We had finally come to a mutual understanding. Whiskers had successfully made her conquest.

Don’t ever think that where a cat is involved you are the onemaking the decisions. I can tell you with no hesitation that the cat is really in charge. I have come to understand this better, since I discovered that I am somewhat like that cat. I decide with whom I will be friends, and when I choose you, I will be the most loyal friend ever, and will go to great lengths to see that the friendship continues. 

Whiskers has been gone for a long, long time, but I think of her often, and I chuckle at her antics all over again. I feel blessed that for a time she determined that I should be part of her life,and that she chose me to be her person, which resulted in a remarkable friendship. In whatever part of heaven God has set apart for these precious animals, I’m sure Whiskers is streaking around wrapping that tail around some worthy friend, orflopping down to get a scratch or a cuddle from her next target.