Mental the cat

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At home by myself one day I heard a strange sound from the unit’s courtyard. It was annoying. Sounded like a baby crying. I went out to hit it with a stick, (only a small one), to make it stop. After a bit of searching I found the source of the noise. A kitten, stuck between the shed and the fence. A 50mm gap. Somehow I dragged it out without breaking its neck. Just a small ball of fluff, black as sin, barely weaned.

I figured someone had thrown their cat’s unwanted litter over fences around the neighbourhood. I don't know if that’s easier than taking them to the pound but weirdo’s aren’t known for their intelligence. I gave the kitten some milk and waited for the wife to get home thinking it would freak her out. Big mistake.

You know how women love cute stuff. She goes all ga-ga over it. Belatedly I wished I’d told her it was a present. We play with it for a while then it pisses on my Street Machine magazine. Glossy cover so it runs off onto the carpet. Typical female. I assume we aren’t keeping it and ask the wife to take her to the pound tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, no problem.

I get home to find the kitten still in residence. She’s also accumulated a bowl and has cat food in the cupboard and sleeps on the bed with us. Who’d have thought a kitten could take up so much room. I now have a handkerchief sized space to lay on.

A few days later we find out our cockhead neighbours are looking for a black female kitten. We give her back to them. Fair’s fair, they paid for her.

The damn thing comes back again the next day. This time its whiskers and some of the fur on its face had been burned off. I think they used a cigarette lighter. (I used to smoke in those days and the cat freaked whenever I flicked the lighter on for a while.)

We didn’t give her back this time. Fuck them. (Burning the hair off whoever did this crossed my mind. Then I took a moment to think about it. They’d only run around like spastics and set everything else on fire. That would’ve been OK if their unit didn’t join onto ours. The flames might have damaged some of our stuff. Karma will get them.)

So we had a free cat. She loved the wife but didn’t take to anyone else, like me for instance. The damn thing would go crazy for no reason, patting her was a gamble. It’s like putting your hand in a blender with a lunatic hovering over the switch; you never knew what condition you’d get your hand back. We accepted a few behavioural problems seeing as she’d been mistreated by psychos that owned it.

The wife named her Mental. I wanted to call it Satan.

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