When I was 18 years old and still living at home with Mom, there was an electrical fire in the apartment next to ours. I remember that we were passively watching TV in the living room after dinner and were ripped out of our boob-tubing stupor by both the klaxon-like blaring of smoke alarms and the frantic sound of our neighbor simultaneously pounding on our back door while screaming for us to get out of the building. While this was undoubtedly not conducive to proper digestion, it was a great deal more exciting than whatever was on TV at the time.
My mother and I both decided to grab the cats and flee the scene. She was at a loss as to what to do with the cats once we were outside, however. We did have a cat carrier, as I recall, but I think it was in storage somewhere in the basement. Anyway, I suggested that we take the cats to my car. My thought was that we could all sit out the event in relative safety there. And, if things got really bad, we would be able to drive further up the block out of harm’s way. These decisions were made within seconds and we each ran around the apartment trying to nab one of our two cats as quickly as possible.
I went after Pigitha – or “Piggy” as she was known for short. Her name implied that she was fat. This was not the case at all. She was a very enthusiastic eater and always had been – thus the name. Piggy was a very, very large cat. She was long and tall and weighed about 24 pounds. If it were not for her very traditional silver and black tabby markings, she might have been mistaken for some exotic wild animal due to her size alone. But there was nothing wild or feral about her. She was just huge, and, as it happened, not very fast. I caught her right away and headed outside with her towards the car.
I believe a word here is merited about this car. This was not the family car. This was MY car. And, while it was truly beloved for its ability to transport me wherever and whenever my whim would dictate, it is necessary to accurately depict how unglamorous a vehicle this was. It was a 1979 Ford Pinto (yes, a Pinto) which was originally yellow and had been painted a dark blue. I knew that it was originally yellow because of the paint that was constantly peeling off the fenders. It had a leaky transmission that required me to put in a quart of lovely red transmission fluid every five or six days. I don’t remember how many miles it had on it, but they were numerous. My only defense of the car was that it was fairly reliable and it was already paid for – two of the most important qualities a teenage girl from a working class family looks for in her first vehicle.
And so, I turn back to the story. By the time I got Piggy outside and into the car the firefighters had arrived. The sights, sounds, and smells of the experience were all more than Piggy could handle. She was squirming frantically and it was all I could do to hold onto her without getting clawed to death. But somehow I managed to get her into the car. I quickly sat down and shut the door, all the while expecting her to crawl into the back seat and cower quietly out of sight.
But this was not how she behaved. As soon as the door slammed shut she scrambled up onto the back of my seat and crawled up ON TOP OF MY HEAD. Almost instantly she curled around my scalp like a turban and clung fiercely to my hair. If you will recall I mentioned earlier that she weighed 24 pounds. So you can imagine this was an uncomfortable sensation.
My mother slipped into the seat next to me as I was quite fruitlessly struggling to remove the beast from my scalp. Between laughing at the spectacle before her eyes and explaining that she never did catch our other cat she also tried to remove Piggy from the top of my head. She too failed.
While all of this was going on a good number of firefighters were making their way back and forth from the fire truck to the apartment building. I sat quietly and with as much dignity as an 18 year old can muster while they each did a double-take at the sight of my “fur hat” and pointed at me and laughed with each other about it. This went on for about forty minutes and then Piggy suddenly decided she wanted to curl up on top of my feet.
My physical relief was immense. But my embarrassment would not abate until all of the firefighters were gone. Even if I weren’t an animal lover, I think this experience cured me of wanting to wear fur. I can with all honesty say that I have never had so much attention from so many men at one time since that day. And I sincerely hope never to receive that kind of attention again. To me, wearing fur equals profound humiliation.
Photo by Squeezebox Huf
No comments:
Post a Comment