Meow means “I love you”

After reading A Dove Story on Bossy’s blog, I felt inspired to tell the following sad, desperate and true tale of love, longing and loss.  A tale I call  “Cats” — the off off off off off off Broadway Version.

Meet Jag.  Jag is a studly cat.  A cat with a certain swagger to his step and a gleam in his eye.  He’s the bad boy, the one you just don’t bring home to mother.  Sure to be the father of many a neighborhood stray, his spawn is too numerous to count and all carry his powerful He-Cat genes.  If he could speak English, he’d sound a bit like Antonio Banderas.  However, come to think of it, Antonio Banderas doesn’t really speak English, now does he?  Alas, it matters not… Jag is a love stud, meant to roam freely, romancing the ladies and being the envy of other male cats.

Jag, however, lives inside.  He arrived at our house on Christmas Eve, and was supposed to stay only the night.  He is still here.  Mainly because no one would claim him, and I, being the sap that I am had the audacity to name him.  Once they are named they are yours.  He is not fixed (but will be shortly) and outside of his nightly “events” is quite well behaved.  His “events” would be entertaining if they weren’t staged at 3 a.m. 

What are these events, you ask?  Well, Jag is a love stud, and the lady cats know it.  They gather on our front porch to sing songs of love, lust and catnip to our front window.  Inside, Jag is listening and composing his own song of frustration and love unattained.  Thus begins the bad broadway musical version of “Cats” in our front room.  There is singing, then some dancing, then more singing then there is the sad, forlorn screaming that marks the apex of the drama. 

That all was bad.  And ever so loud.  But not nearly as shocking as “The Tunnel of Love” that I found behind the couch.  It appears that in desperation of his lady-flock leaving him, Jag decided that he could tunnel through the wall to the outside to cavort with his admirers.  I envision him spending hours clawing at the drywall in a futile attempt to share his seed with the world.  I envision his lady friends breaking off nails as they attempted to dig through the stucco on the outside of the wall.  It’s like a bad prison escape movie.  All for love.  Or lust.  Or just plain cat-insanity.

The “heat” season appears to have disappeared for the moment and our house is once again quiet at night.  The musical extravaganzas have gone dark.  The wall has been patched and repainted and the cat is scheduled for some snipping in the near future.  But I still see the gleam of unrequited love in the eyes of my “love-stud” and I wonder how many hearts he’s broken along the way.

P.S.  Why didn’t I just put him outside if he wanted to go so badly, you wonder?  Because once a cat comes into my house they remain inside cats.  No cat goes outside here, too many bad things (coyotes, diseases, fights, cars).