My daughter was thwarted last week in her attempts to acquire a four-legged feline friend
My daughter was thwarted last week in her attempts to acquire a four-legged feline friend.
My daughter wants a cat. She has wanted a cat since she was old enough to hold a kitten while visiting a friend’s farm. At age 25, the major barrier in her quest for cat ownership is that she lives in my basement as she completes her student teaching. She considers her allergy to cats as being only a minor setback.
We maintain a cat-free home, and have been pet-free for several years now.
Growing up in New Jersey, my family had two cats. Their names were Quincy and Monahan. They were named after the characters in one of my mom’s favorite television show about a crime-solving forensic pathologist. Ours weren’t pampered pets, but rather were expected to work for their supper, keeping the field mice out of the shed where we stored the oats and grain for our horses and the feed for our chickens.
The cats eventually came out second best in the adventures they took in our heavily wooded neighborhood, and were gone from the scene. This was just as well as my siblings had allergies and already more than enough health issues. There was no push to replace them.
My wife is severely allergic to cats, or more precisely she is allergic to cat spit. Since cats spend a disturbing amount of time licking themselves, she will have nasty reactions from even touching things that cats have touched.
When my daughter was young, she attempted to lure a neighborhood cat to our house. Leaving out treats for it and wanting to pet it.
I still remember my wild-eyed wife using a broom to chase it off our deck and out of our yard. A container of cayenne pepper was spread around the deck and front door to keep my daughter’s feline friend away.
Beth, along with my son, Alex, occasionally help out at The Star News when we need to be in multiple places in the same time or for special projects. Last week, the village of Rib Lake called a special meeting with closed sessions at the same time as the Rib Lake School Board was meeting. Beth rode along with me and camped out at the closed session at village hall while I was across town at the elementary school.
Her meeting got done before mine and, it being a beautiful evening, she decided to walk over to meet up with me. It was with some surprise, however, when she showed up carrying a brown and white bundle of purring fur.
As Beth tells it, and shared video she shot to prove it, as she was walking through downtown, the cat — who Beth named Callie — decided to walk along with her and keep her company. This was fine when they were walking along the well-lighted sidewalks of McComb Ave., but Beth got nervous when they got to CTH D, which has much faster traffic and has less lighting. Fearing for the cat’s safety, Beth decided to pick it up and carry it the rest of the way. Beth would have been content to simply abscond with the cat and claim it as her very own, but I pointed out that it was likely someone’s pet and there is a good chance its rightful owner would be worried when it did not return home.
We returned to where she first encountered the cat and Beth, rather reluctantly, let it go, spending the entire car ride home talking about the cat and worrying that it would not find its own way home.
Truth be told, my wife, in moments of absolute honesty, will admit that if it wasn’t for her cat allergies, she probably would be a cat person. She admires a pet that can work for its living and can entertain itself.
I don’t mind the concept of pets, but they are like having perpetual toddlers in your home — something I have also grown past wanting to have full-time. Just as I am content with holding someone else’s infant for a few moments until it starts to fret and I can pass the child back, I am content to be living vicariously through the pet ownership stories shared by friends and siblings. It was with some concern that I opened a message from my wife with pictures of adorable teddy-bear like cavachon- poodle puppies. Kim came across the breed name in a book she was reading and has since gone down a rabbit hole of puppy madness.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.
