Why I Don't Heart Cats.

On Monday we all went to basketball practice. In the middle of the practice I left, by myself, in order to put the dinner that Capt prepared (shepherd's pie) in the oven. I'm like that, always thinking of ways to make the day flow easier.

I parked in Capt's driveway and ran out of his car leaving the engine running and driver's side door open.

I ran inside the house, opened the junk drawer, removed the pliers and applied them to the broken knob in order to set the oven on what I prayed was "bake" and not "clean oven" because you have no way of figuring out where to turn the thing, threw the dinner in and ran back out the door. (The broken oven is a story I may post about another time.)

In true New Yorker fashion, I glanced into the back of the car to look for unwelcomed passengers before jumping back into the car...even though I was in a rural area in Connecticut. There wasn't anyone there, there never is, but we New Yorker's check anyway, it's a habit.

As I reached the first turn way down the road I felt a tap, tap, tap on my forearm.

A chill began to run down my spine.

I froze.

Then I mustered enough courage to turn and look.

A cat then jumped onto the dashboard right behind the steering wheel.

Now, I really don't like cats. I'm sorry, but they always, always attack me for some reason. I'm a little bit afraid of them, but they seem to love me. When I was growing up, we had a cat that would attack me everytime I went upstairs. Shadow would hide around the corner and just wait for me to reach the top of the stairs then jump, grab my legs and give me a little bite. It would freak me out. But I learned later that cat's do that because they sense you are friendly.

So as this cat was sitting about a foot a way from my face all I could think of was that it was going to be like all other cats and claw and bite me at any moment and probably do it to my face.

This was Capt's car, not mine. Capt's car locks automatically when you start it or something. It wouldn't let me open the door for the cat to jump out of.

I panicked. I didn't scream though. I didn't want to freak the cat out or anything.

I tried and tried to unlock the door but it wouldn't budge. Then I figured I would just turn the car off.

That worked.

The cat ran out without attacking me. Without attacking me!

Maybe I shouldn't be so afraid of cats anymore. Or maybe I shouldn't leave the car doors open.

Or maybe it's just me that these wierd things happen to.


****Just for clarification, yesterday's post was not a proposal. It was an email Capt received and talked about, I asked him to forward it to me. I tried to clarify it yesterday, but blogger was down for repair and I could not even comment.