I hate cats ... though we have one.
"We're going to get a cat," Sarah announces one evening.
"OH HELL NO WE'RE NOT!" I scream as the man of the house.
The next day she brought Gypsy home.
A charcoal grey feline with piercing brown/green eyes, he didn't quite know what to make of Goddess and Winston, The Little Gay Dog, sniffing their noses or their butts ... and I was immediately suspicious he is gender confused.
Over time Winston, TLGD, became Gypsy's best friend while Goddess mostly ignores the cat.
I'm with Goddess.
I ignore Gypsy.
My aversion to cats began in college where I crammed 4 years into 5, partly because I worked at the Bulloch Veterinary Clinic in a management position ... I was "Supervisor of Cage Sanitary Excellence."
Every morning at 7:30 I arrived, grabbed a shovel and scooped feces from 25 cages of imprisoned angry cats.
Opening the cage was always an adventure as cats would pouch on my face digging their claws in my nose, striking angrily out as I was the personification of human cruelty.
In no time at all I grew to hate the little bastards as it dawned on me that being in a management position isn't always what it seems.
When college finally threw me out, my life with cats was done.
Until the love of my life brings one home.
"Well Hell," I happily exclaim as Sarah thrust the cat in my arms.
Since then, Gypsy and I have established a wonderful relationship ... I ignore him and he mostly ignores me.
Until now.
On a lovely September morning I'm lost in thought sitting on the Beloved Back Deck when I look up and see Gypsy standing on his hind legs, scratching the glass on the sliding glass doors trying to get outside with me.
It makes me laugh out loud.
"You're the freaking fractured Brady Bunch," Samuel Adams ... who used to have long hair and play damn good live music on Tybee Island ... pronounced at our wedding.
My kids, Sarah's girls, Goddess, Winston TLGD, Gypsy, Sarah and me.
Most of the time, we give one another joy.
Often we make each other laugh.
It doesn't matter which combination it is.
Even if it's just Gypsy and me.
