Bye, Kitty-Kitty-Kitty

There are, in my humble experience, and in very general terms, three types of cats.

The first type are the ferals. The “Thanks for the food, hooman, but come any closer than five feet and I’ll depart so quickly that I’ll leave skid marks” kind of feline.

The second type are the “normal” cats, those who are so thoroughly socialized they’ll carry on conversations with their owners, endure belly rubs without succumbing to an intense desire to deglove the proffered hand, and insist on happily insinuating themselves into whatever physical activity in which their owners my be participating. Purring.

The third type is the cat-like object. They eat, they sleep, they poop, and that’s about it. If dragged onto a lap they will spend every moment of that particular Hell calculating their inevitable means of escape to good old terra firma. If called they will not come. Any contact between them and their “owners” is either incidental or entirely food related.

This final type was my cat, Angel, who at the ripe old age of 16 went to meet her brother in that great cat cafe’ in the sky. She and her brother showed up as kittens at my feeding station during our customary annual Texas ice storm and I never found opportunity to rehome them. So with me they remained.

Angel had the sweetest nature of any of my many cats. She never hissed nor struck at either me or any of her kin. In fact, the only notable thing about her was she was my last cat. At one time I owned eight of the little buggers but, somehow, Angel outlived all of them. Surprised the hell out of me as she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and would probably not have lasted a year as a stray.

Her passing, though, left me profoundly sad as I was burdened with the final call that ended her life, but she was suffering from ailments that no amount of veterinary expertise would cure so it was time to let go. Tomorrow she'll be interred near all her kitty friends under the big oak tree in my back yard.

I currently do not plan on acquiring a replacement, for reasons of my own that may or may not have anything to do with my ever-increasing dotage. (This also means it's the last time you'll ever read one of these sappy cat-stories.)

As a result of this unhappy jolt of reality I neither feel funny nor political today so I’ll see you all on Wednesday. Until then, enjoy today’s ‘toon which I created specifically for the passing of one of my former “normal” kitties back in 2014 but which perfectly suits the arc of Angel's life here at Casa de Cranky.

- Lefty