There is no neutrality when it comes to the cat. : The Cat Didn’t Get to Vote

There are roughly 25 million cats in the United States, and it is the opinion of Connie Ramsey’s neighbors that she is attracting most of them to Reseda.

They come because Connie is out there every day with her kitty yummies making certain that the strays she encounters do not starve to death.

Cats have survived for 5,000 years taking advantage of just such opportunities, so when word spread among them, more cats came.

At first there was just a trickle of homeless cats, so to speak, but the trickle built to a steady flow and now Connie feeds 27 of them.

“The food attracts every cat within a 20-mile radius,” one neighbor said. “The aroma is enough to knock you into the next county.”

I talked to Connie the other day, but I went around smelling the neighborhood first. That is, I went around smelling the neighborhood, period. I did not smell Connie.

I caught no offensive animal odors in the air, but we own two goats and it is quite possible my olfactory nerves are shot.

To reach Connie’s front door I had to tiptoe through pigeon feathers and pigeon, well, droppings.

She keeps a bowl of water at the end of her front walkway, which attracts the birds. They waited patiently on a telephone wire while I visited Connie.

“It isn’t true that more cats are coming to our street,” she said. “I feed them all over the area. I even feed some kittens in the wall of a furniture store.”

“In a wall?”

“In a furniture store.”

“How did they get in the wall?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but they urinate on the furniture at night. Of course, it’s covered with plastic.”

“How do you feed them if they’re in the wall?”

“Through openings.”

“Why?”

“I love animals and can’t stand to see them starve.”

Connie is an unmarried lady of 64 and has been feeding strays for about eight years. She spends most of her Social Security check on cat food.

“I’m not a nut,” she said. “I have compassion.”

“What about the neighbors?” I asked.

She shrugged. “There’s really only one who gives me a bad time. He just hates cats.”

Felis catus.

“God made the cat,” a Frenchman once wrote, “to give man the pleasure of caressing a tiger.”

“The cat,” another observed, “is an indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong.”

There is no neutrality when it comes to the cat. There never has been.

Ancient Egyptians deified the cat as a goddess. Dark Ages demonologists burned them as witches.

Cat stew is still a delicacy in some rural areas of Europe, and at one time it was considered good luck to seal cats alive in the foundations of new buildings.

Not too lucky for the cat, I guess, but the cat didn’t get to vote.

I have been suspicious of cats since I was 10 years old. Ronnie Enos and I used to test the theory that cats always landed on their feet.

He had a cat named Butcher, after its predisposition to kill birds, mice and sometimes, it was suspected, other cats.

Ronnie would climb to the top of a porch overhang about six feet up and drop Butcher to the ground. I would grab the cat before it got away and pass him back up to Ronnie, who would drop him again.

We did this six times one day, dropping Butcher in various positions, including headfirst and back first. Each time he landed on his feet.

But then Butcher decided he’d had enough and leaped at Ronnie’s face. Old Ron, to escape, backed off the porch overhang. Sad to say, Ron did not land on his feet.

Butcher, therefore, was declared the winner. Ronnie Enos broke his arm.

We have always had cats in our family. Some of them I have liked, others I would have gladly used as bait to troll for coyotes.

For awhile we had a horse named Shorty who used to break out of his stall and wander by a window.

When my son was small, he ran into our bedroom one morning and said that a gorilla had just passed by his room. Then he asked, “Can we keep him?”

I was reasonably certain his gorilla was Shorty, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Ask your mother,” I said.

“No gorillas,” she said. “They eat too much.”

“How about a giraffe?” my son persisted.

“A giraffe is OK,” I said.

We never got him a giraffe. But we had cats. Black cats, brown cats, striped cats, spotted cats, cuddly cats and cats that would gladly tear your evil heart out.

My son, now grown, is down from Eureka for awhile, living with us. He brought four cats. One of the cats had four kittens. The threat of geometric progression was awesome.

“You can stay,” I said, “but the kittens go.”

Unlike Connie Ramsey, he is using psychological persuasion to win his point.

He brings me a kitten to hold in the evening when I have had a martini and am vulnerable and almost friendly.

But it won’t affect me at all. At six weeks, the kittens are out the door, kid.

And that goes for the gorilla, too.