Rising Sun Cat

As I have ranted before, I’m having a problem with feral cats in my neighborhood. I’ve contemplated different courses of action including but not limited to; spring-powered pellet pistols, firing plastic pellets at no more than 200 f.p.s, calling the county animal control, calling my landlady, and my solution. I’m not going to give it away, you’ll have to read the rest and come on this little journey with me to find out how I solved my little conundrum.

The pellet pistol was a great idea, but my conscience wouldn’t let me use a CO2 powered pistol which is capable of rocketing a BB towards an unsuspecting feline at speeds up to or exceeding 500 feet-per-second. Those are dangerous speeds, considering I never shot a cat at a distance farther than 10-15 yards and wasn’t trying to maim or kill a cat, just spook it out of my yard. I purchased a cheapo, spring powered pistol from Wally World. This pistol looked very high-speed and had great BB capacity, but just didn’t put enough ‘stank’ behind the BB to actually deter a cat from hanging out in my yard.

Before I go any farther in my explanation of vermin eradication, let me validate my cause; Mandy is violently allergic to anything with fur. Not only that, because of this allergy, she never had pets growing up so she is under the impression; pets are gross and shouldn’t be indoors with humans.

The county animal control branch is a fine group of state employees who work very hard, but they’re under-manned and over worked. They are willing to come out to my house and drop off an un-baited trap. They leave the trap for two to three days and whether there’s a cat there or not, they come back for it. To get the trap returned to the house, I have to call them again and thus the cycle repeats.

My landlady is a sweetheart, who condones my campaign but offers no support. I asked her to send a letter to all of the occupants owning cats, advising them to keep them indoors. She allegedly sent, said letter and the response I received was; cats, in my yard.

So after much deliberation I’ve arrived at a conclusion, stop taking out my aggression on the cats. They don’t know right from wrong. I will, instead use the cats as a tool to get the attention of their owners. I recently did a project on my van, requiring red, tan and black spray paint. I still have a small amount of each of those colors remaining in my spray paint arsenal. One of the three cats, constantly invading my yard and therefore my life, is white with freakish, red eyes. These cats are blatantly indoor cats, demonstrated by their fearless presence on my porch and their unflinching resolve to stay there even when I come outside to shoo them away. This pesky white cat is very vocal, he’ll sit at my front or back door for hours meowing, moaning and groaning. One day he was sitting on my back porch when I went out to turn on my grill. I threw a rock in his direction, spooked him and went back inside to fetch my meat and veggies. Upon my return, there he was - white cat – sitting there fat and happy, like I was about to share with him or perhaps I was happy to see him. Luckily I had the can of red spray paint sitting on a cooler on my back porch, I grabbed it, ripped the top off and let’er rip. I put a fantastic red racing stripe, culminating in a bright red blob on the animal’s rump. I’m not going to lie; I cheered. I thought, man this is going to be great, the owner of that cat is going to see it covered in red spray paint and keep the cat under lock and key to avoid having to bathe it. If any of you have ever tried to bathe a cat, it’s nothing like fun. It’s right above a root canal on the fabulous fun meter.

My victory was short-lived, not two days later the same white cat strolled into my front yard while I was out there enjoying a fine cigar (Rocky Patel Renaissance). The cat walked right up to me rolled over on its back and did that here’s-my-stomach-give-me-a-scritch writhing on the ground thing; cats are so famous for. Instinctively, I gently set down my smoke and bolted through my house, out my back door, grabbed my red spray paint, bolted back through my house, gingerly retrieved my smoke and with my Patel firmly between my lips, I blasted that cat with everything that spray can had. That cat could’ve been strung up in Japan as the national colors. While I’ve slowed the event down considerably in order to give it some creative panache, it all happened in about a minute and a half.

That’s where I’m at right now in my battle against owners of cats. Any questions will be answered and any advice is welcome.

Thanks for reading,
WP