Mundane, pointless…and my best story, so I must share.
My dear little militant vegetarian mother has opinions about things. Things like guns, and religion, and politics. And Americans. Especially Americans and guns. So when I brought my American boyfriend home to visit, he decided to make a good impression by getting her a big silver realistic looking metal cap gun for her birthday. He has never owned a real one himself, but being well aware of my mother’s opinions, this was his idea of a great joke.
Despite that, she does like him. Something about having great hair.
Anyway, what does one do with a new big shiny loud cap gun? One scares the crap out of the pets, off course. Especially Mum’s cat, a nasty little piece that liked to beat up on my cat. My dear, sweet, gentle mother, who’s so distressed by the thought of harm coming to animals that she’s been a vegetarian for nearly a decade, followed the cat around all week, sending the critter tearing off across the apartment chased by loud “POP!” sounds.
My SO is a bad influence.
As time went on, The Gun became a means of controlling the nasty cat, who wasn’t really deterred by anything else. She treated squirt guns with distain and vengeance. “Stella, No!” was beneath her contempt. Every once in a while she’d decide that my cat had to die, and would do her damndest to accomplish it, and the only way to stop her was to keep her in her own room with food and litter until her homicidal urges passed. But The Gun, she had some resentful respect for. One pop, and she’d stop what she was doing and go spend some time on the other side of the house for a while. Stella’s digging at a potted plant? BANG! Stella’s knocking things off the Christmas tree? BANG! Stella’s trying to murder the other cat? BANG! Stella grew to hate that gun, but at least she’d listen.
Then one day, my 10 year old little sister had a friend over to visit. They were sitting on the couch talking, when Stella approached, tail puffed out, hackles up, and that I’m-gonna-hurt some-one-and-I’m-not-picky look in her eyes. Mum saw Stella heading for the little girl, declared “Don’t worry, I’ve got her!”, and grabbed the gun. BANG! Stella takes off, peeling toenail on the wood floors, her evil plot foiled.
The little girl turns ghostly white, and then slowly red. No one told her it was a cap gun. As far as she knows, my dear sweet gentle little mother has just grabbed a gun and shot the cat for looking at her funny. Even Elvis just used it to change the channel. I imagine she was scoping out the best escape routes at that point.
It was eventually explained that the gun wasn’t real, and Stella was alive and well, though probably very indignant, and my mother really wasn’t in the habit of putting bullets in pets or houseguests with little provokation. Even so, it lives on in infamy as The Day Mom Shot The Cat.
We blame my SO.
