This was a very stupid situation I was able to salvage a little self respect from.
I’m not sure why I get strange comments when I talk about this. You know, it’s not easy to talk about something so very humiliating. Well, it IS funny. I like to tell this story as a sort of self-deprecating move. I mean, it’s not everyday someone dumps you for a dead cat. But that’s what happened to me. And, in a sort of bizarre twist, the story involves my mom and dad, too.
I was a senior in highschool at the time. The only mode of transportation I had then was a Honda 350 motorcycle my dad gave me when right before his very eyes he saw someone get killed riding one. It’s nice to know my dad cares, isn’t it? Actually, I’m sure I begged to have it since he wasn’t going to ride it anymore. Anyway, that’s another story.
University of South Carolina (my alma mater) was offering an orientation class for incoming freshman. So, I guess it was April or May. You got to meet professors, visit different college buildings, ask questions, etc. It was all kind of neat. The first meeting was in the large lecture hall I was later to find out was used for the gigantic chemistry classes. Actually, they started OUT gigantic. By the end of a semester they would be about a third their size.
It was in this first meeting I met a very very cute highschool senior. Pretty curly hair. Nice and slender. We sat and talked before the meeting began. What was she looking into majoring in, I asked? Why, Biology. Very interesting, I said. And quite the coincidence since that was what I was majoring in also, I told her.
Of course, it was a bald face lie. But I was attracted to this young lady and decided I would follow her from meeting to meeting to get to know her. And as luck would have it, I was scoring points right and left. In one class, the lecturer pointed to a large, brown shelled creature with a pointy tale. He asked the class what it was called. I knew but did not raise my hand. I had already told the lovely woman it was a horseshoe crab. The lecturer enlightened us and immediately the girl piped up, pointing at me “that’s what he told me it was!” The lecturer glared at me and my name tag (I had already spoiled several of his earlier questions where he hoped to have us all oooing and aaahhing). “All right, Futral (mis-pronouncing my name like everyone else). I can’t wait until I get you in one of my classes.” I smiled thinking “fat chance, bozo!” Yes, I was in. I had impressed her.
As we walked together between meetings, we discussed highschool senior science fair projects. She said she was interested in doing a biology related project. Maybe one involving dissecting a cat and then labeling all the parts. I told her that I thought it was a good idea. But, she mused, she wasn’t sure where she would get a dead cat.
Boy, I thought, smiling to myself, this just gets better and better. Then in my most suave manner, I told her I could get her one. Her eyes brightened. How? Well, recently in highschool Advance Biology, we dissected a dead cat. These were smelly, disgusting looking animals, filled with embalming fluid and formaldehyde. Teams were set up with one cat per team. Mr. Branham, the biology teacher, had a whole drum full of left over cats. Surely, he had a spare one to give me. She was absolutely grateful that I might be able to get her a dead cat.
The following week I was back in highschool. I approached Mr. Branham after Biology and asked about the cat. I explained I met this really cute girl and she needed one. Mr. Branham smiled and in his deep monotone voice fill with understanding said “I think we can dig one up for you.”
We went into the back storeroom and he lifted the lid to the drum with dead cats. There were maybe seven or eight left. Now, keep in mind, dead cats are pretty disgusting looking, but dead cats from the bottom of the barrel are the most pathetic looking dead creatures I’ve ever seen. Their little paws are covered with tiny mittens so they don’t scratch someone. Their mouths are in an eternal hiss. Their eyes tightly closed. Their limbs stiff, sticking straight out.
And their little bodies flat as a pancake.
Mr. Branham sorted through them and pulled the best looking one out. Still flat, but maybe not quite as flat as the others. He stuck it in a black plastic trash bag.
This was my cat.
After thanking Mr. Branham up and down several times I grabbed the plastic bag, took it home and put in the garage. I called the girl up and arranged to take the cat to her house. We were going to meet there in a couple of days.
Now, I’m a pretty independent guy. I was brought up this way. What I do, is my own business. Especially since I was going to be a big bad college freshman soon. So, I didn’t see anything wrong with not telling anyone I had a dead cat in the garage. It was the garage, for crying out lout. I didn’t take it into the house.
So, I got a little upset when I arrived home, having been gone all day long, and dad approached me telling me he had thrown my dead cat into the garbage. I mean, it was MY dead cat! I didn’t think dad had any right to be throwing a dead cat that wasn’t his into the garbage.
For some reason, I didn’t see the silliness nor the strangeness in this logic.
Then Dad explained to me. “Your mom found the dead cat.”
Uh-oh.
“She was sweeping in the garage and opened the plastic bag and saw the dead cat and went hysterical. She started screaming at the top of her lungs ‘GARY DID THIS TO ME!! GARY DID THIS TO ME!!!’”
Now, I found this a curious thing. Mom immediately assumes that I was the one who put the dead cat in the garage. I had two other brothers. Would it be the fairer thing not to jump to conclusions so fast?
At the time I wasn’t a parent, so I didn’t really understand the thinking pattern. Looking back at it all now, I think I just kind of built a reputation of doing things a little differently from my other two brothers.
By this time I felt pretty bad. Mom was sitting in the den, still a little shaken by the whole ordeal. I went and apologized and glancing back I saw the grin on Dad’s face. He thought the whole thing was a hoot. Dad didn’t throw it away. It was still in the garage.
The day had arrived. I was standing at the door of this pretty woman’s house, dead cat in hand. She opened the door, wearing the most pleasant smile I had seen on anyone.
And then it ended. As soon as I handed the cat to her. The conversation dried up. The smiles were gone.
And then I knew. I had been used for a dead cat. I was being dumped. What utter humiliation!
As I sat, silent, I thought of some way to gain retribution. What could I do? I’m not an overtly mean person. But here I was.
I smiled to myself. Yes. Yes. Here I was and here I was going to stay. I would make the rest of my visit as obnoxious as possible. But I would be the nicest person I could think of being.
I just wasn’t going to leave for a long, long time.
So I sat and talked with her mom. Sat and talked with her brother. (He and I played a game of chess. He beat me. OK! I’m a lousy chess player. That wasn’t the point of the game anyway. That alone must have chewed up an hour). Sat and watched TV. If I recall, I think I even ate dinner with them.
And I could see the impatience building up in her face. It was sweet.
Finally, out of frustration she looked at me. “When are you going to leave?”
I smiled and said, “Pretty soon.” I think I stayed another hour after that. I mean, I had to teach her.
Altogether, I think I stayed a total of over four hours. Three and a half of those hours just being an absolute pain in the rear. It was joyful!
I walked out and hopped on the trusty, old Honda, revved it up and left.
What was I feeling? Well, I guess it’s hard to explain, really. A sense of accomplishment. I had taken a defeat and turned it into - well maybe salvaged a little of my young, impressionable pride is probably the best way of putting it.
Oh! There is an epilogue to this. I ran into her a couple of years later on campus. I asked her how the science fair project went. She used the dead cat, but didn’t win any prizes.
Figures. Lousy idea, anyway.
)
