Callie the Cat

Have you seen the GEICO commercial with the Tazmanian Devil, the energy drink, and the collectors plates?

The commercial reminds me of my Step Mother's cat, Callie. 

In 1982, after my parents were divorced, Dad set up living in a Condo in Alexandria.  He had a two bedroom condo.  His bedroom had a huge walk-in closet.  The kitchen was just off of the living room.  There were two doors in the kitchen- one just off the living room, and you walked across the kitchen and came out in the dining room.

Just off of the living room was a tiny little room.. a cozy little study, where he kept his computer, and his television, and the comfy sofa.

 Dad had always hated cats with a passion.  We had a dog growing up, but he hated cats.  Wouldn't you know, his girl friend (my future step-mother) had a cat.  Her cat was a calico cat, named Callie.
Callie had been my stepmother's one and only pet for years.  That cat hated the intrusion that my father brought into her life.  He was constantly around, and the cat hated him for it.  She would lie in wait for my Dad, and attack him, jumping on whatever body part she could leap onto, and sink in with all of her claws and not let go until my step mother pulled her off.

Still, Dad remained a good sport about the entire thing.

And then, my step mother went on a business trip and asked my Dad to take care of her cat.

Dad agreed, thinking that he would go over to her apartment a couple of times a day and feed the cat and change the litter box.

The night before she left, my step mother brought the cat, the litter box, and the food over to Dad's house, saying that the two of them would be able to use this as a "bonding experience" while she was gone.

The war began half an hour after she left the condo.

Remember how I said that the kitchen had a walk from the living room to the dining room?  It really wasn't a very big kitchen.  It was an L shape galley kitchen- refrigerator as you walked in the door from the dining room, and a small run of counter space to the stove, then the counter turned an L for the sink and dishwasher.  The refrigerator was maybe all of 10 steps from the door to the living room.

The cat decided to take up residence on top of the refrigerator.

When Dad walked in to get a cup of coffee, the cat was laying in wait for him on top of the fridge, and jumped on top of his head when he walked in the door.  Without my step mother there, he could not get the cat off of his head until he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stuck his head under the water. 

A very pissed off cat jumped off of his head, and went skulking back up to the top of the fridge.

At this point, Dad decided that he could live for 7 days without going into his kitchen.  He could go get take out, and use disposable dishes.

The second day, Dad came home from work, and the cat was still in residence on top of the fridge.

Day 3, the cat had taken up residence on top of the computer in the office nook. Dad was thrilled to have access to his coffee maker, but was now afraid to go into the office area.  There was no way he was going to go onto the computer.  When he walked into the room to go sit down and watch television he realized that not only had the cat taken over control of the computer, the remote control for the television was next to the keyboard, within easy reach of a growling, hissing, spitting, very pissed off cat.

Day 4, the cat had taken over the bathroom.  Sitting on the back of the toilet by the door, the cat had chosen the ideal location to dominate and control the situation.  Nobody was getting into that bathroom without getting past that cat.  Dad admitted to me years later that he went down the street to use the bathroom, and left for work 2 hours early that morning so that he could use the shower in the gym at the office before he went into his actual office for the day.  He also admitted that he should have just locked the cat into the bathroom that day and left her there until her Mom came back home.

By day 5, Dad had gotten used to the intrusion and was counting down the days until he was done cat sitting.  He walked into the house and couldn't find the cat.  No cat in the kitchen.  No cat in the bathroom.  No cat waiting for him on the back of the toilet.  Where was the cat?  Not in the bedroom.  He slowly relaxed, and opened the door to the closet- and realized that the cat was in the closet - on the top shelf....

Now, on that top shelf, Dad kept his collectible plate collection.  I don't remember how many plates Dad had collected, but he had them all in boxes, and they were all stored on the top shelf of that closet.  Many of those plates were from the Bradford Exchange and the Franklin Mint - big names in plate collecting back in the 80's.  And on top of the boxes, there sat the cat.  A pissed off, cross eyed, angry cat, who was missing her person and angry at Dad.

As Dad opened the closet door, the cat leapt up, and took a huge swing with her paw and sent a box crashing down to the ground.  *Shatter* went the plate as the box flew across the closet and hit the other wall.  *shatter*, *shatter* went two more boxes in quick succession before Dad could even really figure out what was going on.

Aghast, he watched as the cat's paw hovered behind the next box and her tail twitched in anger and the whiskers quivered.  While Dad debated whether or not he could actually pull the cat off of the shelf without getting injured, the cat deliberately flung another box across the closet.

Swearing words not fit to be repeated, Dad slammed the closet door shut and went into the living room.  As he was calling the vet for advice, he could hear plates being shoved and flung off of the shelves at fairly regular intervals.  Many broke, some shattered, and a few survived.

The vet sent an assistant over to Dad's house with a cat trap.

As soon as the assistant walked into Dad's closet, she gasped in dismay at the mess in the closet.  Not only had the cat shattered multiple plates, she had also used every available cloth surface as a litter box. 

With a triumphant meow, the cat quickly walked over to the Assistant and began rubbing up against her legs.  Murmuring "sweet kitty, how could the bad man lock you in the closet?" 

She gave Dad an evil look and murmured something to him about "It's really not a good idea to leave a cat in the closet."

At Dad's request, she put the very compliant cat into her carrier and took her back to the office for a 48 hour stay in the kennels.

Dad spent weeks trying to undo the damage in the closet.  The plates were fairly easy to pack up, as most of them had been in boxes when the cat flung them.  That was just a matter of checking the boxes for damage, and throwing out the broken ones.  The more difficult part of the process was cleaning up the pee and poop.  He ended up having to throw out many items.  Even so, several months later, he would be rudely surprised when he would go to put on a pair of shoes, or pull some item from the back of the closet and find a special surprise from the cat inside.  Dad swore that the cat was using his closet as her own personal litter box while he was at work.

Surprisingly enough, that entire escapade seemed to be the end of the hostilities between Dad and Callie.  While Callie never really did like Dad after that, she never really went out of her way to attack him again.

However, she would go settle down on the remote for the television on a frequent basis.  And she retained control of the remote for the rest of the evening when she did.