The first naturally-occurring object that comes to my mind when I think of allergies is the cat. It's not that I'm OK with house dust, pollen, molds, and serums derived from horses, such as the old tetanus serum, it's just that my cat allergy has most inconvenienced my friends.
I even had a pet cat once. Or, perhaps, it was just a stray cat that hung around our house a lot. I don't remember it ever being in the house or sitting in my mother's lap or feeding it.
Unfortunately for the cat, I was an only child. As I had no younger siblings upon which to take out my frustrations, it was the birds, insects, and other living creatures in the neighborhood who suffered the brunt of my repressed anger. The cat fell into this category. Perhaps I also blamed cats for the ringworm that had scarred my scalp a year or two before.
Anyway, on this particular summer day, my job was to expunge dandelions from our rather vast--to my four-foot-tall way of thinking, anyway--lawn. The appropriate implement for this task was a long-handled dandelion digger. Perhaps I was contemplating how it was that the dandelion got its odd name when this particular cat made an appearance in our front yard. Naturally, I associated the word "cat" with "lion" and wondered how effective the dandelion digger would be as the means to rid our property forever of this furry intruder. With my make-shift spear raised over my head in the fashion I'm sure I had seen some aboriginal hunter use in spearing fish on the pages of National Geographic, I began to chase the cat across the lawn. Just as the cat was about to round the corner of the house, I let fly from about 20 feet away. The "spear" went exactly where the cat had just been a second before but instead of a cat, the spear embedded itself in the trunk of one of the shrubs that formed a hedge along the edge of our property.
I was instantly struck by the lethality of the act I had just done and how awful I would have felt had the weapon found its target. Instead, I felt elated at how nicely things had turned out. "Cool," I think I said to myself.
Forty plus years went by before I gave much thought to cats again, that is, aside from the allergy shots and antihistamines that kept my symptoms, from a myriad of sources, in some measure of control. That was when Laurin came upon the scene. Laurin loved cats. Living alone in his "Hobbit House" outside Flint, MI, he had two of them. One day, he found one of them dead, apparently of a heart attack, after its claws became tangled in the fibers of the shag carpet on his staircase. He was broken-hearted. I don't remember what happened to the other one but, obviously, he had to get rid of it before he could move in with me.
After we moved to Denver, we lived in an apartment building that did not permit cats or dogs as pets. One Christmas, I spent some effort in finding a stuffed toy cat that Laurin had suggested he might like. Turns out, it just wasn't the same thing for him and I returned it.
Now, I actually like the concept of cats. I admire their independence, their cleanliness, their beauty--all from a distance. I find that they are much easier to keep from jumping up on my lap than dogs. Usually, they don't even try. Perhaps, they are allergic to me, too.
© 4 November 2013
About the Author
Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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