Last time we saw our hero, there was cat crap strewn about his life by the devious (though apparently not fiber deficient) “BK” or “Big Kitty.”  BK had redirected his fecal assault towards the doorway of the bathroom Our Hero and His Roommate used upstairs… Interestingly, this bathroom was located in the landlord’s living room; essentially meaning that the Dastardly Villain was so committed to Our Hero’s devastation that he was now devastating living room rug.  Our Hero had taken the high road to this point, but would he keep his cool?  Let’s find out…

Stavros (my roommate) and I eventually stopped picking up the poop from the living room carpet.  We figured the rent we paid might cover things like this.  Apparently not.  Over the course of a few months and the normal process of petrification, the doodie became something more like furniture.. some of it useful for things like doorstops or magazine racks.   All this to say, we learned to live with things the way they were for a while.  Eventually we both moved on from there and have since married incredible women… I thought the cat battle was over… I thought that I had moved on…

.. I could not have been more wrong.

In 2001 I purchased and moved into my first home; a 2 bedroom condominium.  Our condo shares walls on either side and shares a drive with 5 other units.  My wife and I were so excited to be homeowners that we were blind to the trap we had fallen prey to; all five of our neighbors… owned at least one cat.. we were surrounded…

And then, one random day, it happened… poop on the doorstep. Felinus Fecalus.  There was no warning.  It just started happening; as if cats from the old neighborhood had networked with BK and cats from the new neighborhood and passed along the standing directive: if it belongs to McRoberts, poop on it.

A few years into our stay in enemy territory, I returned from a bike ride to find that I’d not only left the front door unlocked, I’d left it open. Fool of a Took.  I grabbed a bat from the garage and slowly headed downstairs with it raised above my head, expecting to come across some prowler or hopped-up crackhead going through my fridge in search of leftover Chinese.  As I headed through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye ducking down the hall towards the bedroom.  I shot like lightening (except nowhere near as fast) down the hall in pursuit, bravely asking God to ensure that the guy wasn’t very big, only to find , sitting on my bed…

..Two..
..Fluffy..
..Cats..

I froze. They froze. I screamed in rage and full horror.  They hissed in response.  I cursed them with the ancient cries of Mothra and Godzilla as I chased them out of the room, back up the hallway and out the front door.  While in pursuit, I all but forgot that I was holding the bat.  Of course, this detail was not lost on my neighbor, who had come outside to see what on earth all the commotion was and saw me chase her two cats out of my doorway holding a bat and hurling curses in Swiss/Tahitian…

What does one say at that point?  All I can tell you is what I said; which was “They were on my bed.. I,.. I don’t know what they were doing.. I wasn’t going to hurt them.”  She said nothing in return.

Fast forward to roughly one month later when that same neighbor showed up at my doorstep in tears.

“Are you alright?” I asked. She didn’t answer the question.
She starred back at me and asked “Do you have a shovel?”
“Wow,” I thought to myself, “she must have really loved that shovel she lost.”
“I think we’ve got a small gardening spade,” I told her “will that work?”
“No,..  it wont.  I need to bury my cat… Someone ran her over.”

Once again… what does one say at that point?  If I come right out and say “I did not kill your cat” it is bound to come off as incriminating.  Equally incriminating would be “Wow, who would do that?” or “I’m sure whoever killed her didn’t intent to” or “Well, it’s about time.”

Dear reader. Hear me and hear me clearly: I did not, nor would I have run over and killed her cat.  I promise.. You must believe me… I do not hate people who have cats.  I hate their cats.  (This is what is called a “moral workaround.”)  On the other hand, I strive to love my neighbor as myself but believe that part of doing so is helping them see that they would be far better off without the cat.