Fat Cat


The lovely Mrs. Borengasser becomes hypnotized whenever she sees either a sign that says, “Sale,” or one that says, “Free Kittens.”

Her eyes glaze over, and she goes into a trance.  Under some mysterious alien power, she parks the car and enters the building.  An hour later, she snaps to and finds herself back home with either a new pair of shoes or a cat.

And that’s what happened.

A litter of kittens is born in someone’s basement, beneath a furnace, and the lovely Mrs. Borengasser brings one of them home.  We name her Rio.

What we don’t know on that first day is that our new kitten is infested with fleas.  If Rio were a country, she would have a population roughly the same as Southeast Asia.

By the time we take her to the vet for her shots, fleas have already secretly infiltrated the entire house, like tiny paratroopers leaping from the belly of a cargo plane into enemy territory.  It’s a sneak attack … nothing short of a full-scale invasion.

Returning home from a weekend trip, we innocently step inside the front door and are immediately covered with hundreds of fleas.  Hundreds.  This is horror that no slasher movie, nor Stephen King novel, can even approach.  It would be like waking up and finding yourself married to a Kardashian.

We have to spend the night in a motel and have the house fumigated.

This sets the tone.

From then on, Rio becomes an expensive pet.

One of her favorite tricks is to shimmy up the doorjamb, stripping the woodwork faster than a power sander.

For a while, we live in a farmhouse, but then decide to move to another town, which is about two and a half hours away.

While in the process of packing, we realize we haven’t seen much of Rio for the last day or two, and we figure she’s nervous about all the unusual activity.

Then, on one crazy, hectic, mind-numbing day, we put everything we own in a trailer, round up the pets, and move.

Two days later, in our new home, I happen to glance at Rio.

“Rio looks skinnier,” I observe.

“I think you’re right,” agrees the lovely Mrs. Borengasser.

“You don’t suppose she was …”

That evening, we drive back down to the farmhouse and tear the place apart.  Sure enough, three hours later, we find a litter of kittens nestled in the insulation of the attic.  Cost:  $15 for gas, $9 for food, five hours driving, and three hours searching, which, even at minimum wage, is more than $65. 

Back home, we buy classified ads to find homes for the kittens.  And, we get Rio spayed as soon as possible, which means a trip to the vet.

Once, during the winter, Rio runs away for a week.  When she comes back home, she’s got a frostbitten ear, which means a trip to the vet.

She engages in several fights, which usually means a trip to the vet.

She continually gets chronic ear mites the way most people get hay fever, which means many trips to the vet.

In fact, we understand the vet may be naming a new group of kennels in our honor. 

As time passes, Rio becomes known as “Fat Cat,” mainly because, as time passes, she becomes fat.

Today, she looks like a Buddha with fur.  More than one person, seeing her sitting statue-like, thinks she has some religious significance, and lights a stick of incense in her food dish.

Over the years, Fat Cat has taught me one extremely important lesson.  There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is absolutely, positively, most-by-golly-gee-willikers-assuredly no such thing as a free kitten.