Magica de Spell
“How was your day?” asks the lovely Mrs. Borengasser.
“Terrible,” I admit. “I had a flat tire, chipped a tooth, and ran out of decaf. The world economy is a mess, the Middle East is a powder keg, and, at the drive-through window, they gave me a fish sandwich instead of a cheeseburger.”
She tries to comfort me: “There … there.”
“And do you know why all this is happening?” I ask.
“Why?”
“Magica de Spell,” I reply darkly.
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Magica de Spell is our cat, named after the sorceress who torments Scrooge McDuck. She’s a black cat.
This is unfortunate because, as everyone knows, black cats are evil. They create bad luck simply for sport. If there’s an earthquake in California or a volcano in Indonesia, don’t look for the seismograph data. Look for the black cat.
Sound far-fetched? Think for a moment. What’s the first syllable of the word “catastrophe”? “Cat,” of course. And, what color ink is the word “catastrophe” normally printed with? Black, obviously. A coincidence? Hardly.
Many veterinarians won’t even treat a black cat. Who can blame them? A cat who goes to a vet can look forward to a sharp needle, a knife, vile medicine, and losing its claws and/or power of reproduction. So, what’s the one thought that will run through that feline brain, night and day? Revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge.
Then, one day, just far enough in the future so no connection can be made, that same veterinarian will experience so much bad, foul, horrendous luck that Job’s life will seem like a stroll in the park.
Those vets who do accept black cats as patients have learned to be extremely careful. They usually insist on wearing a sacred talisman or a locket containing a mummified newt. One veterinarian in New Jersey won’t examine a black cat unless it’s accompanied by a priest, a rabbi, and a minister.
Most people don’t realize that black cats have particular areas of expertise. Our cat, Magica, for instance, specializes in stomach disorders, auto accidents, and vanishing ballpoints.
This isn’t as bad as it could be. I know of one black cat who only deals in calamities involving 250 or more people.
Some of you may think this is merely a superstition. But how do you think superstitions get started in the first place? Do you believe some guy in New Orleans sits around in a seedy hotel room making them up? Of course not.
Superstitions are obviously based on fact. The first person who broke a mirror had terrible luck, as have the hundreds of thousands who have broken mirrors since then.
By the same token, everything you’ve heard about black cats being bad luck is true. If it weren’t, you would never have heard of it. Besides, it’s so ridiculous that the color of a cat can determine whether it’s evil or not that the idea has to be true. It’s too stupid to be false.
So, here I am, in possession of Magica de Spell, a black cat, and, consequently, am doomed to years and years of abominable luck. Every time I have a bad day, I’ll have her to thank. Every time I get the flu, have a fender bender, of lose a ballpoint, she’ll be wearing a smug, little cat smile.
But, forgetting for a moment that she’s the spawn of Satan, she is sort of cute.