The Bloody Cat!

Several years ago, myself and my family rescued a starving, pitifully thin, flea infested, wretch of a cat. One day, my wife fed the birds with some stale bread and a short time later, noticed a miserable looking scrap of a cat eating the bread.

Taking pity on its plight, we started giving it some food whenever it came around. It was very suspicious of our motives but since it was starving, it would snaffle the meat, always keeping one eye on the person feeding. It had to be hand-fed as the other cats in the area would get to it first otherwise.

This went on for some months and even as winter deepened, the cat refused to enter the house, preferring instead, to be thrown scraps of meat a little ways from the back door.

The tom had taken to coming around every day when all of a sudden, it disappeared one New Year's. Several days went by without seeing the cat, each bitterly cold, particularly at night when the temperature gauge would plummet to well below zero degrees C.

Around the 4th or the 5th of January, the cat reappeared at the back door; weakened, dehydrated, coughing and shivering with cold. I didn't hold out much hope for him but I brought him indoors. A week earlier, I would not have been able to get near enough to pick him up. Stroke with arm outstretched, yes. But pick him up? No way, no how, no sir.

By this time, the tom cat was so ill and exhausted, he was past caring. He had obviously been accidently locked in an outbuilding or a shed and had spent almost a week without food or water and in sub-zero temperatures.

A hot-water bottle was hastily filled with warm water and wrapped in a towel. Careful not to make it too warm, I added another towel and then got a third which I placed around the cat once he was sitting on the wrapped hot-water bottle.

A little saucer, with just a touch of water was brought to his lips and he sipped weakly. Some scraps of cooked meat were carefully broken into tiny pieces and placed to his lips. He managed a few small chunks before he fell asleep. He survived the night, using up at least one life and we were now 'adopted' as his family.

And how does the bastard repay me? By defiling my computer with his tom-spray! The evil feline, neutered as he is, still sprays from time to time. When he gets pissed off about something he shows his displeasure by pointing his back end at my computer and looking me right in the eye.

Have you ever tried reasoning with a cat? Exactly. For some reason, his majesty was ticked off about something and since I was out at the car and not around to chase him, he squirted the foul-smelling kitty-spray all over the base unit of my computer.

The bastard! Before I figured out what the nasty smell was, one of my USB connectors got fried and despite my best efforts of a total dismantling and thorough cleaning, I keep getting an intermittent message that one of my USB devices has malfunctioned.

Bloody cat!