49 years?
At around 4 am this morning, as I was getting mentally ready to go to sleep, I heard what sounded like a baby wailing loudly outside. Considering my room is on the top floor and the sounds came from a seemingly close distance, I assumed that whoever was making the sounds was stuck on the bushy tree opposite my window. Further using my detective skills, I concluded that it couldn’t be a baby because babies don’t climb trees in the middle of the night. Nor do people throw babies onto trees anymore. Not in this economy.
My astute observations led me to believe that it had to be the classic case of a cat stuck helplessly on top of a tree. I went out to my balcony to check if I could spot the cat, but it wasn’t visible due to the aforementioned bushiness of the tree. I, however, did hear the cat continue to cry for help. I’m much revered in the dog community, but cats have always remained ambivalent towards me, perhaps in part due to my ambivalence towards them. Today, I decided to change this. “This is it”, I thought, “This is my chance to be a hero in the cat community”.
I headed downstairs, opened the main door and walked towards the frontyard [the backyard placed in front of the house]. The cat continued to yelp, but I still couldn’t see where it was whilst standing directly under the tree. I called out to the cat. “Tchu tchu tchu tchu tchu”, I said. The cat immediately stopped crying. There was complete silence for a few seconds. And then suddenly, as I heard the sound of leaves being ruffled, a brown cat [Brownie] raced down a thin branch of the tree safely and rather comfortably onto the ground. It scurried away to the gate on the right, leaving me with little time to react. But instead of running away, it just stood there. Staring at me. “Tchu tchu tchu tchu”, I said once more. Brownie continued to stare on blankly. “Why does this cat not get that ‘Tchu tchu tchu tchu’ is universal human to animal code for ‘Come here. It’s cool. I’m not going to hurt you’?” I asked myself.
Thinking it was probably shy, I took a seat on the stairs in front of the main door hoping it would somehow convey how grateful it was to me for giving it the courage to jump (walk) down from the tree. I mean, why else would it be wailing away until I got there? All it needed was moral support. Giving it one last try, I said “Here kitty kitty kitty” in my most feminine voice for three long seconds. Brownie did not budge.
I was ready to give up and walk away from my dreams of being a cat hero when I heard the leaves on the same tree being ruffled once again. I was deeply confused. “What the hell is making that noise?” I thought. My question was almost immediately answered as a jet black cat [Soulja Boy] scampered down the same slim branch and ran across me towards the bushes on the left. Like Brownie, who had disappeared while I was preoccupied with the second cat, Soulja Boy too stared at me for a few seconds from a distance. And that is when I got it.
I didn’t save Brownie or Soulja Boy, because clearly they didn’t need saving. No. What I did was interrupt two cats having some amazing interracial early morning sex. Brownie wasn’t crying, she was moaning. And the reason they were staring at me was because they were fucking pissed off.
And this brings me to the title of this true story – If a black cat crossing your path gets you seven years of bad luck, how much bad luck does a black cat crossing your path after you’ve just interrupted it having profoundly pleasurable sexual intercourse get you?
