CAT was Skunked

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Walking alone, I stopped to pet CAT as I usually do. I noticed nothing wrong, but I did get a whiff of skunk when bending down near the stream. I happily walked to the stop sign and turned around. A car stopped with its window down, and the woman said, “In case you pet her, I want to let you know that the cat was skunked yesterday.”

The surprise showed on my face, and I said, “I didn’t smell her.”

With that, I smelled my hands and said, “Whew! No skunk smell!”

She said, “I cleaned her up, but she still smells a bit. My daughter used to do all that, but she’s moved away.”

She grinned when I showed her my thumb was down. Mothers know what it’s like when children grow up and move out. Her face would have glowed if I had told her what I was thinking. With her sun glasses on, I thought she WAS the daughter!

Further down the road, a cobalt blue car stopped as I was petting CAT to keep her from going in the road. The man asked the name of the cat, and I explained that to the dad it was CAT, but to the daughter it was Blake. He said he had put gravel over the deepening holes in the road, and I hastened to thank him profusely for that. He corrected me, that the man nearest the holes had filled them, and he just put gravel on top. The cat jumped on his car as he performed his wonderful service to us, and he wanted to know her name. Everyone knows she often runs in front of cars to keep us on our toes. I think CAT is a more expressive name for her than Blake. Wouldn’t you agree?

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Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

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25 thoughts on “CAT was Skunked”

  15. I always say that there’s a solution for preventing beloved pet cats from sadly going missing or stuck up a tree for days in the mid-winter cold: If making your feline an indoors-only pet is simply not doable, always keep it on a chest-harness leash during walks. If you won’t do it for the vulnerable wildlife potentially killed by your roaming cat, then (please) do it for your also-very-vulnerable cat’s sake.

    Another great benefit to this is that the average lifespan of indoor felines is about three times that of outdoor felines, not to mention the notable absence of outdoor-related injury. Of course, completely denying one’s pet cat outdoors access should be compensated by giving it additional attention/affection. I did so with my indoors-only feline of 15 years, Mr. Simon (below), until losing him to illness on March 5.

    I grew up around cats and sometimes their kittens, including feral/stray felines, and developed a life-long appreciation and affection for cats in general. As a young boy, finding them slaughtered the first thing in the morning was quite traumatizing. They were lost to larger predators — perhaps even a cat-hating human.

    Meanwhile, cats offer reciprocally healthy relationships — many cat lovers describe them as somewhat symbiotic — particularly for those suffering physical and/or mental illness. It’s the pet’s many qualities, especially its non-humanly innocence, that makes losing it someday such a heartbreaking experience.

    Yet, human apathy, the throwaway mentality/culture and even some societal hostility toward cats often result in population explosions thus their inevitable homelessness, neglect and suffering, including severe illness and hunger. As such, the mindset of feline disposability likely goes: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.

    Due to general human mentality, it’s likely that only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent publicly-funded spay/neuter programs, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted or even resented. Until then, cats likely will remain beautiful yet often misunderstood, prejudged and unjustly despised animals.

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