The Intruder

We had only been married for a short while and our sparkling new home seemed perfect.  We were working on decorating this place, sharing our lives and making decisions together that were binding us as a couple.  Then, the intruder arrived.

This intruder was a beaten-up, broken-toothed, black alley cat that my husband, Mark, found at his shop. The cat had been in many a fight and was filthy.  I assumed, as I saw him lying in the box of towels in our garage, that he needed to be cleaned up, fed and returned to the alley he loved. Mark wanted to bring him into our sparkling new house and nurse him to health. I could not have been more adamantly opposed.

Our family had a few cats when I was growing up and they were a delight to our whole family.  However, I remembered vividly the brand new carpet being ruined and a large spot on the hardwood floors being stained, when we brought the cats to my parents’ new house many years ago. I did not want déjà vu to occur.

I wanted our home to stay beautiful and the intruder could not be trusted.  My husband’s soft-spot for animals, especially this intruder, was definitely something that I intended to logically talk him out of. I was sure that reason would triumph. The cat was not allowed in the house. “We” were making plans about who would want this cat (since returning him to the alleys was clearly not an option for Mark) and making sure that “we” were not getting attached.

Any talk of naming him was nixed by me, because “we” could not get attached. Naming it meant a special connection.  It meant that this intruder might get an identity other than the nameless, homeless alley cat that he was.  What would be the point of naming it when someone else would want to give it another name?  Clearly, the cat did not need a name.

The first night the cat was with us, Mark gave him a bath.  I imagined that Mark’s arms would be scratched from shoulders to fingernails from giving this feisty, alley cat a bath.  To my surprise, the black cat with a white mark under his chin was totally white when wet.  His fur was extremely dense and beautiful and dried into shiny black.  However, when wet, he was white. (How could a black cat be white? I still do not understand this exactly, but it was true. Perhaps, it was because only the tips of the fur were black.)  When the bath was over the cat purred out loud and Mark received not a scratch. 

The next evening Mark’s mother was coming to dinner and we planned to show her the beautiful cat and ask her to keep it.  She was a lonely, divorced woman and needed a cat to keep her company, “we” decided.  As the evening progressed, the cat was not mentioned by this lonely lady’s son.  I kept gesturing, kicking and clearing my throat. Finally, he showed her the cat that he found and did not so much as even hint about her taking the cat. He said later that she would not want it and did not have room for it. Of course, he did not even ask. I was livid.

The rest is history.  The intruder moved in from the garage to the dining room, to the family room and, eventually, had free run of the house.  The ultimate intrusion occurred when I realized that the intruder was sleeping at the foot of our bed.

Mark would whistle the Andy Griffith (Mayberry R.F.D.) Theme Song and the cat would come. He did not hide like some cats; he enjoyed being with us. He would sit on our laps and was indeed a wonderful pet for seven years. Our carpets and floors were never ruined. The cat did not even shed. 

The cat did get an official name: Gatto. However, Mark had so many special, affectionate names for the cat it was hard to keep up with all of them.  The vet’s office had trouble keep up with them, too.  We, at one time, got four different notices from the vet saying that our pet’s shots were due.  Each of the four notices was addressed to the owners of Gat, Szgat, Zcat, or Gatto.  Little did they know that this was all the same cat. This nameless, homeless cat had more names and “special connections” than he could have ever dreamed of.  My name for the cat was Intruder. (Not all intrusions are bad and they can even be a source of joy.)