The Cat's Miaow Heralds Christmas

The Cat’s Miaow Heralds Christmas ©

By Michael Casey

Yesterday was 9^th May 2015, a day of celebration in our house, Christmas had arrived early, over 7 months early. Yesterday was the Day of the Cat, or Totoro Day, forever etched in our memory. Yesterday my 2 daughters finally got their cat. They had begged for a cat for years but yesterday was the day they finally got their wish, their hearts desire.

I had to have my Triple Heart Bypass before I relented, now the cat had landed. It was a confluence of events, a friend of my big daughter had had kittens, or rather her cat had had kittens, four in fact. So she asked my big daughter did she want a cat. So I agreed, so long as it was a boy cat, a Tom as we say here in England. One reason being that I wanted another male in the house, I have been the token male in this Shanghai/Birmingham family for years. Now with a Tom cat the number of males in the household would be doubled, girls 3, boys 2.

I also did not want lots of future kittens all over our house, so a Tom cat was better than a girl cat. He would never be neutered either, I don’t want to give my wife any ideas. So Saturday 9^thMay arrived, the collection day. We had bought a cat box or jail, so at 11am prompt both my daughters skipped merrily around the corner to the friend’s house, the cat box swinging in their hand, they did bang it on the front garden wall, but Totoro was not inside yet.

Around the corner the kitten was placed in the mobile jail and transported back to our house, my girls singing Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock as they carried Totoro to his new home. Once home, our house is his home now, 7 weeks old and now he is adopted and has a Japanese name, he will hear plenty of Chinese from my Shanghai wife. He was going to be named Maomi, which is the Chinese for cat but our small daughter overruled us. Totoro is his name, after the fat cat from the Studio Ghibli films.

Totoro sniffed around the house, we had his basket ready, a wicker one that was ½ price from B&Q. Inside was an old rugby shirt of mine, then 2 blankets, so he would have a soft bed, a 3^rdblanket arrived from my sister when she came to view the new kitten. A scratch post was ready in a corner, it’s a bit like a pole dancing post for strippers, only its cat size and covered in rope. At the top is a wrecking ball with marbles in, though no Miley Cyrus attached.

We’d been shopping for cat food, we had Aldi tinned food ready, the girls decided to top this up with cat treats and Whiskas, which is the top brand here in England. The girls also bought cat milk, how on earth do you milk cats, perhaps elves or fairies go from mother cat to mother cat and steal the milk while they are asleep.

Whatever magic is used all I know is that in our fridge is a tiny bottle or two of cat milk, if you listen carefully as you pour it into a saucer you can hear it go “miaow.” As for Totoro when he eats he makes a noise like a machine, an eating machine.

As for the girls their joy is something to behold, Xmas really has come early. I told them they must ring their uncle and thank him, he gave them a large donation of pocket money which came just in time to allow them to splurge on the cat. So Totoro Casey the cat is now a member of the family, it was a big job getting the girls to go to bed last night.

In the middle of the night at 4.30am or so I came downstairs for a pain killer and to see how Totoro was getting on; he was happy, burrowed under all his blankets. I was concerned that he hadn’t done his pooh yet, or pee, even though he had been fed and watered. I had a slice of toast before going back to bed.

I was glad Totoro hadn’t activated the burglar alarm in the night. So I switched the alarm back on and headed back to bed. Only I did something wrong, and the alarm went off, making loads of noise. Totoro looked up from his basket, he didn’t need to say anything, he knew humans were morons total morons, didn’t I know cats need their beauty sleep, 16 hours a day of it.

It was 5am now, I went back to sleep, my pain assuaged. In the morning when I got up it was just me and Totoro in the house, I was home alone, plus cat. When my wife came home from church she told me that Totoro had done his business in a corner of the living room.

Our small daughter had cleaned it up, it was our coalition like deal before cat. I was relieved, not as much as the cat but I was relieved, the kitten of the family had made his first pooh at our house. Then Totoro decided to show just how clever he was, he peed in the corner where hours before he had poohed. I laughed, didn’t they know cats like corners.

So that’s the beginning of Totoro’s life with the Shanghai/Birmingham Caseys, the cat with the Japanese name who’ll soon be bilingual. Miaow.