I know some cats can be jerks but one particular bedraggled looking Chinchilla that suddenly appeared in my garden one day was a major jerk. To give you some background to this pronouncement, he was the cat that, on the second day of bringing home a very timid and beloved rabbit named Fluffy, this cat jumped over the fence, chased Fluffy. The terrified Fluffy ran as fast as he could but the cat caught Fluffy and bit into his neck. With my son and I screaming and trying to help, I was finally able to rescue Fluffy. Sadly, the next day Fluffy literally died of fright. So it is fair to say that I did not have a high opinion of said cat.
The Great Chinchilla Incident began on a seemingly uneventful day when I went to a shopping centre close by. It was not an area that I normally frequented. I saw there was a notice, in the window of the milk bar, with a photograph of a cat stating ‘Missing Chinchilla cat, red collar, Reward given if found’ including a telephone number. I realised the cat looked just like the hideous white cat from over the back fence; the murderer of Fluffy. It all made sense. The cat had only recently appeared and was in a rather unkempt state. This was my opportunity to not only reunite the cat with its owner, but also to get rid of it from our neighbourhood (and claim a reward). I telephoned a most relieved woman- yes her cat was still missing. We agreed to a plan of action- I was to cage the beast and call her as soon as her cat was captured. It sounded easy, but as soon as I approached this monster of a cat with a towel, he became a hissing, scary bundle of claws and matted white fur. He was quick and mean; darting into bushes and shrubs to evade capture. Eventually I did manage to corner him, cover him with the towel and shove him into a cage where he continued to growl and snarl for what seems like hours until the woman came to claim him.
The owner had brought a friend with her. The owner cried when she saw the cat;
quite convinced that it was her long lost, darling pet. Unfortunately, the cat seemed less than pleased
at the reunion and was just as surly to the poor woman. After a time, her friend kindly ventured that maybe it was
not her darling, Snowball but the woman remained resolute- it was her Snowball. This should have been a happy ending to the Snowball story but it was not to be.
The very next day a notice arrived in my letterbox ‘Missing Chinchilla cat, red collar. Reward given if found.’ with a completely different phone number. I realised then that I thought I was being a Good Samaritan when in fact I had kidnapped my neighbour’s cat and handed it over to a complete stranger.
Luckily, I had kept the telephone number of the woman who claimed to be the monster cat’s owner. I was too embarrassed to admit my mistake and own up to my neighbour who was now missing her cat. So I contacted the impostor to sort it out. After all, it was partly her fault that she claimed the cat that wasn’t hers.
When I rang the impostor, she was fast coming to the conclusion that the hissing monster sitting in her lounge room may not be her darling Snowball after all. I don’t know how it was all resolved: suffice to say that the hideous cat appeared over the back fence once again, perhaps with increased malevolence towards me. There was no Thank You card or reward in my letterbox from either of the would-be owners.
Did I learn my lesson? Probably not...await the next exciting episode of my failed Good Samaritan attempts.
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