Cats Make Lousy Drivers

Certainly texting while driving is
safer (and easier) than this!

When I was around 10 years old, I began to walk down that dark, narrow road that leads one to become a cat lover.  I won’t go into the details of that journey now; suffice it to say that while I enjoy other people’s dogs, I haven’t had a dog of my own since I was a kid. 

Part of the problem is that I have little (or NO) patience when it comes to training a dog, nor do I have the time to do a proper job.  This isn’t to say that we might not get a dog once we’ve retired… we’ll have nothing but time on our hands to learn how to bring up a canine properly.  I’m almost certain that whatever kind of dog we get, it won’t be a “real” dog, but one of those miniaturized designer dogs that yap and shake for their entire lifespan.  But the major prerequisite for determining breed suitability is if it will fit into a bag on the tandem.  The dog must be portable!

Back to the real subject, and that is “cats”.  They’re apparently made by Ronco^®; with a cat you just “set it and forget it”.  Bring a kitten home; show it where the litter box is and then drop them in the middle of the delightful mixture and they’ll start to dig in no time, giving you a lifetime of toxic fumes filling the house for your amusement.  Catch them sleeping on top of the dining room table?  Not a problem.  Hit them a couple of times with a spray bottle and they’ll learn to only sleep on the table when you’re not at home.  But try teaching a cat road manners?  It just won’t happen.

My father worked as a quality control inspector at a foundry just north of San Diego proper.  The foundry had a cat named “Sootie”, because she was just as grey as all the ash that could be found on the workroom floors.  Sootie had a litter of kittens, and my mother picked one out to come live with us.  (The ones I had picked out previously kept getting run over in front of our house.)

This little tabby was dark gray with accents of black and tan.  Her pelt was such that if you split her along the belly and made a cat-skin rug out of her, every marking on the left side had a corresponding match on the right side.  So perfect was her patterning that they named her Rorschach.  This name was appropriate, but didn’t roll of the tongue easily and eventually her name morphed into “Little Bit”.

Little Bit grew and, unlike any cat I picked out, lived a long life and died a natural death.  Maybe this was because she just wasn’t as friendly as the other cats; she loved her family but didn’t warm up to strangers nearly as well as “my” cats did.  Mine would trot right across the road to go see someone who might be standing there… a recipe for disaster as some point.  But Little Bit?  Street smart and long-lived.

She was allowed one litter of kittens and then it was off to the vet to make sure the cycle didn’t repeat itself.  After being there a couple of days it was time to go pick her up and bring her back home.  My mother was driving our new VW bus, and for anyone who remembers those vehicles, the steering wheel was mounted more horizontally than it was vertically.

We picked the cat up, got back in the bus and started for home.  The most direct route would be along Interstate 8, which was just a couple of blocks away from the veterinarian’s clinic.  All we had to do was come to a stop sign, make a right turn and then head for home.  There was one vehicle in front of us: a cruiser from the California Highway Patrol.

It was at this very moment that Little Bit sprouted a wild hair and leapt from my lap in the passenger’s seat to my mother’s lap in the driver’s seat and then in the blink of an eye climbed up onto the mostly horizontal steering wheel.  Of course she placed most of her weight on her left rear foot, and she placed that foot right in the middle of the horn button.  If ever there were a time for the horn to malfunction, this would have been it.  But, noooo… the horn worked perfectly. 

My mother said something, probably along the line of “oh, crap!”  She grabbed the cat, trying to avoid upsetting her stitches, and held Little Bit up close to the windshield as she handed her back to me.  In the rear view mirror of the patrol car, we could see the glaring eyes of the officer soften and his shoulders start to jiggle a little as he realized what had happened and found a little humor in the moment.  Phew!  That was a close one!  Thanks a lot, cat…

Into the time machine, which is now set for 2006.  We are driving our cats from Garden Valley, Idaho down to a veterinarian’s office in Boise – roughly a 50-mile drive.  We have learned three things: first, the cats howl and carry on if we put them into their little “cat kennels”.  Secondly, if we let them out to roam around the truck they will shut up.  And the third point is that no matter how hard the passenger tries to keep the cats entertained and over on her lap, they will both go bother the driver.  This is an unwritten law.

Have you ever tried driving with a lapful of cats?  It’s cute, heart-warming and something I would heartily recommend every driver in his or her right mind should clearly avoid!