Another One Bites the Dust

Angel Princess Kitty

I was enjoying one of my usual Ethiopian coffee times(where we sit on the floor and drink several tiny cups of fresh roasted coffee) with the neighborhood cleaning fairies when my fairy told me about a mauling that occurred in our house while we were on our Christmas vacation.  It seems our cat, Angel, attacked an AC repairman that was at the house fixing one of our units.  No, we don't have an exotic wild cat like some folks here.  We just have a cat that thinks she's a tiger.  I like to joke and say by "Angel" we mean "fallen angel", as in Lucifer.  For those of you looking at the picture of the cute little cat above and thinking I must be exaggerating, there are plenty of witnesses and victims of her past attacks with scars to prove it.

Before I finish my story, I think I need to give a little background information on our Angel.  Angel was rescued from an animal shelter in Virginia when she was just a few weeks old.  My husband, who wasn't a big fan of cats, was completely against the idea of getting a cat.  To be honest, I wasn't a cat person myself, and up until Angel I never had a cat.  So, why did we adopt her?  My little girl fell in love with my Grandmother's cat and begged and begged for one of her own for months. Then my Grandfather started bugging me about it too, asking me when was I going to get his baby girl a kitten every time I saw him.  If you think grandchildren can be spoiled well great grandchildren are double spoiled.  After months of the get the baby girl a cat campaign, I caved when a friend of mine told me about a kitten that was going to be euthanized. The kitten looked exactly like my Grandmother's cat, Boots, that my daughter adored.  She was tiny, smaller than my hand when we got her.  We even had to bottle feed her in the beginning, because she was too young for regular food.

My daughter named her new kitten Angel Princess Kitty, and over the years we've shortened it to "Angel" when we're not calling her "Evil" or "Psycho".  You see, I'm not really sure what happened, but the sweet little animal we brought home stayed rather small in size, but grew a BIG attitude.  She attacks everyone that tries to touch her except...my husband.  That's right, my poor daughter that wanted a cat so badly can't even touch Angel, but my husband who didn't want her at all is her favorite human in the world.  Go figure.  Now, that doesn't mean that she won't come lay on the lap of one of her enemies when she wants a little warmth.  We just don't dare lift a finger to pet her, or we pull back a bloody hand.  It's an I can touch you, but don't you dare touch me thing with her, unless of course you are my husband.  He can do what ever he wants to her like putting goofy hats and neckties on her, and he still keeps all of his fingers in tact.

"Christmas Angel"...NOT!

Anyways the fairy, who only speaks a little English, used phrases like "cat cut man for AC" and "too much blood" to relay the mauling account to me.  Then the fairy from down the street that works for my American neighbor piped in and told me that when the same AC repairman came to her house he was terrified when he saw they have a Golden Retriever.  As she tried to relay to him that the dog would not hurt him, he told her about his horrific experience at my house and showed her his wounded arm.

After hearing about this poor guys injury, I realized I messed up.  When I left the fairy to care for the dog and cat I failed to show her how to warn people about the cat.  I'm sure you're thinking, you just tell people to stay away from her.  It doesn't work that way here thanks to the language barrier.  I've learned this myself when workers have come into our villa.  I try to use phrases like "stay away", "cat very bad", "no go near cat" and other broken English phrases of warning.  I've even grabbed their arm and pulled them out of her path to save them.  They still see her and her sweet little face and they don't seem to comprehend my warnings. So, I have come up with the best way I know how to warn them, and I demonstrated it to the fairies after they told me about what happened.

I will spare you a real picture, but I basically have to make myself look stupid to get the point across and save Angel's would be victims.  I squinch up my eyes, scrunch up my nose, and open my mouth wide and try to mimic the face of the cat in the old Pet Cemetary movie.  I also throw in some tiger claw hand gestures. When I'm finished I don't know who the new comers are more scared of, the cat or me, but they seem to understand after I give them this crazy visual.  The cleaning fairies got a good laugh when I showed them too, and my fairy replied with a "m'am is crazy".