The Big Litter Box in the Sky


Once there was a cat in my life and now there is none. The once was a woman in my life and now there is a new one. The cat was one its ninth life when it entered my life, the woman was, well…

Mystery writers seem attracted to cats for what ever reason. Perhaps it’s their independent nature with uncontrollable personalities that border on neurotic.

My cat was originally revived with an oxygen acetylene torch at the manufacturing plant I was running at the time, after a young child had flung the poor kitten from the hayloft at a nearby barn. I thought if it had the spirit to survive it deserved a good home, so I had it for the last seven years.

I had a love hate relationship with it. Its name was Dino after Dean Martin, though I mostly called it Honey. A mutt, orange and white, with the temperament of a pit bull. Honey began as an indoor cat until I was held over in China a week and I came back to a very pissed off cat that had torn up parts of the basement where I had left it. So Honey became an outdoor cat from then on, only venturing back inside when I felt sorry for it on brutally cold days or I was good and drunk and it was the only thing on this planet that cared about me.

It fought constantly with anything; raccoons, possums, other cats, me. It would come home bloodied, with shredded ears, fur of unknown animals in its claws. It developed a Elvis sneer. Its tongue stuck out constantly. It developed a flatulence problem that would usually rear its head around the female in my life. It all fit its attitude. It became quite the hunter bringing me all manner of critters and leaving it at my doorstep.

It used to disappear for a couple weeks at a time and I feared each time it would not return. It’s been gone for about two months now and this time I think it has finally gone to the big litter box in the sky. I miss that battered cat. It’s funny how an animal can enter your life and change it. Much has changed for over the time I had it.

Jobs, women, life.

I never really thought of myself as a cat person but that cat filed a void in my life for many years through many relationships and many ups and downs. I hope where ever it is something or someone does the same for it.

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