Cats Flying Off the Roof of My Car

(The following is the eighth in my new series, “Old Posts to Dredge out on Slow Weekends Because When I Posted Them Originally People Cared More About the Economy and World Peace Than My Blog.” Although nothing has changed, it’s the start of a really slow weekend, blogging-wise.)

Miracle is the latest in a long line of cats I’ve had that I’ve really had no part in acquiring.  There’s not one thing I can say about Miracle or about any of my other cats that would be worth reading.  Writers far more clever than me have said it all, and cat lovers the world over have filled thousands of pages with the wily antics of their pets (“Perky ran after a ball of twine!” “Mootsie is so cute when she sleeps all curled up!” “Fluffy thinks the rubber mouse is real!”)

Miracle is a Cat.  Period.  She sleeps, she eats and drinks, she goes in and out about 100 times a day.  I really don’t expect her to do much more than that because someone told me that cats have been evolving for a shorter length of time than dogs, so if I wanted her to do dog-like things I should check back with her in about a million years, give or take. (Note to Cat Lovers: Please don’t send me comments about your cat responding to countless commands, counting to 10 or being more intelligent than your eight year old.  Unless your cat sends the comment herself, I won’t be impressed.).

In her entire life, and I have been her guardian for most of that time, Miracle has only done one thing of note.  She likes to sleep on the ragtop of my car.  Big deal, you say.  Right.  One day, I was late for an appointment and was totally distracted.  I threw everything into the car, backed out of the driveway and turned onto Lee Hwy, where I was traveling at a fairly rapid clip.  Suddenly, an upside-down cat head appeared on my windshield directly in front of my face.  As this was not part of my plan for the day, I was, to put it mildly, a bit startled.  I couldn’t stop because of the traffic, and the cat head refused to move.  I tried to assess if I could detect the slightest bit of sheer terror in the cat’s eyes, but she looked exactly the same as she always did.  Except upside down.

By this time, I was a wreck.  My heart was pounding.  I assumed one of two things would happen: Either she would eventually go flying off the car, causing a huge pile up behind me, or I would crash into something because my entire line of vision was being taken over by an upside down cat head.  Either possibility was not something I had the time to do that day.

I actually started making faces at the cat, sticking my tongue out, pointing my finger, waving my hand.  I did anything I could to get her attention, so maybe she would move her head out of my line of sight.  Uh uh.  She reacted to all of my motions just like she reacted to everything, which is to say she didn’t react at all.

I finally managed to slow down, get the car turned around and make it back to my driveway.  Miracle never moved.  Once I parked the car, she calmly jumped off, did that weird shaky thing cats do with their tails, and sauntered down the driveway to inspect the backyard for the 20th time that morning.  I, on the other hand, had to reschedule my appointment and lie down in bed to recover.  When I had calmed myself down enough, I made another attempt to be productive.  I went outside, and of course, Miracle was on the roof of my car again.  I considered buying another kind of car.

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