Feline Fracas

In 1812, Canada was invaded by our friendly neighbours to the south. French-speaking Canadians were presented with a historically significant decision: to stay within a British colony or align with the new republic that had been formed from a disdain for the Crown and not stop the invaders' taking of the St-Lawrence Valley. 200 years later, interpretation of our ancestors' choice is still open for debate among leading toenail-picking, ivory-tower-residing history professors. This is rather unusual, as the reason seems pretty obvious to me. We Canadians, though separated by geography, cultures and prevalence of female mullets, are united by one overriding passion: perpetually whining about the stupid-assed weather we've decided to live in.

Last Tuesday, at the tail end of a horrendous winter that just does NOT want to end, we had our first signs of the possible approach of Spring. I took advantage of the slightly-warmer-than-average temperatures to air out the apartment while I was at work by opening the windows.

Of course, reinforced steel bars had been installed, in addition to other redundant court-imposed precautions, so I was reassured that my little rim-pooper will not escape. That which I did NOT anticipate however, is that things may find their way IN.

I came home from work and started sneezing as soon as I opened the door. I found Gargy on the kitchen floor NOT producing ropes for our beloved clients. Rather, the screen on the living-room window had been ripped open to, apparently, welcome a lovely little unbred cat into his loving lap.

I went to grab the hairy hairball hoarder and do what any normal, non-Down's-syndrome sufferer would do: fling it down three stories and hope that the fall would be sufficient to send it back to the demon-dimension from whence it came.

Gargy had other ideas.

Apparently, and quite surprisingly, my hemp-spinner has enough of an intellect to have anticipated my disagreement with his adoption of a fuzzy, louse-bearing bastardisation of God's good will (how housecats got through the flood and onto the Ark, I've no clue. I'll just assume that Satan pulled some strings). He set up a trip-wire which, when combined with my violent, feline-seizing lunge, caused me to stumble into my back room. He then locked the door and stated his position in a remarkably unbroken French.

"Annie stays".

Annie, I quickly surmised, was our new friend. My options were made clear: die of exposure in an unheated storage locker or spend the rest of my time as CEO of a profitable ropemaking enterprise taking daily doses of antihistamines and enduring the presence of a cat in my home.

Being an MBA-holder through three years' worth of case studies and HR classes, and given that the decision-making process had been made for me, I ruefully acquiesced to my employee's request. Gargy opened the door, smiled at me, hugged my leg and went back to delicately petting Annie's macrophage-stimulating fur.

Oh well. Sanity's overrated anyway.