"I'm getting sick of midgets, though..."

    - Shannon, seemingly out of no where, after a bad Greektown dinner

I don't know why I've been thinking about the past so much lately.  This evening I was thinking about Earwax/Satan/Josephine, my grandmother's last cat.  

My Grandmother was always a cat person, she had cats her entire life and loved them dearly.  She used to have my grandfather drive her to the butcher every morning to buy fresh liver.  She'd dice it up and put it in china bowls for the cats.  After the cats had eaten some, they would step back from their bowls to let my grandmother scoop the remaining liver into the center. 

Earwax/Satan/Josephine was found outside of our church by the junior high Sunday school teacher.  To get some "street cred" with the twelve year olds, he names the cat Earwax.  The cat was beautiful, calico, and declawed in the front.  My family took it home, called the local newspapers to run found ads, but no one called.  We ended up keeping it.  I'm sure that we must have renamed her, but I couldn't tell you what name it was.  

The cat would do a lot of eerie things.  I've had cats my whole life and I've never seen one like this.  It would open doors, hide on top of furniture and then try to pounce on you from above.  It sat on it's derriere.  Most cats sit on their hind feet, but this one sat like a human with it's tail sticking forward, between it's legs.  We started calling it Satan.

My grandfather had recently died, my grandmother moved up from Detroit but no longer had a cat.  She asked my mother for Earwax/Satan/Josephine.  We had two cats in addition to Earwax/Satan/Josephine, so my mother gave her to my grandmother.  She named her Josephine.

My grandmother moved into an assisted living apartment with the cat.  She always had bruises, cuts, etc. on her arms, which we thought was from the frequent hospital trips she made.  I used to come over to her house and she would show me things about sewing.  The cat used to perch right above my head and swipe at my eyes when my grandmother wasn't looking.  One time, when my grandmother was in the hospital, my mom was attacked when trying to feed the cat.  It shredded my mother's pants and ripped through her thigh.  The cat would regularly corner me in her apartment and reduce me to tears (I was 25).  Cleaning ladies and nurses would not venture into grandma's apartment for fear of that cat.

When grandma called me and told me that after having Earwax/Satan/Josephine for 7 years it was time to send her back to her maker, I was ecstatic.  I don't think there there was one thing in the world that I wanted to hear more than that.  I was afraid, though, because grandma could not come with me to tear  Earwax/Satan/Josephine from my jugular if the need arose.  Luckily, she had the cat (somehow) in the carrier when I arrived.  Earwax/Satan/Josephine was hissing and spitting.  As soon as I got her in the car, she started purring.  I'd taken this cat to the vet before and she had never purred (in fact, I don't think that I had ever heard the cat purr before).  All the way to the vet, the cat purred, meowed, and otherwise tried to look cute.  It made me incredibly frightened; it was like the calm period in horror movies right before everyone dies.

Once there, the staff made me fill out a lot of forms.  They gave me a dirty look each time I answered a question "no": Should we bury her in the pet cemetery?  Do you want to take the remains?  Do you want to hold her during the procedure?  (Are you insane?).  I think the cat sensed what was going on.  The cute act was traded in for the "banshee of hell" when the staff took her back.  I just sat in the waiting room, trying to convince the poodle and terrier owners that I was completely normal.  The shrieking and hissing was all that you could hear.  Then it stopped abruptly.  I went home.

That night I dreamed about Earwax/Satan/Josephine.  She was running towards me against a black background.  The dream felt like it lasted all night, but that's all that happened.  It wasn't until I woke up that I realized that it was a scene from The Crying Game.