by Carolyn Abell
I have friends who have been to my house several times, and have never met Miss Kitty, who is notoriously reclusive. (I believe one person even suspects she is fictitious— the product of an overactive imagination in a middle-aged woman who is somewhat peculiar, but not dangerous.) But Miss Kitty is quite real. She’s been my “only cat” for 12 ½ years now, and when nobody else is around, she graces me with her regal presence and an occasional gift.
Last week I was sitting in my den watching television, when Miss Kitty came marching in from the sun room with something in her mouth. I shuddered when I saw it was a small lizard, which she proudly showed me as proof that even at her advanced age, she had not lost her feline skill in capturing varmints. As she dropped it, though, it scurried off under the sofa.
I did not scream. I did not panic. My brain quickly began assessing ways of capturing that lizard before it became hopelessly lost in the house, causing me to lie awake at night wondering where it was. I raced to the laundry room and got the broom, thinking that if I ran the broom handle under the couch, it would force the lizard out of hiding. When I stuck the broom under, though, it wouldn’t move. Then I remembered that the sofa was a hide-a-bed, which my mother (God rest her soul) had insisted we needed, in case we ever had so many overnight guests that we needed extra sleeping quarters for the overflow. The folded-up bed evidently went all the way to the floor, because the broom kept hitting it.
Since this idea wasn’t going to work, I decided the only thing to do was to start pulling the sofa sleeper out from the wall. Tugging one side and then another, I moved it about six inches before I realized that wasn’t going to work either, because it was too heavy. So I then conceived the brilliant notion of opening up the bed part, so I could see the lizard underneath. Removing the cushions, I began pulling and tugging at the handle to the bed frame. One side came out partly, and the other side seemed stuck. At that point, I realized I couldn’t get it to come out, and when I tried to put it back into its hidden position, I couldn’t do that either. By working with it several minutes with all the strength I could muster, I finally managed to get it back together, making a mental note to plan on replacing the entire contraption sometime in the near future. Better to give it to somebody who was strong enough (and smart enough) to understand how to operate it!
About that time, I spotted the lizard a few feet away. Evidently my gyrations with the sofa sleeper had frightened the little creature out of his hiding place, and he was sitting under my stereo table trying to figure out his next move. I grabbed the broom and tried to hold him in place with it, hoping to kill him, but not wanting a mess on my carpet. Well, the little devil squirmed out from under my broom and went scurrying along the wall. As he headed toward the door, I prayed he wouldn’t go under the couch again, but he seemed to know where the front door was, and headed straight in that direction. When he arrived, I unlatched the door, and used my broom to usher him outside, informing him this was his lucky break, and he should go look for spiders to eat.
Miss Kitty apparently thought the entire episode quite entertaining, but was disappointed that I had been the one to have so much fun with her live playmate.
A few days later I woke up with a stiff lower back. Being prone to inflammations in various parts of my back, I began immediately using the ice-heat therapy that my doctor in Florida had taught me ten years ago, along with aspirins for the pain. After about four days, however, with no improvement, I realized I might need something stronger than aspirins, so I made an appointment to see my doctor here in Tifton.
After examining my back and asking me a couple of dozen questions, he agreed that it was an inflammation, and prescribed a medication that would fight the problem and lessen the pain. “This could take awhile, so don’t expect to get better in a day or two,” he told me, handing me a prescription for 30 days with one refill. “Avoid doing anything that hurts. What kind of movements hurt?” he asked. “Bending over does,” I said without thinking. “Then don’t bend over,” he ordered.
“Don’t bend over?” I muttered to myself. “Who will feed Miss Kitty?”
Copywrite by Carolyn Abell June 2010
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