Rollo the Hang-Down Cat
Another young college couple came to us one day and handed over their cat, Rollo, to kitty-sit for six days. Rollo was a bright-eyed, orange and white, long-haired tom. I chatted with his owners for a while and heard about many of his charming personality traits. He was obviously dearly loved. The husband told me that Rollo would reach up to the doorknob in the morning, pawing at it, asking to be taken for a walk – a daily ritual that both cat and human enjoyed. The couple gave me Rollo’s leash and requested that I take him for a walk once a day. I said I would do the best I could. The next day, I did take Rollo outside for a short walk on his leash. I had walked plenty of dogs in my life but never a cat; I didn’t know what to expect from one that was leash trained. I figured Rollo would just roll over in passive resistance and then try to chew the leash off his collar as any other self-respecting cat would do. But no: Rollo was copasetic about the whole arrangement. He led me around the back yard, pausing when he found a suitable blade of grass to chomp on, and stopping frequently to stare at anything that moved, including the ants under his paws. He turned his head this way and that, listening to sounds way out of my audible range, like ant steps and the fluttering of butterfly wings. Considering his size, I felt as if I was walking a fat Chihuahua. With his speed, I felt as if I was walking a hairy land turtle. It was quite obvious that he was more interested in just being outside than he was in getting in any miles. With the great demand for my time cramming facts and knowledge into my cranium, I needed to invent a way to let Rollo do his walks by himself. A telephone line ran from the driveway side of the house to the pole at the rear of the yard. It was about ten feet off the ground. I managed somehow to get up there and affix a little ring around the line and attach a long cord to the ring. I then tied this cord to Rollo’s collar, allowing him to wander at his leisure in a prescribed area. There, he could stare at all the ants he wanted, sniff bushes, thin out the cricket population, and pursue his study of ornithology by chattering his jaws at passing birds – luxuries not afforded within the confines of a kennel cage. This worked out well for a few more days. I would let Rollo roam the back yard for about an hour and then bring him back upstairs. On the fifth day, though, a young student who was renting the far-side basement apartment came rushing up the outside stairs and banged on the door. When I opened it he blurted out that my cat was in trouble. I ran out with him and he led me down to the basement utility area. The young man had come around to the west side of the basement to do his laundry and seen Rollo in the utility room that I had sectioned off with my screen door; it was locked with a small padlock. I peered in and there was Rollo standing on his rear tippy-toes on a chair that was right below a basement window. The cord was still attached to his collar. There was no more slack in the cord; he had to stand that way. He apparently had been curious about what was inside the window, so he had squeezed his way through a tear in the screen and jumped down into the basement. If the chair hadn’t been there, I’m sure he would have strangled himself. All that evening I squirmed with guilty anguish thinking about the “cat-astrophe” that had almost occurred. How could I have ever explained to the nice couple how their cat had died? “Well, you see … I guess Rollo got so depressed from missing you guys … that he hung himself!” Or, “You’ve heard of the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’? Well, curiosity certainly killed Rollo!” We should have known early on that Rollo was going to get himself into trouble; he was always getting into places that he shouldn’t. Before his attempted suicide, he had the cute trait of sleeping in some novel places. He was one of the first boarder cats we had and showed compatibility with our own three, so we let him stay in our apartment. One morning, Jacqui had arisen first and called out to me from the bathroom, “Come look, honey. Rollo has thrown himself away.” I hurried into the bathroom to see what on Earth she was talking about. There at the bottom of the wastebasket was a sleeping orange cat. Apparently Rollo found the discarded waste paper warm, soft, and comfortable. On a few other occasions, when I went into the bathroom to shave, I found Rollo curled up in the sink. He looked so cute there that I didn’t have the heart to evict him; I went and shaved at the kitchen sink. I wondered if he also took over the sink at home and if his owner gave him the same courtesy as I did.
Tags: cat, cat sitting, kitty, kitty sitting, tom cat