Cat’s ordeal reminds me that bad things happen right under my nose

By David McElroy · August 10, 2012

Bessie isn’t dead, but I think she came pretty close to dying in the last few days — right under my nose. Actually, right under my bed.

The sad and confused cat you see on the right isn’t some stray I just found. She’s one of my own cats. Here’s what she normally looks like. Thursday evening, she looked nothing like the beautiful young cat she is. She seemed like a dehydrated and emaciated little girl who was dying.

As many of you know, I’m a sucker for homeless animals, so I have a houseful of “fur people.” (I have another purring cat in my lap as I write this.) So there are enough of them running around as though they own the place — which they do — that I sometimes don’t pay attention if I haven’t noticed one of them for a couple of days.

Bessie was one of a couple of sisters who I took in about four years ago. Neither ended up being adoptable, so I kept them. (Here’s Bessie’s story from last year, and here’s the story of her sister, Molly.) They were feral, and they still have a lot of fear in them. They rarely even let me touch them, which is why it didn’t seem odd when I didn’t see Bessie for a couple of days.

I had realized vaguely that I hadn’t seen her for days, but I didn’t worry about it. By Wednesday night, I was concerned enough to at least search for her. When I saw her looking back at me from under the bed, though, I wasn’t concerned. I figured she was just hiding again.

By Thursday evening, I realized that she was still under the bed — in exactly the same spot. When I reached to try to touch her, she sliced me with her claws and threatened me with her teeth. She didn’t want to be messed with. I was about to leave her alone when I noticed something. One of her feet was extending up to the bottom of the box springs. Even when the rest of her moved, that foot — paw, if you prefer — stayed where it was.

If you’ve had cats, you might know how much they love to tear and play with the sheet of useless fabric that comes on the bottom of most box springs. (Every cat I’ve ever had seems to love doing it.) That fabric is made is some type of really strong fibers that I can’t identify. That’s what it looks like on the right after years of having cats rip at it. I never look down there, so I had no idea it was that bad.

Somehow, Bessie had gotten one of her paws wrapped in some of the torn strands of that fabric — and she had been stuck there with one paw trapped above her, apparently for days.

I have no idea why she didn’t cry out or make some noise. But she laid there with no food or water, probably since about Saturday (since that’s the last time I remember seeing her).

I had to take most of the bed apart to get to her, because any attempt to pick up the box springs just pulled her paw tighter. And until I actually got her out, I didn’t know if she was caught on something sharp, so I thought I might be ripping her paw if I pulled it too much. She continued to fight me like a cornered animal who expected to die, but I finally got her out.

She was weak and emaciated. When I took her to a water bowl, she collapsed next to it and drank and drank and drank. She ate a little bit of food and then she drank more water. Then she curled up into a ball and collapsed in exhaustion. I watched her all night and it seems as though she’s going to be OK.

She’s always a tiny cat — roughly 6 pounds — but she’s down to just 4.5 pounds right now. The time without food and water was tough on the little girl.

It occurred to me afterwards that it’s not always big things that we have to worry about. Sometimes, it’s the little things — right under our noses — that become big things after it’s too late for us to do anything about them.

For the past few nights, I slept just a couple of feet from a little feline who was progressively getting closer to death. It would have been just a little thing to check on her days ago, but I didn’t.

It makes me wonder what other little things are happening right under my nose — or under my bed — that I’m ignoring until it’s too late. I’m glad I was able to rescue Bessie in time, but I appreciate the object lesson that left me wondering all night what other little things in my life I need to pay more attention to.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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