Stuff

Henry

Keep in mind this is a true story.  At least it was told to me as a true story.  It’s about a cat named Henry.  A stray cat, who showed up at the backdoor of a young couple, Anna and Doug, in the rain, meowing in a pitiful sort of way, all wet, and generally looking rather pathetic.  So they let him in.  They looked around some for his owners, signs on telephone poles and notices on the bulletin board down at the supermarket, asked around in the neighborhood – that sort of thing.  But no one was missing a rather unremarkable yellow tabby.  So Anna and Doug took the cat in and named him Henry.  No real reason, they just thought the name fit. 

Anna and Doug thought an older cat would be perfect for them.  He would be mellowed out, and probably be a lot cheaper than a kitten.  A cat that would gently purr as it sat cuddled in their laps of an evening and be a general companion to them both.  A welcoming meow when they came home.  So they called him theirs and took him to the vet and got him caught up on all of his shots, and since he wasn’t, they got him neutered.  All told, including the flea medication, about $400.

Then they bought him a bed and a cat tower and toys and gourmet cat food and more toys, and all of that can really add up.  Another $250, give or take.

And Henry did turn out to be a good cat.  For about a week.  That’s when he tried to jump into the dryer and Melissa accidently shut his foot in the door.  She felt really bad about it.  She felt even worse after paying the vet another $300 to sew up his cut foot.  That didn’t include the cone he had to wear around his neck for ten days, or the antibiotics they had to give him twice a day, which meant twice a day they got scratched and bitten by Henry.  That was about another $100, not counting band aids.  But he did get better.  And they figured that probably cured Henry of trying to get inside the dryer.  They were wrong.

The next time Henry got inside the dryer they didn’t realize it until after he had been in there for at least 20 minutes, spinning around with the whites on high heat.  The vet said had Henry spent another ten minutes in the dryer he would’ve been a goner.  Although he said something like “it would’ve been unfortunate.”  Vets don’t tend to use words like “goner.”  Henry spent ten days at the vet’s while his burns and contusions healed, getting IV fluids and fed by hand and generally recovering from a very near miss with death.  That cost Anna and Doug nearly $2000.  If you’re keeping count, they had their cat for less than a month and were out – so far – over $3000.  But, they figured, by now Henry surely had learned his lesson with the dryer.  They were wrong.

Henry no longer wanted to get inside the dryer.  He wanted the dryer to die.  So he attacked it.  The minute he got out of his $80 cat carrier after returning home from the vet, he attacked the 240 volt plug in wire, which he bit through, and into all of that voltage.  It blew his tail off.  Gone.  It just exploded.  Nothing left but burnt fur.  But it didn’t kill him.  By every account, it should’ve.  Henry apparently had a few lives to cash in.  After another week at the vet, and another $2000, Henry came home, without a tail, and fur that would remain a bit kinky for the rest of his life.  Henry wouldn’t purr anymore.  He didn’t want to sit in anybody’s lap.  He couldn’t’ve cared less if Anna or Doug ever came home.  He just stayed in the laundry room all the time and growled at the dryer.  For the rest of his life.  For the next thirteen years.  I don’t believe Anna and Doug ever got another cat.

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