Tags
cat grooming, cats, cider beetles, hospital, humor, life in the American South, mean cat, tomcat
It was no use. My longhaired outdoor cats’ fur had gone from dreadlocks to solid mat. Despite the promises of various grooming tools and tricks, I couldn’t brush them out. The pet groomers on our little island explained that a cat’s skin is so fragile, they couldn’t take care of the mats. So my wonderful vet offered to take on the job. A few hours later, I collected two naked, still slightly sedated cats.
About halfway back home, they gave voice to their outrage, and continued the song of their people from their little kennels strapped in below window level. The dog sat up, ears perked. People we passed flinched, clearly seeing her as the source of the cacophony and probably hoping the exorcism in our near future would be successful.
When we arrived home, the naked cats refused to have anything to do with me. They went on a killing spree instead. So far, a day later, the body count is five birds (two rescued alive, luckily) and a rodent. But I’m not too worried. They are lovely cats who will eventually forgive me (after much groveling and tuna of course.) But it did remind me of my long-ago encounter with the scariest cat ever…
When cats go bad…
I was sitting in the hospital emergency room in Urbana Illinois on a Sunday afternoon, carefully not doing things. For example, I was not noticing that the gentleman sitting across from me was having an argument with an empty chair. Or that the chair appeared to be winning.
I was not listening to the lady waiting to hear whether her boyfriend, who had just wrecked her car, was going to live. Because if he did live, she planned to kill him. Lots.
And I was especially not doing anything like moving or breathing, which might aggravate my sinus infection. (Having a sinus infection puts a lot of things into perspective. I had one when I was in labor with Child #2, and I don’t recall ever having any contractions. Just someone beating on my sinuses with clubs, and my overwhelming gratitude when I heard, “Congratulations! It’s a girl. Now you can have some sinus meds.”)
A new patient came into the emergency room. One swollen hand was the size of a football, with angry red lines shooting out from the puncture wound. I looked at that hand and I knew right away what had attacked him. Once you’ve been on the receiving end of a cat gone bad, you never forget.
It happened when I was pregnant with my first child. We were living in a small town in the South (something I’d ranked fairly high on a list my guidance counselor once had me make of Top-Ten-Things-Not-To-Do-In-This-or-Any-Future-Lifetime). But to my surprise, I absolutely loved living in Virginia. I learned the name of Robert E Lee’s horse. (“Traveler”) I learned that grown women could be called Muffy or Missy and still be contributing members of society. I learned how to make cider beetles and sock-babies for the church bazaar. I even learned to speak the local dialect.

Cider beetles… soooo good!
[image credit and recipe: chaosinthekitchen.com]
CORRECT: “Y’all saw those damn Yankees fixin to pitch a hissy fit?”
Most of all, I learned what happens when cats go bad. We, like most of our neighbors, were used to felines of the kitty persuasion—fluffy, purring, little neutered furballs who kept the local rodent population under control in return for clean litter boxes and the occasional catnip mouse.
And then we moved into our little neighborhood of townhouses. The first warm night, we heard what sounded like babies being ripped apart. This was followed by regular thumps of things being thrown and yells of “Shifles shut up!” from new neighbors up and down the street. By daylight, our neighbors pointed out a massive cat. He was ugly. He was mean. He was seriously BIG. And he was all tomcat.
Shifles owned our local streets, terrorizing small children and beating the tar out of neighborhood cats and dogs. Nobody seemed to know where he lived, but everyone called him Shifles. To understand what that means, you have to know a bit of local history. In centuries past, pioneer Shifles* ancestors had settled in the valley.

*NOTE FROM BARB: NOT their real name, although ironically close to it. So for all my readers named Shifles who are even now dialing their lawyer’s number: before you sue me you should know the only things we have that we paid lots of money for are the dog and the 10-year-old’s braces. The dog’s teeth are nice, but she drools. The 10-year-old doesn’t drool, but those braces have been in there a while now. It’s your call. [image credit: imgflip]
By the time we arrived in town, the Shifles clan occupied an established social niche in valley life. Their daughters (usually named “Dreama”) and their sons (“Bubba”) filled the ARRESTS and COURTS sections of the paper. The number of letters and spelling in their name varied according to social position. Those who spelled it “Schiffloesse” were even known to possess high school diplomas and not speak to relatives with more economical spellings. But everyone knew this cat’s name was spelled with the absolute minimum number of letters. Shifles spent his days swaggering through the neighborhood, and his nights screaming his challenge to any potential rivals, sex partners, hallucinations, or for the sheer hell of it.
One day when I was about eight months pregnant, I made the mistake of going out to collect the mail without first doing a perimeter Shifles-check. (I blame the baby hormones, which also accounted for my inability to watch a puppy-chow commercial without dissolving into tears, or to remember if I was wearing matching shoes, or to explain my sudden conviction that I should or ever could knit baby stuff.)
I don’t know why Shifles chose me for his victim. Maybe his hunting instincts were aroused by my resemblance to Herbie the Love Bug. But one moment I was stepping out my door, and the next I was wearing a 15-pound tomcat.
I looked down. With teeth and claws buried in my hand, Shifles closed his eyes and locked his jaws. He was in his happy place.
“Nothing to worry about.” The young emergency room intern told me as he examined my rapidly swelling hand. “You did bring the cat with you for testing didn’t you?”
Since I’d had to beat Shifles upside the head with a board to convince him to part company with my hand, I had to admit that his whereabouts were currently a mystery.
“Well, we’ll just deliver your baby by emergency C-Section and start you on rabies shots,” was his response. “Unless you can find the cat by this afternoon.”
There are miracles. Getting the entire neighborhood to turn out and find Shifles was not one of them. People in the South are pretty fabulous about stuff like that, and everyone wanted to help. But finding that Shifles had actual owners—with many more letters in their names—who could prove he’d had rabies shots? Realizing this meant I would be able to continue the pregnancy until my due date, and that my baby would be born healthy and full-term? That was the kind of miracle for which—I gratefully assured a benevolent deity—I would give up smoking, swearing, and voting Republican for the rest of my life*.
*[Well, damn, two out of three wasn’t bad.]
Shifles’ remorseful and/or litigation-averse owners agreed to put their cat on tranquilizers to curb his antisocial tendencies. I don’t know if it was his new drug regime or the fact that there were so many other pregnant women drivers in our neighborhood. I like cats in general myself, but I’ve always regretted that I wasn’t able to congratulate the unknown driver of the car that ended Shifles’ reign of terror only a few days later.
What a feline, and what a story! Poor you at the time. Relieved it had a happy ending…x
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Shifles was evil on paws, and I don’t think he was missed. (Especially because there were so many little Shifles running around for years.)
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I wonder if he is haunting you? Some of your bad luck…
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I’m sure he used all nine of his lives, so I hope he didn’t keep one back to haunt me.
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Oh my. That Shifles. I guess they never did find that bit of cat hair on your bumper did they? I think your kitties look lovely with their new haircut.
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I particularly like that Clary still has a strip of fur down her backbone like a mohawk. I’m thinking of dying the tips purple.
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😊😸
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Ah, bless. Poor kitties. They need little sweaters 😉
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They probably do, but I value my hands and arms too much to attempt to insert them into anything of the kind.
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Cat bites are BAAD. I once tried to pet a previously friendly neighborhood cat not long after it had engaged in territorial warfare with another feline. The dang cat (all black) leaped on my arm and attached itself with all four claws. Hissing. I beat it off and washed my wounds with soap and alcohol, but my arm swelled and I ended up on antibiotics and steroids. At least I wasn’t pregnant, right? And the cat was nice and sweet to me the next time we met. I still love cats though.
Sorry to see your naked ones, but it’s necessary to get rid of the mats. Luckily Garfield likes to be brushed and is quite happy for me to remove his mats with scissors.
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Hopefully we’ll be able to keep on top of the brushing. Meanwhile Clary has an interesting new look. She’s lean. She’s mean. She’s Kitten With A Mohawk.

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It appears she doesn’t like her new look but I think she’s most impressive, the closest I’ve seen to a poodle cat ever!
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Judging by the way she glares at me, I’m guessing she’s not happy with her very avant mohawk styling.
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The good thing is, the hair will grow back and she’ll forget about it!
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The animal rights activists are going to get at you.
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They are more than welcome to come and brush the cats.
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Oh My Word! We recently have a new BIG Tom Cat on the block and decided spraying the front of our house would be an AWESOME idea NOT – Stinky! In our former neighborhood the neighbor cat would go on that attack of your legs (lived in a warm state and did not have pant legs on) – ouchie :(. The neighbor decided the best option was to put a bell around the cat’s neck – at least we had a little warning before ATTACK! We had a long hair tabby growing up and she had to be shaved a few times and we got the look that she was not a happy camper and oh the meowing and carrying on with that look – geez! Be Safe and Take Care – Happy Day – Enjoy
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So glad to know I’m not the only cat-mom fail out there. (I was feeling pretty guilty that I couldn’t get those mats detangled.)
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We dragged a feral long hair inside (we have coyotes) and he was so matted we had to take him to the vet. Good luck – I hope they forgive you soon.
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How long did it take your little feral to grow back?
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oh my…. that does look a bit like a careless treatment…. I would be very unhappy too if I had to walk this world with a haircut like them. But hey, they grow quickly and before long you’ll want to re-do the whole procedure.
An elderly friend of mine got bitten by her daughter-in-law’s cat. ‘Mum’ told her not to worry, that her cats are very clean and nothing bad could happen. A day later she had to be brought back to Switzerland by car and had to go straight to the hospital’s emergency. Not funny – even though your ‘Garfields’ do tickle me.
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One of my kids cultured the inside of the cat’s mouth for a science fair project. I still have nightmares…
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You didn’t faint or go into premature labour or something? You are a brave woman. I’d have had a coronary.
And dang, I thought I was finally getting over my fear of domestic animals.
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Your daughter was uncertain at first too. But the dog decided she absolutely adores her, and couldn’t be lured from her side.
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She’s a cat lover though. Surprised she didn’t mention your cats !
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Excellent story, Barb and I’m glad you didn’t have to do a premature delivery and get the dreaded shots! I’ve always had cats until a few years ago when M’s cat allergy resurfaced after years in abeyance. Mine were always docile and friendly, but I’ve known some that were rather shady. Shifles sounds like a terrorist.
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Shifles was a thug. I was used to decorative cats who occasionally turned on me during a cuddle, but nothing could prepare me for a feline Hells Angel like Shifles. I’ll bet if they had to shave him like my cats, it would reveal prison tats.
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Still laughing! The attack followed by the threat of an early C-Section must have been dreadful, but the telling of it is all down to you and so you must take the blame for what appears to be a sympathy fail on my part! 🤣
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(And I forgot to say that I gave cider beetles to everyone who crossed my path this Christmas. You’ve single-handedly raised my standing in the community.)
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and cats reaalllllllllllly know how to carry a grudge, screech at us, give us dirty looks, and shun us (except for feeding) when they so choose. this reminds me of how my mom used to cut my bangs extremely short (when they were just the perfect messy length for me) ,on the day before we had our elementary school pics taken.
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I don’t remember when I have laughed so hard. Wait…it happened at your last blog post! I’m from the south, and you nailed it, Barb. I hope there was a neighborhood party when Shifles departed his life.
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Great story Barb and as a cat lover I so-o-o agree with these boss cats running the show. I hope you’ve assured your little guys their hair will grow back.
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I can relate to the struggles of dealing with matted fur on cats. It’s impressive that the vet was willing to take on the task of grooming your cats, and I’m glad to hear they were able to help. However, it sounds like the cats weren’t too pleased with the result and went on a killing spree! Despite their mischievous behavior, I’m sure they’ll forgive you soon enough. Thanks for sharing your experience and reminding us of the quirky personalities of our feline friends.
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This post is both humorous and heartwarming. It’s amazing how pets can become a part of our lives and bring us so much joy, even when they’re wreaking havoc on the local wildlife. Thank you for sharing this lovely story about your cats and their grooming adventure!
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“… and continued the song of their people …”
Love that line!
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Thanks! (Torture at the time, though…)
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