Awwww, Cats

Way back in the spring of 1978...do you remember what you were doing one warm late night in June?

We were living in a combined household. Doc and I, and our cat, Tiffany, living with Mom, Dad, and their cat, Samantha. Why?

Well, a bit of background. Doc and I had just moved out of our apartment. We had given notice that we would vacate as we had just had an offer accepted on a house. The house was being sold out of an estate. The owner, deceased, was from Arizona. The lawyers for her estate in Ohio. The house in Massachusetts. The night before the closing, our bank's attorney called with the news of a delay. The title wasn't clear on the property. That story of how we cleared the title will wait for another post. For now (or then) we had no place to live until the title situation was resolved.

Mom and Dad had just moved from the South End to a small house in town. Doc and I packed up all our stuff for storage and then moved in with my folks.

The big problem was that our cats didn't get along very well. Both were indoor cats. They barely tolerated each other during the day, but had to be kept apart at night. Doc and I were sleeping on a sofa bed in the den and we'd lock Tiffany in there with us at night.

One late Friday night in June, as we were getting set to turn in, Doc headed to close the den door. Just as he reached for the knob, Tiffany made a dash for the freedom of the rest of the house. As she fled, Doc made a quick attempt to grab her as she passed through the slot of the open door. His hands missed the cat but his shoulder hit the door, slamming it shut. As he opened the door to go and retrieve Tiffany, she dashed frantically back in to the room and hid under the sleep sofa. We heard a lot of fussing and finally managed to grab her out from under.

When the door had slammed shut, it had done so on her tail. Momentum being what it is, Tiffany had continued her run towards freedom. The result was the end of her tail was a bloody mess. I quickly got on the phone to the 24 hour vet. I was instructed to put a band-aid over the end and then wrap her tail with adhesive tape, over the band-aid, so that she couldn't get it off, then bring her to the vet in the morning. Sounded simple enough.

Ten minutes later we had found a band-aid. Twenty minutes later we discovered that there wasn't a bit of adhesive tape in the house. Not only that, but no masking tape, no packing tape, no any kind of tape at all. What to do at 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night in a town that rolls up the sidewalks at 8:00 p.m. We left Tiffany closed in the den and headed for the emergency room........for adhesive tape.

Fortunately Addison Gilbert Hospital emergency room wasn't very busy. Two bedraggled ruffians with bloodied hands and faces were sitting waiting for treatment. Looked like they had been on the losing end in a fight. And since they didn't seem to be in much pain, we decided that a lot of drinking must have preceded that altercation. We approached the desk and in hushed voices explained that we needed adhesive tape. We said we didn't need a new roll, anything would do, we'd gladly pay. We explained what had happened to poor Tiffany.

The nurse listened patiently and then said she would see what she could do. We watched her head back through the dimly lit hall to the exam room area. She seemed to be gone for quite some time during which we could hear muffled conversation. Then it started. The voices from out back got a bit louder and then erupted into laughter. The nurse appeared with adhesive tape in hand and an enormous grin on her face. "No charge", she said as she handed the partial roll to Doc. "Just don't tell anyone."

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Thanks to Alice for reminding me of this story with her cat post.