Pandora: Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to get a six-kilogram, six-year-old cat called Lucifer out of a one room granny flat and in to a cage in the back of your car. You have the following items at your disposal. Bath towels. A broom. A kitchen knife. You may enlist the help of others. It is imperative that everybody comes out of this alive.
This message will self-destruct in 15 seconds.
How hard is it to get a cat into a car crate? When you're Lucifer, it can be bloody difficult.
On the way over, he decided that escaping from the cat carrier as I was trying to get him into the cage as a huge drama. He escaped. I spent 20 minutes trying to catch him. He was panicking as he doesn't go outside. Finally, when I did catch him, which involved some strong-arm tactics, he sliced up my arm, leaving me looking like a teenage cutter in need of therapy.
I did not want a repeat performance.
And so you know, I was staying in my mother's granny flat. It is a converted shed. It is basically one room, with a kitchenette and bathroom, with the bedroom off to one end, separated from the rest of the room by a large wardrobe. We are in one room.
I also prefer to use the softly, softly approach when it comes to the cat. Yes, he's a cat, but I prefer to treat as I'd like to be treated.
The car was packed in increments, as not to set him off. I wanted to head off to Melbourne around 8.30 a.m. so that I'd get back to Melbourne early. By 8 a.m. the car was packed. The cat, however, was being testy. He went under the bed - a queen-sized bed, with a base and mattress. Shining my phone torch under he bed, I could not see him.
So, I cleaned up the rubbish, stripped the bed. Those sorts of things, waiting for him to come out.
He did come out. I tried to catch him. He went back under the bed.
May I also point out that I have the last dregs of a nasty head cold. I'm coughing, sneezing, have blocked ears and sound shocking. Running after a cat is not on the agenda of things to do. (Nor was driving the 800 kilometres back from Adelaide, but it needed to be done).
I tried to wait him out. I went and sat in the car for a bit. I watched some telly. Did a few French lessons. Quiet things, hoping to trick him to come out.
At 9.a.m.my step-dad came up. I told him to come in. Lucifer doesn't like Gray. No idea why. Gray knew I wanted to get going. He offered to help.
First job, retrieve the cat from under the bed.
Gray takes a harder line than me. We leaned the mattress up against the wall before upending the base.
The little cretin had gone into the bed base through a hole in the dust cover. This is one of his party tricks. I had a hole in the dust cover on my couch. He spent the day IN the couch.
Regardless, in gently tipping up the bed base, the cat went to the bottom, hissing and growling, but with no means of escape.
This is where the kitchen knife came in handy.
A reminder. No cats or humans were harmed in these maneuvers. Slitting open the dust cover, the cat came flying out. (And yes, this is nothing that a bit of duct tape wont fix. Duct tape is good for this.)
The cat then went into his full Tasmanian Devil imitation. I've witnessed this a few times. He normally does this with the vet. It's funny, but irritating. After doing a number of runs around the room, evading capture, he ended up under a very heavy wooden sideboard. From the back.
Gray and I moved the sideboard, after which, Gray tried to get him to move, gently, with a broom. More hissing and spitting, but he finally came out - and ran behind the mattress, which was leaning against the wall.
Now we had him. We used the base as a barricade, essentially closing off the bedroom area. I dropped the mattress to the floor and went after him. After a few minutes of using a towel as a diversion (like a Spanish matador) I got him. Scruffed him. And carried him out to the car.
It was a quarter to ten by the time this happened.
The stupid thing is that he is great in the car once he is in the cage. He sleeps most of the way.
But it left me a little grumpy, because it shouldn't be that hard to catch a cat.
And what with the cold and the grumpy cat and the long drive, it seems my concentration waivered a bit as I was pinged doing 75 in a 60 zone just out of Coonalpyn.
I explained to the cop that I wasn't having a great morning, and that I thought I was in an 80 zone (and it was a straight stretch of road at the end of a town) and that I had probably lost a bit of concentration because the black prick in the back was yelling at me. I told him to open the door and have a look.
"What a pretty boy. I had one just like him," he said, peering in the back of the car.
"He's an unhappy arsehole at the moment."
"But he looks like such a sweety."
"Right...."
As pleasant as I was, there was no getting away from the $532 fine and the three demerit points. I haven't had a speeding fine in 15 years. This is my second in a nearly flawless 40-year driving history.
I will call it cat karma.
Thankfully, we are now home, and he is asleep on the bed, acting as if nothing has happened.
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