Heart Talk

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If You Can Keep Your Head

By James Utt
By James Utt

My friend recently said, “Jim, come on, your columns are too serious, dealing with personal loss and societal problems. You need to lighten up.” A tennis partner added, “You make snide comments about Newport Beach so often they just might take it too personally and launch an armada of their yachts against our undefended coastline.” Okay, fine. You want a comedy? A farce? Let me tell you about the time my cat almost caused my death.

Jack the Cat is old now and has diabetes, which means two shots a day and a special diet. As a consequence of his illness, he drinks massive amounts of water, which, because we spoiled him, he will only take from faucets. He is so obsessed with water that when I am in the shower, he will stand on his back legs and paw with his front legs as if to break through the glass. At first light of day, he paws my face as I lie asleep, telling me, “It’s morning. Turn on the faucet.”

We got Jack in 2002 from the shelter in the canyon where he and his tiny five brothers and sisters had been left in a cardboard box late one night. When they were old enough to be adopted, my wife and I asked for “the most spirited” of the litter. Jack proved to be that and more. Since we had door handles instead of doorknobs, he learned he could jump up, hang on to the handle and swing any door open. He could also, and this is something I should have paid more attention to, stand on his back legs, put his front paws on certain drawers, walk backwards and open it. Why he did this I do not know. The drawer he opened most frequently was in the guest bathroom, which contained Q-tips, soap, and Preparation H. Why he needed any of those I am not sure.

One very hot day, he followed me into the guest bathroom and bellowed loudly, as he so often does, for water. “Hey, it’s hot. I’ve got fur and have diabetes. Stop what you are doing and turn on the damn faucet.” I think that was a loose translation. Wanting a moment’s peace I flung him from the inner bathroom and shut the door. A moment later I tried to open the door and found it would not open. The drawer with the Preparation H was blocking it. Jack had trapped me in my own bathroom.                                   How would I ever escape? My wife having passed, my sons having moved to different cities, I was alone. I tried to push the door hard enough to break the drawer, but found a dramatic lack of muscles for this task. There is a small window not big enough to crawl through that faces the street. I could call for help. Not that many people walk along my street and after an hour I had seen no one. Then I began to ask myself, how would it sound to a perfect stranger if I called out, “Hey! I am trapped in my own bathroom. Yeah, by my cat. If I tell you where I hide my extra key, would you come in and set me free?” For all they knew I could be Hannibal Lector, waiting with a nice bottle of chianti.

Yes, I would die in my own bathroom, trapped by a cat. I was already getting hungry. At least I had the shower, so I would die clean. Eventually my body would be found and CSI Laguna would dust for prints and discover evidence of Jack’s involvement. I hoped he would be charged with first-degree murder, but some smarty pants PETA lawyer would probably get it reduced to reckless endangerment.

Then for some reason the first line of a Rudyard Kipling poem popped into my head. “If you can keep your head, while all those around you are losing theirs.” That’s all I could remember. I had, as is often the case, not kept my head, but lost it when the initial panic of being trapped set in. It suddenly dawned on me that I would not die a clean and lonely death. I had my cell phone in my pocket. A call to a neighbor and I was free. He was gracious enough not to laugh, or ask why a man who lives alone needs to shut the door to the bathroom when he is in it.                                                                           Jack emerged from hiding. He looked at me and said, “Now do you understand whom you are dealing with?”

 

James Utt is a retired social science teacher who has lived in Laguna Beach since 2001. He often loses his head.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Having known Jim for a long time I am not surprised this happened to him. This ranks up there with some of the other stories he has told his friends. If I told you any of them he would have to kill me so I will remain silent, but still alive.

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