That One Time We Considered Stuffing Our Dead Cat Into Bullets or Bears

{From Bekah}

You should feel sorry for me. No, like, straight up pity me at this point. Earlier this month I announced I have cancer. This week, I tell you the story behind that story. Because there is one. And it's sad.

The day my doctors told me I had cancer was ... only days before I turned 30... which was the same week that we had to put down my kitten...

Pop quiz: Which scenario upset me the most?
A) Cancer
B) Turning old
C) Saying goodbye to my kitty

Um, DUH. C, as in C is for Cat.

Don't get me wrong; I'm totally all hatertots about my diagnosis, but I was significantly more overwrought about losing my cat, Mac, than I was being told that there was an actual, scientifically-determined percent chance that I could die.

Now, before this post gets sorta funny (albeit dark), it's going to get sad. Like, I'll-be-blubbering-while-typing sad. But can you handle that, dear reader? Can you hang on? Good. Welp, let's dive in.

Mac Lives, Mac Dies

Yes, you ARE about to look at an effing photo montage of my dead kitty's first day in our home. You're just lucky it's not a slide show played to Sarah McLaughlin's "I Will Remember You..."

Chris and I married on a Friday, and on Saturday, my new hubby surprised me with the best gift ever: a kitten.

Now, keep in mind as you read this that I am infertile. Babies? Not in my future, thanks to the combined efforts of cancer, polycystic-ovarian syndrome, and bad genes. So all my maternal instincts spill over into cat territory, and my lovelies get bow ties, Christmas presents, special holiday kitty dinners, etc.*

We walked into the shelter, and a grizzled fossil of a man with a cane and a limp hobbled up to me and shoved this frowzy (real word: look it up) fur ball into my arms.

"He's not much to look at, what with being the runt of the litter and all, and he's getting bullied something bad," the man sympathetically grumbled. "The others ain't letting him eat, and I just don't think he's gonna make it unless he gets a good home."

Words fail me when trying to explain that moment. It was that monumental to me.**

But Chris managed to say what I was thinking, "Welp, that does it. Wrap him up."

We THOUGHT we had picked out a shy, nerdy cat. Instead, when we let him loose inside the house, he tore through it like freaking Hurricane Sandy (which is HI-larious, because our last name is Sandy.) He was nothing short of a little shit, and we loved him for it. He knocked over water glasses for a fresh drink, bit our toes before scurrying away in his own annoying version of tag, woke us up in the middle of the night to get pet, constantly jumped onto the off-limits banister on the deck to swat at the birds at our feeder, and cuddled like nobody's business. Every morning when I left, I said, "Toodles Mac Poodles," and he meowed in response (no, seriously, he did), and when I opened the door upon my nightly return, he sprinted toward me, ramming his head into my leg to make sure I noticed him.

My drink has been compromised.

I woke up one morning to the sound of my both my boys snoring away. I left them to snooze. After I documented the adorableness, obviously. 

So, when he fell to the floor and yowled in pain last month, every nerve in my body stopped functioning. Or at least, that's how it felt. Chris and I whisked him to the local animal emergency hospital, where we were told that Mac had a congenital heart condition that had resulted in a blood clot and paralyzed his back half. He needed put down. From the minute he fell to the minute I used my hand to close his eyes, only 15 minutes passed. I whispered to his little body, "Toodles Mac Poodles," and bitterly noted that no response came. We'd had him for a splendid four years and four months.

No words adequately convey the true nature of heartbreak, and I can only say that this definitely cracked my shriveled heart in two.

To Bury, Or Not To Bury?

When the vet told us what needed to be done, I sobbed. Uncontrollably. Like my 2-year-old niece when she decides she needs a cookie. Through my snot and saliva, I bawled, "But Mac CAN'T die. YOU don't understand. I HAVE CANCER! AND I JUST TURNED 30! Why is God taking away my cat, too?!?"

I'm totally not joking. I was THAT hysterical. Chris shot me a look that clearly said, "Shut your damn mouth right now before they kick us out," while the vet stifled what I can only imagine was a nervous/horrified giggle.

I asked, "Why is God punishing me?" about 50 times in that small, cramped little room where my dead kitty's body lay, limp and longing for the soul that once occupied it.***

I asked it of Chris. I asked it of the vet. I asked it of the vet's assistant. And I asked it again when the receptionist came in and took our payment (seriously, it takes nerve to CHARGE $200 for KILLING your cat), and she casually asked us: "What would you like to do with your poor kitty's body?"

For 2 Benjamins, I would've liked them to resurrect it, but since that wasn't an option, Chris and I stopped to seriously contemplate how to deal with a dead cat's corpse.

And we came up with some doozies:

1) Shoot us some birds

So, I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but my husband and I are ex-pat Yankees living in the deep south of Dixie. And where we live, guns are sorta the cat's meow (pun both intended and unfortunate.) And by cat's meow, I mean, they are LITERALLY mandated. (No, really, when we lived in the Atlanta suburb of Kennesaw, the city had a lay mandating that every household was required to own both a handgun and its ammunition. Um, yeah, no. Also, I emphasize "literally" lest you think I am employing hyperbole.)

So, on the way home from the vet's, Chris turns to me and says, "We could always use Holy Smoke."
Me: "No (bleeping) way."
Chris: "Why not?"
Me: "Are you seriously asking me why we can't gather our cat's ashes, mail them to some hicks out in Alabama, let them stuff Mac inside of bullets, and then they ship us live ammunition containing our cat's remains?"
Chris: "I thought I could use the bullets to shoot birds from our deck. Mac would have liked it if we did that in his memory."

For realz, there's a company that gathers your loved one's ashes and turns them into lethal objects. The company, actually called Holy Smoke, advertises it's services by arguing, "Talk about a classy send off -- this is high caliber, literally. You pick the caliber."

Notice how I didn't emphasize the "literally" in that last paragraph? Let me try that word in this sentence: My husband is LITERALLY an idiot, and if you don't believe me, please continue on to the next section.

2) Game of Drones

Chris wondered if we should keep Mac's body and follow in the footsteps of the engineering genius/mad scientist who taxidermied his cat onto a hovercraft and used it as a drone/helicopter.

Don't believe me?

Dear readers, if you have children in the room, remove them. Now.

Because BAM! Here it is. THIS is what Chris wanted to do to my poor Mackles' body.

In Chris's defense, I did think it would be fun to call our cat drone The Mac Attack and use it to scare the shit out of the birds/neighbors/local dogs.

3) Beary Good Business

As if bullets and heli-kitties aren't scary enough, I learned that people LITERALLY (there's that word again!) walk into their local Build-A-Bear store, carrying a container housing the ashes of their loved one, and PAY to have the remains enclosed in a bear.

What. The. Hell?

Chris and I considered this option briefly, but we were worried that Mac's evil-esque influence would compromise any stuffed animal he might inhabit, and if we ever accidentally donated the bear to a thrift shop, it would come alive and eat any child that looked at it sideways.

4) To Catch A Killer

Fortunately for you, I have no accompanying picture for this potential use of Mac's body.

Short version of this section: When I was a kid, my parents bought a gigantic school, had relatives live in it with them, thus causing the community to think we were a polygamous cult. This image only worsened when my aunt decided to tie a dead cat around our dog's neck.

Longer version: So, this dog, Curly, kept killing cats. He couldn't drink enough of their blood. He annihilated any member of the feline species that dared cross his path. Our neighbors started resenting us for allowing this terror to keep chomping down their poor pets. The local vet told my aunt that only one thing could reliably cure Curly of his murderous desires. "Take his next victim," she said, "and tie it around his neck. Leave the dead cat around his neck for 3 days, and after you remove it, he'll never want to even look at a cat again." Um, nope. Didn't work. At all. Curly used that cat as a pillow, as a toy, as his best friend ever. He actually resented us for removing it. Of course, the dead, stinking, bloated cat wasn't separated from Curly until after the local church deacon (the one who had been telling everybody that my family was a cult) came to pay us a visit to see if his rumors were true. Honestly, I don't blame him for thinking we were. If dead cats around dog's neck doesn't scream "cult," then I don't know what does.

5) Home Grown

This, dear readers, is the most pleasant, although least entertaining, of our considered options.

A high school friend lost her pet dog shortly after Chris and I said goodbye to Mac. I sent her a condolence message (because that's what you do when you're Midwestern and nice), and she responded, telling me that her family saved each of their deceased pets' ashes with the intent of spreading the ashes underneath a tree planted in their memory.

Honestly, this sounds nothing less than lovely, and I can imagine no form of rebirth that could gain more approval than that of my favorite artist, Bob Ross.

Conclusion: 

In the end, dear reader, we chose none of these options. No means of disposal was good enough for our dear Mackles. Instead, we told the vet to dispose of Mac with dignity. Because it's what Mac, a very dapper kitty, would've wanted. That, or the whole being-a-bullet-and-shooting-the-birds thing. He would've REALLY liked that.

*Don't you DARE judge me. YOU'RE the one reading the shit that this crazy cat lady is writing.
** Again, I am INFERTILE. This is my only baby experience, okay?
*** I told you shit got dark.