We have been had by cats for 26 years now, ever since we moved into this house to find that the previous inhabitant had left behind a 6-month-old, long-haired red male kitten, a real beauty. Still. A cat. He was living outdoors--it was early autumn--and he would follow us on our walks through the fields, suddenly leaping up to glue himself to one of us at about waist height. It was rather cute, we thought, but also annoying to us, The Unwashed. We weren't feeding him, hoping he'd go away. But as autumn deepened and it grew colder we began to worry about him a bit. We decided it would do us no harm to let him sleep and eat on the porch, so we fixed up a spot in a corner with some catfood and a box to sleep in.

It was late in cold, dark November when a mischievous house guest badgered us, How can you leave him out there? Why don't you let him in to get warm? So we decided, yes, perhaps we could let him in a bit. Maybe just at night. Several days later, house guests long since departed and the cat spending a major portion of his time in the house, I noticed he had started doing his business in corners of the living room. That's how we found out about litter boxes. We purchased the necessary equipment and settled back to reap the joys of having a cat. He was, after all, gorgeous, amusing, and cuddly. But he continued to use the living room floor where he'd already established his toilet. One day after cleaning up another mess and chasing the cat around the living room three times, I roared, as he narrowly preceded the broom out the door, Either That Cat Goes Or I Do!

He must have known I had no intention of leaving. He never again soiled the floor. By now it was winter and we were learning to cross-country ski. Back in those days we still used wax on the skis, and there was a certain type of wax used in warmer temperatures called klister wax. It's a very soft, gooey sort of wax so that if you get it on your fingers they stick together as if coated with peanut butter. It wasn't long before we had named our first cat---Klister, our "sticky" cat.

Copyright © Lynda Goldsmith
May 10, 2000