My Friend Ramesses

From the beginning, I should have known he was going to be a bad cat. I had taken a neighbor’s cat to the vet, and the vet had asked me if I wanted a kitten. I had said no, but the vet had urged me to see the kitten before rejecting it. Before I could resist, the vet had brought me a cardboard box with a reddish orange kitten in the bottom. Active and alert, the kitten stumbled around the box, his tiny tail pointing up like an aloe leaf. When his eyes met mine, I knew I could not refuse the new member of my life.

My Snapshot of Ramesses Seeing Himself in a Mirror

So Ramesses came home with me. Whatever plans I had made for the rest of the day I abandoned while I made trips to the nearby pet store to obtain everything I needed for the care and feeding of a cat. Ramesses played and played, never growing tired. Eventually, I had to go to sleep, or else I would be groggy at work the next morning.

The day dawned, and I called for Ramesses. He didn’t come. “He doesn’t know his name yet,” I realized. After showering and dressing for the office, I took the garbage bag from the kitchen, dumped it in the can outside, and hauled the can to the street for the garbage man. Still no sign of Ramesses! I began to worry and I searched the house. I looked under furniture and explored dark corners with a flashlight. Meanwhile, I heard the rumbling of the garbage truck outdoors.

In a flash of horror, I thought, “He crawled inside the garbage bag!” I ran toward the street, but the truck had already left. I jumped in my car and chased the truck, finally catching up with it at the top of my subdivision. The driver must have thought I was deranged. With tears wobbling in my eyes, I blurted out that my new kitten must have been hiding in my garbage bag. The garbage man assumed his gentlest manner and said that a kitten could not have survived the crushing motion of the truck’s mechanism.

I felt crushed, too. As I drove back to my house to get my briefcase, tears dripped from my chin. I retrieved my briefcase from the room across the hall from my bedroom, and I stepped into the bedroom to make sure I had turned off the light. As I switched off the lamp beside the bed, I thought I saw something. It was between the nightstand and the wall and was sticking out from under the nightstand. It was the tip of a tiny orange tail.

Somehow, Ramesses had wedged between the nightstand and the wall and had found a small cavity beneath the nightstand that he could access only from the back. When I jerked away the nightstand, there he was, sound asleep!

I was overjoyed … and mad! I picked him up, and he purred. In the night, he had wanted to be near me and had found his secure hideaway next to my bed. He was obviously proud of himself. “You gave me a bad scare!” I repeated as I took him downstairs, put him in the kitchen where his food and litter box were located, and closed the doors to the kitchen. I was not going to go looking for him when I got home from work!

Right then and there, I should have known he was going to be a bad cat. I let him have the run of the house. One day I returned home to find that Ramesses had invented a game. He clawed his way up the rattan wallpaper in the living room until he reached the ceiling. From there, he jumped to the floor. He ran back to the wall and clawed his way up again. While I was away, he had scratched a channel up the wallpaper. The frayed rattan fibers were hanging like fringe from floor to ceiling.

One of Ramesses’ favorite games was smash. Around two or three in the morning, a crash somewhere on the first floor of my house would knock me awake, and I would sit bolt upright in bed with every nerve straining to hear the burglar’s footsteps. Heart thumping, I would grab my flashlight and sneak downstairs to confront the trespasser. Then I would find that I had left a drinking glass on the kitchen counter and that Ramesses had found it irresistible. He had knocked it off, and it had smashed across the tile floor. I soon learned to store all glass items behind cabinet doors, but, every now and then, I would forget a glass or a bowl. That night, Ramesses would play smash again. Once, before I could run across the room, he smashed a tumbler, and I noted how he crouched at the edge of the kitchen counter to watch in fascination as the sparkling shards shot in all directions. He was like a kid at a fireworks display.

But you had to love him! Whenever I took a bath, he begged to be lifted up and dropped into the water, where he swam gleefully. I trained him to walk on a leash, and he and I took many trips to a nature center where we hit the trails. He especially liked the pier beside the goldfish pond. I had to hold him back, so that he would not dive in! Visitors to the center were surprised to see a cat on a leash, and I had numerous conversations with articulate citizens who felt compelled to pet him.

My Photo of Ramesses Contemplating Buddha

Ramesses shared a seventeen-year chunk of my life and moved with me four times. I always knew that, as independent and mischievous as he was, he would share the tragedies I experienced. He seemed to know when times were bad and would snuggle beside me in a chair or on a sofa. I always appreciated his support and understanding.

There came a time when the vet said my best choice was to put Ramesses to sleep. He was old, and his kidneys were failing. I lifted Ramesses to my shoulder one last time; I could feel him looking around, as he always did from such a high perch. He was always curious about everything. He started to purr.

Ramesses lies buried near the creek. I imagine him prowling beside the water and watching for goldfish. I should have known he was going to be a loving cat, an unforgettable cat, and the best cat of them all!