Cats, Ferrets and Dogs

Gloria Watson, part-time hooker, part-time Social Security Disability recipient, loves kittens. She lets her cats breed continually. When the kittens grow into cats, she doesn’t have the heart to find homes for them so they run free. They have become ferral. They are a nuisance and a subject of the neighborhood talk.

Ted, first house on the left and the wealthiest one in a middle-class neighborhood, complained about them.

“They crap in my yard drawing flies. I have four bug zappers up now and I think I need another one. I’m not cleaning up after them and I’m not putting a big litter box in my yard. Something has to be done.”

Davey, his neighbor to the right, agreed.

“Yea, and they buzz my yard too. The flies I mean. I don’t want to have to put zappers up too”.

Ted told Davey that not cleaning up after his dog wasn’t helping the situation. Davey asked if this was about cats or dogs.

Hermie, written about as the neighborhood entertainment, offered a strategy.

“Heck, I’ll just let my dogs loose. Bingo, no more cat problem”.

Old Lady Ravenal. Hermie’s neighbor to his left, snorted.

“Your dogs! Your dogs are terrified of my Pekinese. A lot of good that would do”.

“Hey, Mrs Ravenal, no fair! All of us are frightened of those Pekinese. I think they should be gotten rid of too. They’re a menace”, Hermit told her.

“Well, Hermie, any time you want to try that, go ahead”, she responded, knowing Hermie wouldn’t ever try that. No one would.

Millie, Davey’s neighbor to the right, suggested trapping them and turning them over to the Humane Society.

Ted, always thinking, told her,

“Millie, we don’t have a Humane Society here. All we’d end up with is a bunch of trapped cats”.

Davey spoke up again.

“Okay, we trap ‘em and take ‘em out on the ocean and pitch them to the sharks”.

Millie blanched at that one. Even Old Lady Ravenal got a sour look. Hermie was the one who spoke up at the idea.

“No! I ain’t being no part of that. I hate sharks too and I’ll be darned if I’m a going to feed the darn things”.

Wilson, Millie’s neighbor to her right, suggested ferrets.

“I once saw a ferret rip a rattlesnake apart. These cats wouldn’t stand a chance. Turn a ferret loose and , presto, no cat problem”.

“No dogs either. Once the ferrets got rid of the cats, they’d get bored and go after the dogs. We all have dogs, but not for long if we get a ferret running loose in the neighborhood”, Davey said.

Millie, who loved her dog as a companion and tested new boyfriends by how her dog endorsed them, said she was against this.

Ted, ever the thinker, asked what we’d do once the neighborhood was cat-free but occupied with ferrets.

Davey said, “ We could trap ‘em and take them out and toss ‘em to the sharks.

Hermie replied, very angrily, “I ain’t bein’ no part of shark feeding! Don’t bring that up again. I don’t like the cats, but I hate the sharks”.

They discussed poisoning them but decided that they’d end up with a bunch, a big bunch, of rotting cat carcasses. Shooting them was out since the Sheriff’s department frowned on gunfire. It made the deputies nervous.

Ted brought the little council to an end by saying, “I suppose we’ll have to learn to live with them”.

Hermie agreed, saying, “Yea, I guess if we can tolerate the Old Lady’s Pekinese, the cats don’t seem so bad”.