Cats and Cars

“Dude, you need to seriously wash your car,” remarked my work-mate gazing out the window at a shockingly filthy four-wheel drive that had just rolled into the car park.

“He probably lives on a dirt road and takes the same route every day and doesn’t see the point in washing it in between,” I commented.

“I’m terrible at washing my car,” I added. “Before I had babies, my car and my cats used to be my babies and I’d take good care of both – now they both don’t get a look in.”

It’s true – you know your biological clock is ticking when you put your cats down for afternoon naps. Did I just admit to that? Woopsie.

Did you know a new toy came on the market recently called The Crazy Cat Lady? Well that is no longer me.

I’ve warned many a pregnant friend, whose pet is their pride and joy, that this will happen to them and they always respond with “Uh-uh, not me!”

“Believe me,” I will insist. “I once taxied home from a night out because I had the sudden fear that my kitten had jumped in the fridge and got locked in.” (This actually happened, although the kitten was spotted before the door was shut.)

Sure enough, the baby is born and their animal is out the door.

Mind you, if they’re anything like my cats were, once they first hear the startling, foreign sound of a baby crying, they’re out the door off their own accord.

This lasted a few months until they got over their ‘pip’ and gradually but tentatively migrated back indoors, which posed its own set of problems. Once the cats had got over their jealousy and accepted the new member of the family they also cottoned onto the fact that a baby is quite soft and warm to cuddle up to - slightly alarming to a new mother.

Likewise with the new cot and bassinette that one day appeared in the spare room pre-baby.

Balloons, was the advice I was given in a bid to stop said cats sleeping in the new cot, because cats are meant to be scared of balloons right?

Not mine, instead I came home from work to find them asleep on top of the popped balloons! Same with the plastic bags I next placed in the cot to deter the moggies.

Anyway that’s enough about cats – apparently subsequently bringing two babies home from the hospital at once was too much for one of them anyway and she skedaddled and never came back. But that’s a sore point so I will bring it back to cars.

This was once my pride and joy pre-babies too. It was in immaculate state. Mind you, it was a completely different vehicle – isn’t if funny how one tiny baby generates an upgrade to a big four-wheel drive?!

Today’s car would be lucky if it gets a wash twice a year. And the interior is worse. It is not uncommon for family cars to be lined in a permanent thick layer of sand and raisons with sticky hand prints smeared up the windows.

So while my priorities may have shifted for the next 20 years or so, I know one day I will have an immaculate car once again.

The disturbing factor that comes with that is the return of the crazy cat lady.