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I stayed home from work sick the other day and got a good laugh from the big lead headline in the Star-Bulletin, "First pigs cloned." I'll bet Diane Chang, our feminist polemicist, spent the whole afternoon arguing that point. Crossing enemy
lines isn’t simply
feline follyThe next headline about Japanese scientists being close to a breakthrough on cloning cats really got me. Don't we have enough unwanted cats through natural catbirth without trying to manufacture more?
Perhaps it's harsh to consider the term "unwanted cats" an oxymoron, but I've had a lot of hostile thoughts about kitties lately. It got so bad that when a cat ran in front of my car last week, my reflexes were frozen by a debate in my head about whether to bother taking evasive action.
I guess my hostility started when the Legislature took up a bill to increase penalties on owners of dogs that attack cats. Why do they always assume when dogs and cats get into abusive relationships that it's the dog's fault?
A case in point: My end of the block is not cat-friendly territory. The neighbors on one side have four dogs -- including two impressive pit bulls. The neighbors on the other side have two handsome Rottweilers and two golden retrievers. I've got my faithful Shar-pei Bingo patrolling my yard. Cats with any sense stay away, along with burglars, parcel trucks and gas meter guys.
But every so often, usually late at night, some incredibly stupid cat feels a need to strut his macho by running the gauntlet of dogs. First you hear the skittering of little feet and the rustling of shrubbery. Then you hear the galloping of big feet followed by a horrible commotion that inevitably ends with ear-splitting, blood-curdling yowling. Then a sudden and bone-chilling silence.
I like to believe that the dogs just rough up the cat a little to teach him a lesson and then let him go. While I've never found physical evidence to the contrary, I fear I may be deluding myself.
It's clearly the cats' fault. The dogs are secured in their own yards and minding their own business while the cats are roaming free looking for cheap thrills.
It brings back memories of my junior high school days in Los Angeles before my family moved to Hilo, when my world was divided into surfers and greasers.
The surfers, with whom I identified although I didn't own a surfboard at the time, wore unbuttoned Pendleton shirts, faded jeans and old Converse sneakers. We favored hairstyles untamed by Vitalis.
The greasers liked their hair slicked back, dripping with oil. They wore snazzy Sir Guy shirts with little slitted pockets and bell-bottomed pants that mostly covered their spit-shined black shoes, which they used to kick the daylights out of any surfers who happened by.
This danger notwithstanding, at least once a week I would suck in a deep breath and walk alone through greaser alley at lunchtime just to prove my emerging manhood.
The memory was enough to persuade me to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the cat that was determined to cross Akamai Street without waiting for me to pass. It inspires me to go out at night to try to break up the melees between the dogs and the cats -- or at least shout something threatening out the window.
Sure these cats are stupid to sneak through hostile yards and play chicken with oncoming traffic. But we just have to respect that sometimes a cat's gotta do what a cat's gotta do.
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
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