The pussy cat and how we came to acquire her

​Lets discuss pussy cats. I’ll start. 

This is the mistress, a bad behaviour bunny if ever there was one. But she ain’t no rabbits feet. You can be assured of that.

We got her out of the Cats Protection. They are very protective of their pussy cats and it was quite some task. I tried to explain, ‘I will be excellent cat father. Please hand me one over.’

But they wouldn’t permit it.

‘Not till you’ve stopped speaking like that,’ they said. 

‘Like how you want me to stop? Is my speech not something supposed to be?’ I said, casually and holding a bottle of Sprite (other drinks are available, but I wasn’t holding one at the time).

‘Exactly,’ they said and sent me home. 

That night at the dinner table, I ate my potatoes with great solemnity. ‘They wont accept me be cat papa until I learn to speak cat proper,’ I said.

Victoria just looked at us.

‘What?!’ I said, and she rolled her eyes in that way she does when I am trying to get us an animal but I keep cocking it up by speaking in silly voices at the assessment. 

Next day, I went back to the Cats Protection. 

I had been shouting in the car beforehand in the hope it would help. I had done my breathing exercises. I could feel my feet. I was adamant I wasn’t going to say anything incriminating that would prevent us getting a pussy cat.

‘Hello,’ I said, as I marched into the reception area, one hand over my mouth. ‘I am here to pussy cat… fucksake!’

The counter person crossed their arms.

I crossed mine.

We stood like this for a bit and then I removed a piece of paper and recited the following:

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I love cats. Ever since I was 21 and my mate got one as a kitten and I had quit my job dishwashing to try and be a pop star, and if not that at least a decent artist or a writer or something. I loved this cat, and I spoke to her constantly cos I wasn’t working and she didn’t have business to attend neither. We got a real bond going you see. It was beautiful.’

‘What about before you were 21?’

‘Damn, you’re good… Okay, so there was this big white one that used to follow us round on my paper round.’

‘I didn’t do your paper round with you.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, but this cat was always sitting in front of one of the houses I had papers for, and I didn't like it so I would post the papers through the wrong door just so I didn't have to deal with it.' 

'Then what did you do?'

'Then I got on my bike and rode home to play Smackdown on my Playstation.'

‘I loved Smackdown.’

'I thought you said you didn't do my paper round with us.'

'I didn't. I just liked the game.'

‘It was great, wasn't it. Anyway, I used to post the papers through the wrong door cos I was scared of this cat… it was massive to us this cat and it was white… but I’m over it now. Can we have a cat, please?’

The counter person looked at us. ‘Do you have the written permission of your Landlord?’

I was past myself by this point. ‘We can't get him round to fix the bloody garage roof. Do you really think we can get him to write a letter saying it's alright for us to have a cat? Fuck your chips!' I spluttered and chucked a box of them all over the counter.

‘Eh?!’

‘Sorry, wrong memory.’

…

Some time passed… I stopped saying I used to smoke at medical assessments… the sun rose and made the trees look marvelous a number of times… a number of presenters either died or were deleted… some people liked how I did my job and some people didn't... I listened to Raw Power a lot in the car… sometimes I shouted along to it in traffic...

Then one day, Victoria said she was sick of no animals in the house and went down Cats Protection and got us one. She got it in no time. She was polite. She spoke normal. She drove her home and the cat shat herself and Victoria bathed her. I came home from work and there was a cat in the house that wasn't the neighbours and she could stay. 

We named her Missy. 

Initially she was called Peppercorn, which sounded great when Victoria's said it cos she is from Jarra and pronounces it Peppa Corn. But I wasn’t having it as a name.

I called her everything until one day I called her Little Miss Boots. But sometimes I’m too tired to say triple-barreled names, so I sometimes called her Missy, which stuck, but it’s veering towards Mistress now, as evidenced at the start of this piece. 

It's a bit embarrassing calling your cat Mistress in front of family, at first, but I'm getting to the point that we just call her it and to hell with it. 

…

Post script. 

It’s possible that I went to the wrong place in the above description. You can’t wander into any building and get given a cat to look after. HMV, maybe. But definitely not Zara. At least, not any time I've tried.  

.