A Cat-tastic Midsummer Flashback from Me to You

I'm on vacation, but the Legend of Gladys Knight lives on. (Not that Gladys Knight.)

My favorite fucklings! While I’m taking the month off from new posts, I thought you might enjoy a random AF flashback featuring two of my favorite things: cats and…cats.¹

Originally titled “Gladys Knight Lives with Me Now,”² this story was featured in the March 2018 NFG Newsletter. I know, right? MY HOW THE TIME FLIES. And since cat people are currently having a moment, it seemed primed for a re-share during my time away. You know, so you don’t have to miss me too much.

If you’re not into feline content, never fear! I’ll be back on my regularly scheduled bullshit in September.

And if you’re new here and thinking WTF did I get myself into? here’s an example of my more typical NFG fare to tide you over:

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Gladys Knight Lives with Me Now

Picture it: me, clad in a bikini (okay, don’t picture it), crouched on the floor of our terrace with one shaky hand clutching a pink plastic box and the other frantically texting my friend Toni to please come pick me up and take me to the vet.

We’d been trying for a week, and I’d finally caught her: the saucy white calico who’d been living in our yard and raising hell and welts each time we attempted to get her boxed up and spayed (lest we wind up with six saucy calicos in our yard in a couple months’ time).

Sterilization was the deal I’d struck with my husband in order to be allowed to keep feeding her, for I am a crazy cat lady and he is, as I have previously mentioned, a saint.

Well, let me tell you, this feral beastie was smart enough to meow for her supper but dumb enough to bite the hand that fed her. Repeatedly. Without remorse.

I’d gotten up ass-early to feed her some delicious salmon pate con knockout juice, for the cat had proven so vicious and impossible to catch via the usual methods of food and/or brute force that we resorted to a vial of feline moonshine provided by the local vet.

(He said it would take thirty minutes to get her nice and sleepy. He was mistaken.)

Next, I lured her into the house so there would be fewer avenues for escape; then, I waited. For thirty minutes, then an hour…and-a-half…and then, finally, she started to wobble. I crept across the floor, trailing crunchies, gaining her trust even as I led her closer to the hated pink box.

Almost there…almost…her head was lolling…and I seized the moment! Gathering her gently with both hands, I went to stuff her into her plastic chariot AND ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

To make a long story short: after a few more miserable tries, I admitted defeat and let her yowling, hissing (yet, remarkably, still wobbling) ass out the door, resigning myself to hardening my heart the next time she came a’ meowin’ for her supper.

Which was about four hours later.

“Seriously?” I said to the cat from the lounge chair in which I was licking my literal and figurative wounds. “Have you forgotten what happened here today?”

Meow.

“You realize you sealed your own fate, right? If you won’t get in that box, I can’t keep you around. And not keeping you around means NOT FEEDING YOU, DUMMY. You’ve ruined it for all of us.”

Meow?

“GODDAMMIT, CAT. Fine! Fine. You’re hungry?” I marched over to the cupboard and popped open a can of Mixed Grill. The meowing increased in intensity. “You want to eat? Go ahead, eat!”

At this, I slung the can of food into the back of the carrier and stood over it, arms crossed over my bikini top, glaring at her. “Go on. Get on in there if you want it.”

She glared right back at me, but she stuck her greedy little head in the box. Then her front paws. 

“Still can’t reach it, can you?”

And then she got her back legs over the threshold, so it was just her pearly white butt and striped tail hanging out. We’d been here before—in fact, the very first time I tried to smoosh the final 15% of her into the carrier she’d exploded out of it like a fuzzy Evel Knievel and managed to slash both of my wrists along the way. 

Fool me once, you little minx.

But you know what they say about desperation (especially combined with the Aperol Spritz I’d recently consumed). My husband had gone off to band rehearsal, so this was the last of the covert Friskies she was likely to get, but in my heart, I knew I would never be able to just stop feeding her and force her back into the wild. 

This cat is going to ruin my marriage, I thought. But we also cannot wind up with a litter of kittens under the deck in three months, which I will also not be allowed to feed. It’s now or never. 

In one fluid motion, I grabbed a stray pool towel from a nearby chair and swooped down to shove her into the cage and LOCK. THAT. SHIT. DOWN.

Now, maybe it was the lingering effects of the woo-woo juice or the element of surprise, or maybe she just really thought she’d beaten me, but that cat never knew what hit her. She barely got out one more pitiful meow before accepting that I’d won.

After my mother (who was visiting at the time) fetched me a dress from my closet (and my phone, and half a Xanax from my purse), my friend Toni did indeed come to our rescue. We got kitty to the vet, and after making her acquaintance, he seemed shocked that anyone had been able to subdue this creature without a full-on tranquilizer dart.

Once the deed was done, she came home for good—without her reproductive bits, but fortunately with a whole new cattitude.³

We call her Gladys Knight.

And because I cannot be stopped, she’s now joined by the lanky fellow with a Chaplin mustache (sure…a Chaplin mustache…) that we named after Ewan McGregor’s character[s] on season three of Fargo: Mister Stussy.

The Buddies: A Triptych

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OK, that’s it for my mid-August reminiscing. As mentioned, NFG is on break until September.

Ciao for now,

Sarah

PS: Anyone who upgrades to a paid sub this month gets an extra FREE month to make up for my vacation; I’m doing it manually on the back end every time I see a fuckling join the fold. Boop.

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PPS: Meanwhile, the extensive NFG Tip archive is yours to peruse, and the NFG chat remains open for paid subscribers.

PPPS: Last week, I did a deep dive in the chat about our decision to move to the Dominican Republic and what’s changed for me, mindset-wise, after living there for the past nine years.

Go to this thread and scroll to the August 6th entry if you’re interested in that sort of thing!

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The No F*cks Given Guides. In Calm the F*ck Down, I tell the story of how Mister Stussy broke my hand—in case you thought Gladys was the only asshole in this family.

1. Sorry, #NotSorry.

2. No, not that Gladys Knight.

3. Editor’s Note: That was just the lingering effects of sedation. She resumed being awful shortly thereafter.