After twelve years, the Cat Lady and her creepy husband have fled the block…leaving behind an untold number of disoriented and emaciated felines, waiting for a dinner that is not coming.
Their persistent wailings have summoned catered meals from Mrs. UpintheValley, who is more than a bit fretful as what to do about them.
I had practical suggestions, starting with letting nature take its course. They already outnumber humans in Los Angeles, two to one. Darwin can be our friend, I offered.
Not a chance.
Says she: “I feel like I’m living in the Great Depression next to a soup kitchen that’s gone out of business and people are rattling tin cups against the gate.”
The cat people left a pile of ratty furniture sitting in the yard, covered in duct tape and pieces of cardboard, reeking of ammonia, and no forwarding address.
Curious what a cat house looks like on the inside? We were. Let’s take a stroll, shall we?
This is as far as Mrs. U got. The pungency of two decades of accumulated urine and glandular emission had metastasized the air inside the closed rooms to a kind of gassy soup. One staggered through as though underwater. I felt myself getting a bit heavy headed, like I was huffing model airplane glue and simultaneously getting the flu.
A rabbit warren of rooms, in which every trend of interior decorating of the past forty years was given an opportunity to do its thing, starting with shag carpeting.
Drop asbestos ceiling with fluorescent light fixtures.
Popcorn ceiling, black light painting, and the always practical duct tape and cardboard over the floor vent trick. How could you go wrong?
no jingle cat? that was kinda the icing.
Jingle cats! I forgot that one. It’s one the memory card you took to school. Don’t delete.