Vice, Virtue, and Cats
Vice, Virtue, and Cats
By Ralph Lynn
[Dr. Ralph Lynn is a retired professor of history at Baylor University.]
Occasionally, some perhaps quite perceptive reader judges that this columnist is not only no Christian but a peculiarly wicked sort.
This particular column is a confession.
In self-defense, I must say that I have managed to avoid the more spectacular but relatively innocent sins such as murder, treason, adultery, and general thievery.
But I have plumbed the depths of serious sin. It all began nearly twelve years ago with a black cat named Cyclone.
Again, as a defense reaction, I must-like Adam-insist that the record will show that I was led astray by a woman-three women, in fact. The number one temptress is the blonde daughter of a former neighbor. This otherwise lovely family had one vice: they adopted helpless cats which could not make their way in a laissez-faire world.
As is inevitable in such situations, one of these varmints bore a litter of kittens. At this point the plot thickens.
The clumsy boy in my nice neighbor`s household managed to step on the left hind leg of the blackest and scrawniest representative of this generally unpromising litter of one-hundred percent alley cats.
The blonde daughter, then an imperious child of six years, who often bullied me into baby-sitting for her, decided that this black beast had just the right personality for living with the Lynns.
And here enters the second temptress.
The blonde child`s mother, ungratefully ignoring my endless hours of self-sacrificial baby-sitting, connived with her daughter in foisting this wretched feline off on us. And here enters the third temptress-my wife.
She was unquestionably an accessory after this swindle for she accepted the varmint while I was slaving away in the academic salt mines.
From that day, now twelve years ago, that cat has dominated our house.
He goes out in the morning and he comes in at night-and approximately seventeen times in between. He lies on his back on my arm, his feet in the air, his head hanging straight down, and his tail straight out.
He commandeers my lap, turns around three times-carefully hitting me in the face with his tail each time-and then collapses with an enormous sigh.
He has had one major operation, many vaccinations, innumerable vitamin pills, and many in-patient treatments for minor wounds sustained in amatory adventures. He sleeps under a table lamp-but only if the light is on. If the light is not on, he works us over with eloquent cat cussing until we discover and repair our error.
This is my secret sin.
In a world full of starving, neglected people, I have carefully provided a perfect diet, medical care, and air conditioning for this pestiferous, fur-bearing flea bag as though he were important.
Admittedly, it is no justification but it is a fact that "everybody does it."
This sin is so widespread that our veterinary asked us, just before Christmas, if we had a reservation for Cyclone to board while we would be out of town.
There was, of course, a time when I might have escaped the clutches of this mortal sin to live a more righteous life.
But once more the temptress-my wife, the eternal Eve!
Cyclone had pneumonia when he was very young. Not then having drifted far in sin, I was quite willing that he should live or die as he could. But my wife sat up all night with him.
And then she took him to the doctor.
But Cyclone did not improve. And then my wife`s bridge club friends told her that this particular veterinary did not even like cats. So she changed doctors-needless of the counsel of a wise old uncle who observed that it would be much cheaper to change cats!
And so my sin is no longer secret.
Perhaps my judges are more nearly right than they know -though for the wrong reasons.
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