When animals attack

Well, we survived the end of times, again. But, according to my sassy Siamese Sophie, Satan was visiting and she wouldn't have any of that! I live on the ground floor of a nice little apartment complex, poolside, with plush grounds, so occasionally I'll have kids play just outside my patio, not a problem, signs of life are encouraged. Both my cats watch people all day and seem to be unaffected by the sounds of "Marco!" - "Polo!" all fucking day long (not that I mind, really *poof* , yes - that was indeed my brain.) They don't seem to mind children futilely coming on to my patio to ask if they can pet my unsociable felines. Sometimes they accommodate them, most times not. The point is is that "the girls", as I affectionately call them, are not unlike myself...semi-social and don't mind the occasional rub from strangers from time to time.

Anyhoo, yesterday was a different story; all the sudden I heard this low grumbly sound and chalked it up to my upstairs neighbor vacuuming, but then I kept hearing it intermittently and I'm pretty sure vacuums don't hiss. I look to find that Sophie is in hunting stance, staring out at a neighbor's son-in-law who had been kicking around a ball with his daughter, they had been doing this the night before without any drama, but it was his daughter retrieving the ball from my patio then. Yesterday it was the man and Sophie didn't like him at all. She continued to growl and hiss as he kicked the ball back n' forth with his daughter.

I leave the sliding door open on nice days, just enough to let the cats roam in and out to their leisure. Unfortunately, this gave Sophie an opportunity to attack when the man tried to get the ball that had strayed, once again, to my patio. All the hair on Sophie's back was at attention and before I could shut the door, she ran out at the man, thwapted him and the ball, hissing and bitching the whole time. The man jumped back and said

"Sup! Dude! Sup wit dat cat? Da-yum."

"Oh, I don't know, wow (laughing@whitey 30-ish man down wit da youngin's streetspeak, yo and secretly wanting to create a pulley-device of some sort to hike the sorry bitches pants up above the ass-crack where they belong) sorry?"

I kicked the ball out to him, grabbed Sophie, knowing fully the risks involved with trying to restrain a pissed off Siamese, not an easy task to say the least. After putting said pissed kitty down, I closed the screen door, but she was relentless and continued to growl and hiss, practically climbing the screen to get to the bitch, she was gonna tag his ass no matter what the obstacle. Finally, after a few more minutes of the hissing, growling and catterwallin', the man, apparently intimidated by the feline fuss, just picked up the ball and went back into my neighbors apartment after which Sophie went into kitty triumph mode by clawing the shit out of my chair, then plopping onto the ground in uber-relaxed kitty mode and started cleaning herself. Victory.

I've had Sophie for a number of years, she has been exposed to many people and usually whores herself to them (as long as they don't pick her up, heh) but she just didn't like this dude at all. I strongly believe that animals sense evil, perhaps Sophie did or perhaps it was a post traumatic stress incident from earlier in her life (she was adopted from a shelter at the age of two) I don't know. But what I do know is that I trust her instincts as much as I trust my own. Later in the day I took my garbage out to the dumpster and I saw the man at his car; I just kind of snickered at him as he refused any sort of eye contact (evil can be like that) and promptly followed it with a hiss and a growl. Sure, the guy might be thinking I'm a witch, I don't care, I have a killer kitty that's got his number.