6 or 7 years ago, on Mother’s Day, I did something I never thought I would do, pretty sure I probably blogged about it, I let my wife and kids talk me into getting a cat. For the first year or two, Jasper, our black cat (that’s relevant for later in the story) hung out on the top bunk of my kids bunk bed, neither one of them slept in the top bunk at the time, nor did they ever. He is an indoor outdoor cat, but most of his time spent in our house lately has been him trying to avoid our two dogs. When we just had Max, Japer seemed fine with it, but now that we also have Murphy, he has no desire to socialize with the two legged members of our household either.

We are use to Jasper being gone every night, even for nights and days at a time, but typically he goes out before we go to bed and when I get up in the morning to go play hoops or tennis, he’s waiting for me to let him in. However, in early December, when we had a stretch of unseasonably warm weather, he was gone for an extended period of time. I didn’t think much of it, because I could give two shits about Jasper, and the mice seemed to be staying away. Mice were the primary reason I relented on the no cat policy, and Jasper has done a hell of a job keeping mice away, as well as killing chipmunks and bunnies. He has a skill, and he loves to show it off, frequently leaving parts of animal carcasses around for us to find and on one occasion, while we were at a campfire, proudly prancing by us with a bunny in his mouth. Shirley, on the other hand, was genuinely concerned that Jasper had met his demise and sent a Facebook post to the neighborhood inquiring as to the whereabouts of Jasper. Plenty of responders to her request, some people even sent photos of Jasper hanging out at their house. At some point he came back for a day, but then was gone again, and this time it seemed for good, because temperatures had dropped significantly, and it was unlike him to stay gone that long when it was that cold. Again, I didn’t care, I just wondered how long it would take for word to get out in the mouse community that Jasper was gone and it was time to go rape and pillage the Jansma house again. Shirley, the soft hearted soul that she is, was a bit more concerned than I was but she hid it well. She continued to probe the neighbors as to Jasper’s whereabouts but this time no one had seen him.

Two Fridays ago, Shirley heard through the grapevine that Jasper had been catnapped. Someone in the neighborhood below us had been feeding Jasper and then wouldn’t let him out of their house. This someone was the sister in law of a woman who was friends with Shirley’s third or ninth cousin, who happens to live just across the road from us. She told Shirley’s cousinish person that her sister in law had Jasper. This led to the sister in law who had clean hands, telling the cat napper that she needed to let Shirley know she had our cat. The sister in law who has clean hands is a jog walker, she actually has completed a marathon jog walking and her jog walking consists of her upper body moving really fast and her lower body moving barely at all. The kids and I always make fun of her when we see her doing this, because it is the right thing to do. Jog walker told the cat napper to piss up a rope and eventually the cat napper came clean and let Shirley know she had our cat but gave no indication she was going to release him from his captors. Not last Friday, but the Friday before, the kids and Shirley were at Fujijama where it was determined they were going to get Jasper back. Once this decision was made, Aiden said “let’s get our black pussy back” (he is my son after all!). Shirley and the kids went down to retrieve the cat only to find the cat cuddling with the cat nappers 15 year old son who was referred to as a retard, which made me realize Shirley was truly upset by the cat napping. I’ve never heard Shirley use that word, so the kid must have some serious abnormalities, probably would have been the humanitarian thing to do to let him keep the cat. However, we were now past the point of turning back, at lest in Shirley’s mind, but to add insult to injury, cat napper quipped in as Shirley was walking out with Jasper, that she was a bad pet owner for letting Jasper out in in-climate weather (too bad it was warm when this bitch cat napped jasper). Jasper did jump out of Shirley’s arms and try to get back into their house, but I’m sure it was only because he felt bad for the retard who was now cat-less.

When I returned home from Pickleball I heard all about the post Fujiyama fireworks. I then heard Shirley call at least 12 maybe 13 of her closest family members and friends to retell the story. Once she got off the phone we discussed it a bit more. I told her I was surprised that she was making such a big deal about it. That is when the water works started and she went on to tell me how she thought Jasper was dead, I wanted to say so did I, but you don’t see me crying about it, but I was hoping to have sex that night so I kept my comments to myself. What I did tell her was that Jasper is a survivor and I knew there was no way he was dead, he’s been living with worms for at least four years now. We purchased deworming pills for him but good luck getting a pill down that asshole’s throat. Also, he’s way too smart for you to put it in his food and have him actually eat it. This, along with the fact that a cat will eat you if they run out of a food source and a dog won’t, is something that separates a cat from a dog. Dogs have no idea that there is a pill hidden in their slice of cheese or ball of raw hamburger.

For the next week Jasper spent 99% of his time in the basement, apparently he really missed his retard, and our mildly retarded dog Murphy wasn’t enough to fill the void. Shirley bought him a cat perch that she wanted to secure into the wall because it seemed too unsteady for Jasper to want to use. The reality is the thing was so unsightly, that that, and the two dogs, were what was likely keeping him away. Eventually, Shirley went down to the basement, retrieved Jasper and placed him on his perch. Jasper immediately went to the basement once Shirley took the dogs for a walk. This week, I decided to let Jasper out, figured by now it was on him if he wanted to be a Jansma or a retard. He chose retard and the cat napper contacted Shirley to let her know Jasper was down there, but this time they weren’t letting him in because they had purchased their own cat. The reality is, black pussy does what black pussy wants to do.