From the Diaspora…WHO MAKES A “BIG” MAN CRY

Apr 10, 2011 News

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By Ralph Seeram

It is Saturday morning and I am late for this article. I cannot find a topic. It should have been easy; the PPP has elected its Presidential candidate in Donald Ramotar, and it would not have taken much to do a commentary on this latest development in Guyana.
As I am contemplating my topic, lying on my legs and partly on my laptop computer is the “love of my life” she is snuggling her warm body on me, purring and blocking my keyboard so I cannot type. She wants’ my attention, in fact she demands my attention, yes it’s a love affair that has been going on for some eight years now.
She sleeps only on the bed; No floor for her. No one can come and lie next to me on the bed, she will promptly come and stretch herself alongside me, forming a barrier. She is the jealous type and she is not afraid to show it.
I sleep on a King size bed, but I might as well be sleeping on a cot because I am reduced to sleeping on less than a quarter of the bed. You know who sleeps on the rest. She completely dominates me; she is the queen of the house, and, I her humble servant. Oh yes, the love of my life is my cat, Chelsea.
Some years ago when I owned a store, one of my customers was Steve. Steve could be described as a typical American cowboy–lanky, lean and sunburnt. He always wears a cowboy hat and a fancy cowboy boots. Sometimes these are leather boots, snake skin or alligator boots. Everyday he buys a twelve pack of Budweiser beer and two packs of Marlborough cigarettes. You could not find a more  authentic cowboy than Steve, a manly man he was.
One day Steve came in the store crying. Knowing that his mother was not in the best of health I feared the worst. I assume that his mother had died. I was about to express my sympathy on the death of his mother when he blurted out, “My cat was run over by a car this morning.”
Mentally I am thinking about his reason for crying over a cat. It is only a cat. “This big manly man was mourning over the loss of his cat.” I could not comprehend what the big deal was if a cat died. That was until Chelsea came into my life.
Chelsea was a frequent flier; she probably had more frequent flyer miles than most humans. She originally belonged to my daughter who made frequent trips from New York to Florida to visits us. Chelsea always travelled with her, not in the cargo area of the plane, no; Chelsea was right next to her. The airlines charged almost the full fare for her. One Thanksgiving my daughter decided to leave her with us until she returned for Christmas. Christmas turned to spring, and spring turned to summer and Chelsea is still with us.
When my daughter moved to Florida and tried to reclaim her Chelsea, I claimed “prescriptive rights” over her and never returned her. I got so attached to my flurry love that I could not part with her.
I was told by someone that dogs have masters but a cat has “SERVANTS”, emphasis mine. This is so true. Chelsea gets a tuna treat every morning, and she never fails to remind me in the morning. She needs it at six in the morning, and if it gets past 6.30 am, she will first knock books or other stuff of the night table.
If that doesn’t work she will revert to slamming the Venetian blinds against the windows. At this point she gets my attention and I reluctantly will have to get off my bed to give her a tuna treat.
She is the queen of the house; goes and sits anywhere she wants including the “sacred living room” where no one goes and sits except Chelsea.
At first she attracted the displeasure of the wife, but Chelsea showed who really the queen of the house was. She sits on the living room cushion whenever she wants.

There is one room that is off limit to her. That is one of the guest rooms that the wife describes as the “burgundy room”. It is decorated with burgundy tapestry with matching comforter and pillows. Chelsea has always made attempts to enter that room, but the room is always locked.
One day Chelsea was missing; we could not find her, we feared the worst. She must have slipped out the house. Fears of what happened to Steve’s cat crossed my mind and I knew if that happened to my beloved Chelsea, I would be crying worse than Steve.
In desperation we decided to search the only room in the house that we did not search– the “burgundy room”. On opening the door there she was lying majestically, like the queen she is, in the middle of the bed.
She lifted her head to stare at us as if to tell us that we just intruded on her beauty sleep.
How did she enter the room? We discovered that she stretched and pulled the door lever with her paws. Fully stretched she can easily reach thirty inches.
Like the queen she is, Chelsea is “high maintenance”. Her visit to the vet costs more than my visit to my doctor. She gets her check up, her shots, and a dental check up. She knows the routine of every one in the home.
She knows I take a shower before I retire to bed. As soon as I am about to approach the bed she promptly lies on the floor across the entrance. This is her saying to me that she needs her brush and petting before she sleeps. I will have to brush her, tickle her belly, and scratch her chin.
If I want to watch a T V programme while she wants to sleep, she shows her displeasure by staring at me with the look that says ‘I want to sleep cut the television off.’
As I am concluding this article her majesty has just vomited. Your humble servant has to go clean up. Yes dogs have masters but cats definitely have servants.

Ralph Seeram can be reach at email:[email protected]

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