Clyde the Cat

CLYDE THE CAT

After Darius, the Afghan hound, who bit the lawyer and got us a citation for harboring a vicious animal... He wasn't really vicious, just a bit rambunctious... He just did not have the temperament to be trained, but preserved his wild streak. He was bred for hunting lions in Afghanistan. What was he doing in Grosse Pointe?

Why do people have pets? Largely it's to have a furry creature to pet, but unconsciously, we identify with its wild streak. Sometimes they have "the call of the wild," and sometimes, so do we.

After Darius, we decided to keep in touch with our wild streak without the help of an in house animal. I, for one, am a male animal, among other things, with a wild side all of my own, after being raised in the mean streets of the Bronx.

After an interval in which we proclaimed, "no more house pets!," the kids came home from Detroit's "World's Largest Garage Sale," at Cobo Hall. This proclamation was because we did not have the best of luck with fish and birds either. Our huge salt water aquarium got infected with "ick" and the aquarium lady at the pet store chewed us out for not having done more research before getting a salt water aquarium, with colorful tropical fish that reminded us of snorkeling in the Caribean. We also had a pair of love birds for awhile, until one pecked the other to death and laid an egg. We didn't know we had two females.

So our kids come back from Detroit's Largest Garage Sale" with a kitten that they bought for only a dollar. They said they saved it from certain death with the Humane Society. They were told that if nobody bought the kitten that day, they would put it in the gas chamber with the other excess and unclaimed pets. It was a hard sell and the kids bought it of course.

At first they said that Johnny bought it, only his mother wanted time to think about adopting it. After a few days, the kids said Johnny's mother said, "no," and so... please, please, please... it won't be any trouble. Yada, yada, "we'll take care of it."

I said that cats could be a lot of trouble, what with hair and allergies and litter boxes and, and... and. But, seeing the cute ball of fur at the other end of the yellow leather couch in my consultation room, I said a cat should endear himself by curling up in my lap and purring. As if on cue, the kitten walked over to my lap and curled up! I petted it and it purred! Everybody clapped, the deal was done and we were hooked and that's all there was to it.

I thought to myself, that's some smart cat! What will we name him? Since he came from the inner city of Detroit and was a con artist, we decided on "Clyde," of "Bonnie and Clyde."

Clyde grew up to be a stunning Maine Coon, according to his features, he could have had championship papers. He was mild mannered and friendly at first, not overly affectionate. In fact, he never curled up in my lap again, despite many inducements and reminders that he had promised and should honor his commitments.

Little did we know that Clyde, in this house of two working shrinks, became an auxiliary therapist. But that's another story, for another time.