Frightening Feline Friday: Longest Mile of Bev’s Life Edition

Well, I’m back again, reliving terrifying childhood memories¹ of my awful experiences with cats.

This one involves another “common” (or at the least, not uncommon) occurrence in/around Mayberry- a cat hitching a ride underneath a warm car unbeknownst to the owner of said car. You can read about some of this in the original Frightening Feline Friday: Mowgli Edition. I really don’t understand how this works, or how these damn cats don’t get chopped up in some kind of fan belt or something, but it definitely happens. (Note: I don’t know what a fan belt is)

Anyway, the story is basically this: It’s around the holidays, so Gertrude is hanging out at her parents’ house, and jumps in Uncle Bart and Aunt Sue’s beater van (if the walls of that thing could talk) and drives the mile (probably less) to Smoke and MamaG’s to hang out with me. (probably making plans for whose house we’d be drinking at later that evening, but that’s neither here nor there)

At some point during the conversation, MamaG notices a black and white cat hanging out in our yard. We quickly realize this cat is Oreo, one of Aunt Sue’s favorites, and that he’d hitched a ride under the warm van. Now, like I’ve mentioned before, if there’s one person on this planet who hates cats more than I do, it’s MamaG. Her potential solutions to this problem are that a) Gertrude and I transport the cat back to UB and Aunt Sue’s house via a box, or b) we shoot it.

Well, it was Christmas, so Gertrude wasn’t really in on the killing-her-mom’s-favorite-pet plan, so MamaG went to the garage and got a box approximately the size of a file cabinet drawer- you know, so Gert could easily fit the box on her lap/in her arms. And if that box had been empty or filled with… towels, DVDs, glassware, etc. Gertrude would’ve been totally fine holding the box on her lap while I drove us the short distance back to Uncle Bart and Aunt Sue’s place.

But the box wasn’t filled with towels, DVDs, or glassware. It was filled with a goddamn live cat and I swear to you, that one mile drive took thirteen minutes to complete and eight years off my life. Picture Gertrude and Bev screaming (Gertrude screaming at Bev to drive faster while Bev is just flat-out screaming and, I’m pretty sure, closing her eyes) while Gertrude (kind of) controlled the box.

Oh, God, I wish I had a Go Pro installed in my hairline for so many moments of my life.