We were up at the lake this past weekend. By Sunday morning, everyone who was left was rather subdued... well except for Grizzled, who was off tending to something... Assorted children were in the basement and a couple of friends and I were upstairs drinking coffee, reading various things, and partaking in off and on chatting. And then the doorbell rang. The doorbell doesn't ring that often up there so I had no idea who to expect. When I looked up from my book I saw the face of a perplexed young man. I expected to hear him say, "Can I park my boat here?" or "Can anyone play tennis over there?" but instead, he sputtered out, "I've got a situation at the marina... I found a cat with a plastic bag on its head and I don't know what to do..."
He rambled on for awhile about how terrible he felt and how he knew it had to be dealt with, but as he had said, he didn't know what to do. While he was rambling, my head was rambling on its own... imagining any number of scenarios, trying to make sense out of it and what would need to be done. Was the cat dead?? If so, did he merely want help disposing of it?? And, why on earth was there a plastic bag on the cat's head?? Thoughts of the recent cat killings in Florida came to mind. I wasn't sure I wanted to see that cat.
After a bit of mumbling on both our parts, I discerned that the cat was still breathing and would definitely need to have the bag removed... this had my mind shooting off in another direction. I'd been bitten by a cat once. I had no desire to repeat the event, but still... it was an animule in need. I offered to go help. I suggested gloves and asked if he had any extras other than the ones he was wearing. He did not, but was more than happy to let me borrow those. Surely we'd need an extra pair, for some reason I kept imagining a bag tied around the cat's neck... that would take at least two people... with gloves... and long sleeves... and a drink.
With thoughts of evil people racing through my mind, I headed off with the young man, my at-the-ready friends in tow. It was with great relief that I finally saw the cat did not have a plastic bag tied around its head, but had merely gotten its head stuck in a snack-sized potato chip bag. This was still dangerous. The cat was lying on its side and its breathing seemed labored, and while it was unsettling to see, it wasn't gruesome. I leaned over, grabbed the tiniest bit of corner and gently pulled. Within a half a second, the cat was off and up the hill. The rest of us stood there motionless a bit longer until the silence was broken by the young man's thank yous and his confessions of being a bit freaked out and not knowing what to do.
As my friends and I walked up the hill, we discussed how old he was. We were guessing he was probably in his late teens/early twenties, but how when we saw him looking through the door, his eyes looked so big and so young. We kind of chuckled at the fact that he didn't attempt to remove the bag himself, but were very happy he went looking for someone who would. One of my friends said something like, "Yeah, he's old enough to be working at a marina, but it's obvious he's still young enough to need a parent." You could almost hear him calling, "MOM!!!!"
I'm still young enough to need parents, but it was also kind of odd to realize I've firmly crossed over into the stand-in parent role for someone who could be 20... Other observations gleaned from this bizarre turn of events? I'm old enough to be willing to do the *mom* thing without panic or too much hesitation... "Sure... I'll remove the toad from his nose" or "Yes, I'll clean up all of the vomit, but we really need to find the tip of that finger first and get it on ice..."
And while in that *mom* mode, I would like to remind everyone to dispose of their trash in a proper manner... maybe even rip it up a little bit before throwing it away, just in case a little cat needs an air hole...
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