MOUNTAIN LION LADY: Chapter 2 (second half)

Small Cats (2)

After graduating from high school I went to a college in the Midwest. When I was allowed to live off campus my senior year I became owned by another cat. Names were still important to me and I liked to play with words. My new kitten was a Maine Coon-type long-haired tabby. He was big and easy going so I named him Mut which had all sorts of meanings rolled into one. Moot means debatable, the German "mut" means courage (and he was definitely of debatable courage!), and the symbol of the ancient Egyptian creator goddess Mut was a cat.

My roommate Susan chose the name Charles for Mut's brother. We lived in a dilapidated old house that was a challenge and a delight! I was a biology major and she was an English major and we had differing opinions about what should be allowed and what should not.

"Charles, off the coffee table!"

"Mary Jean if Mut can sleep on the sofa Charles can sit on the coffee table!!"

In spite of our differences in cat-rearing I must give Susan her due. She had only mild hysterics when I inadvertently allowed a jar of cockroaches to be released on our front porch.

My boyfriend Gray and I had just constructed a lovely 4'x6' terrarium on our screened-in porch for my mud turtle and two box turtles. The next day I rode with some other students to the university in Madison. I had made arrangements to pick up a colony of huge three-inch South American cockroaches for a neurophysiology project. They were housed on a cardboard structure inside a battery jar covered with cheesecloth - eggs, juveniles and adults. The cheesecloth was held in place with a large rubber band. I balanced the jar on my lap the whole way back, which was fortunate because we were delayed by a little accident. No one was hurt and neither car sustained any damage but we didn't get back to campus until after the science building had closed. Woe is me, I had to take the cockroaches home with me.

Mut and me in front of our house

The sharp-eyed neighbor boys saw me arrive carefully carrying my mysterious jar.

"Whatcha got there Mary Jean?" asked Louie, the eldest.

I explained my project to them and a bit about cockroaches. I said sternly that they could look at them but were under no circumstances to touch the jar or the cheesecloth top.

Two of the boys understood but Timmy, the weasel-faced youngest one, waited until everyone had gone before he lifted the cheesecloth for a better look.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but no stretch of the imagination can make a cockroach look anything but creepy. These were so big that each ugly bristle on their legs stood out. The only graceful part of a cockroach is their waving antennae. Unfortunately they are as quick as they are ugly. Probably one scuttled out and maybe even touched him as Timmy peeked under the cheesecloth. He knew he'd made a mess of things and ran away.

I stepped out on the porch an hour later to check on the cockroaches. I was dumbfounded! There were cockroaches all over! Big ones, little ones, medium-sized ones all skittering flagrantly around! Never before or since have I screamed in such fury! Susan dashed out to see what was wrong then quickly went back inside. Gray who had eaten supper with us helped me grab the biggest cockroaches which I needed for my project. We stuffed them back into the jar. The smaller ones we just tried to squish. They had taken over my beautiful terrarium although the turtles didn't notice. After we cleared the area of all the obvious cockroaches we put the turtles in a box in the backyard and dismantled the terrarium. I sprayed all of the crevices of the porch with insecticide. The next time I saw the neighbor boys I had calmed down somewhat. Louie explained it had been Timmy but I told them none of them were ever welcome to come into our yard again.

Two years later I was in town again and drove by the house. The current resident was out watering the front garden so I stopped to chat a bit.

"When we lived here we had a bit of a cockroach problem. Have any ever bothered you?" She assured me they hadn't so I didn't think it was necessary to explain what had happened. Sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss!

Mut and Charles were well-behaved cats. They knew what the litter box was for and used it. In fact they were so well-trained that the first day we let them venture outside they dashed inside when they had to use it! Pretty soon they realized the great outdoors had lots of suitable places.

They initially had a problem remembering where the litter box was when we shifted its location from under the kitchen table to the basement. We recognized the searching behavior for what it was and directed the anxious cat to the proper spot. They learned pretty quickly and we learned pretty quickly to leave access to the basement available!

Susan and Charles left before our senior year was over and Elaine moved in. She wasn't a biology major either but she was tolerant of both Mut and me. Mut was huge, sweet-tempered and lazy. One of his favorite games was fetching a ball of aluminum foil. If I accidentally get a piece of aluminum foil in my mouth it is uncomfortable (because of my fillings?), but it didn't seem to bother him. He rarely tired of the game and would bring it back time and time again.

One pet Elaine wouldn't allow in the house was a beautiful tarantula I brought back from Missouri in the spring. The spider had soft, cinnamon-colored fur and was quite timid. I reluctantly gave her to the biology department.

Elaine was a bit more tolerant of my fiddler crabs. They were kind of cute, waving a claw and swaggering around like tiny Irish prizefighters. I was listening and observing the diurnal behavior of the small crustaceans so they had to be kept in the dark all night. The only place in our house completely away from the street lights was the bathroom. They resided in a clear plastic box on the back of the toilet. I taped the light switch so it wouldn't accidentally be turned on and we endured a week of skritching and scratching noises behind us whenever we used the toilet at night. Elaine and I were both glad when I had enough data!