The Almost-Famous Story of a Cat Who Almost Made the Big-Time, Part 2

Posted On January 14, 2009

When we last left Chubbette at the Clarke County Fairgrounds, she was settling in nicely hissing and yowling at any unfortunate passerby.

Why the foul temper, you ask? Was it because…
a) She missed her unweaned kittens.
b) She was suffering from engorgement from not being able to nurse previously mentioned unweaned kittens.
c) She wasn’t a “Fancy Feast” girl; her palate consisted of sour milk, bits of stale bread, and cut-up hot dogs.
d) Her free spirit couldn’t be confined to a cage (especially one fashioned out of old plastic laundry baskets).

Yup, I’m guessing “all of the above” too.

And me? I was apparently oblivious to the embarrassment I was bringing on myself. Although I did blush a bit when the judge tried to get Chubbette out of her cage to inspect the fine specimen and encountered a whirling ball of furry fury. And promptly decided to let Chubbette stay in her plastic prison.

The competition was fierce. Clarke County produced many pets of the purest pedigree that year…and in the end when the judge announced the winners, I realized that not only had I gotten beat by that bitch delightful Siamese cat with not a hair out of place who opted to purr instead of draw blood, but I also got beat by…

…a ferret…and a fish. In a fishbowl.

But—on the upside—I got a blue ribbon on my Cat Book! (I’d like to thank Cat Fancy magazine and Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, without whom this wouldn’t have been possible…)

So it was back home for Chubbette, and she couldn’t have been happier. The boyfriend/son/cousin (all the same cat). The barn that reeked of dust and cow manure. The slop that sometimes—if she was the lucky one that day—got dumped on her head when she refused to budge from inside the metal feeding pan. lt was all there—and it was all hers.

Just goes to show, you can take the cat from the farm, but you can’t take the farm from the cat.