By Tony Deyal
“This is a catastrophe”, Vladimir the leader growled. He had summoned the entire council of ministers to discuss and take action against what he considered a catalogue of crimes against them. Attending the meeting were Boris, a known fighter, Igor, Rasputin and the “God-like” Mikhail, as well as the female members, Anastasia, Karina, Sabina, Luna and Pinky. Rasputin, always looking for trouble, corrected the chairman. “Vlad,” he pointed out, “This is really a cataclysm. The whole world has banned us regardless of our category.”
Pinky blushed: “Are they declaring war on pussy like that Trinidadian bird who was afraid that we would bite him? That is one Sparrow I would have loved to catch. I would have eaten him raw.” Anastasia was not as angry. “No. He loved dogs,” she reminded them. “He was very sorry for the poor little puppy in the Russian Satellite.” This immediately made Luna tick, “You’re all so blind. Like you have cataracts and can’t see that we are all in trouble?”
Vladimir howled at her: “The entire world is already declaring war on us. The cat federation has banned us because that other Vladimir attacked Ukraine.” “But didn’t Ukraine attack us?” Boris asked. This was the last straw for Vladimir. He snarled, “We have now been catapulted into a global war. If the Kremlin crumbles we might end up eating crumbs. In fact, now that KFC and Pizza Hut are closed, who do you think they will eat?” Everyone was stunned. The kind and gentle Mikhail then suggested, “Why don’t we ask that other Vladimir to stop the war so we cats can survive?” Vladimir hissed angrily, “Do you know that he has six dogs and no cat? He hates us.”
The very quick Sabina said, “You think the Jamaicans will have me? They named a cricket ground after me?” Rasputin supported her, “Yes, they will listen to me too. They don’t call me Ras’ for nothing. We can make a catamaran and sail there.” Boris was still stuck on the central issue, “We can’t even look at the man because while a cat can look at a king, we know Russia is no longer a kingdom. It is definitely a country with a leader to match.” Karina jumped in with, “Can’t we go to Trinidad instead? They have a Carenage named after me and Barbados too. It has a Careenage.”
Vladimir angrily yowled, “It is said that you get back what you put in, and Putin has put us in serious trouble. While he is letting loose his dogs of war, we should get together, form a ‘cat o’nine’ tail and beat the “schiz” from his ras. Right Rasputin?” All the cats looked closely at Vladimir to show their support for him. In their world, the eyes have it.
This is a cat’s eye view of the situation in Europe, especially the banning of the Russian cats from international competition. I was born just when World War Two ended and when I was growing up, we had “cat’s eyes”, made from glass beads, to improve road safety at nights. There were white ones which identified the road centre, and red ones for the sides. There were also people who we called “cat-eye”. We didn’t know that “Cat Eye Syndrome” (CES) is a very rare genetic disorder that makes the eyes look similar to a cat’s.
In my case, I’ve had my eyes on cats for a very long time. I still remember asking my older children, “What happened to the pregnant cat that swallowed a ball of wool?” “Instead of kittens, it had mittens.” If you think this is bizarre, about ten years ago, there was an article in England’s Daily Mail that made me laugh at several levels. First of all, British newspapers are known for their humorous headlines like, “Iraq Head Seeks Arms”, “Is There A Ring Around Uranus”, “Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped” and “Sex Education Delayed – Teachers Request Training.” Secondly, they tend to tell it like it is. Most of all, they are like death- they’re not respecters of persons or personalities.
This headline read, “KITNAPPED: MP’s wife found guilty of stealing her love rival’s cat after court sees this damning CCTV footage.” I am sure you can imagine how and why many Caribbean people laughed loudly and for a long time without going beyond the headline. The fact is that the domesticated feline mammal, Felis cattus, has two meanings for us – it is a pet which you can find in most houses, and a vulgarity used to describe a very, very special part of the female anatomy. Worse, the much-used tautology (a phrase in which the same thing is said in different words), “pussy cat” is both familiar and vulgar.
For example, Trinidad has about 50 calypsoes on cats or pussies. The Trini Calypsonian, Lord Blakie, made much headway with, “Hole the pussy, hole the pussy, hold the pussy cat…” In the US, Johnny Carson, the host of the “Tonight Show”, once interviewed the flamboyant actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor, who had a small feline mammal which she petted constantly during the interview. In seeming innocence, she asked Carson archly, “Do you want to play with my pussy?” To which he replied, “You have to get that cat off your lap first.”
For those of us who continued reading the rest of the Daily Mail article, the very “Liberal Democrat”, John Hemming, had a 53-year-old wife with three children for him, and a 36-year-old mistress with one. Initially, Hemming had an agreement with his wife to split his time between her and his mistress, but then he left home for “good”. When questioned by the police about stealing the cat, Hemming’s wife told them, “I thought not only has he replaced me, he has replaced our cats.” Interestingly, while some people felt that the husband should have been jailed, others insisted that the wife deserved to be imprisoned for stealing the cat belonging to the mistress, especially since neither the mistress nor the MP had seen her cat since.
For some reason, after reading the story of the MP, I continued to think of him as a total MC or Minister of Concatenations (linking things together in a series like “wife” and “mistress”). Because of the dilemma in which the Russian cats (and people) find themselves, I initially named the article “A Categorization of Catricide” (meaning “different ways of killing cats”) Then I thought of a “A Heller on Earth” or “To Heller and Back” after Joseph Heller, the author of “Catch 22”. A Catch 22 is “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.”
What I believe, “categorically” (so to speak), is that the Russian soldiers should be made to return to their country while Putin and his entire entourage must be permanently imprisoned in Siberia. After all, with the dogs away, the cats will play.
*Tony Deyal was last seen saying that Putin was going through customs at a German airport when the Customs Officer asked him, “Occupation?” “No” Putin replied. “Just visiting.”
