Pip Squeak

We also had Pip Squeak, mostly known as Squeak. Black and white and wonderful. She loved to sleep with me at nights. She’d crawl under my blankets and curl up on my feet. I loved it, cuz it kept my feet warm all night. And also, I love cats. But Mom hated it. She kept telling me I was gonna get hairballs and she’d have to take me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. I never quite believed her, but I always had a lingering doubt. So every night she started looking around my room to make sure that Squeak wasn’t in there, then closing the door to make sure she didn’t get in. Then 5-10 minutes later, Squeak would lazily walk out of the closet or under the bed or any number of hiding places, then come crawl under my blankets. She couldn’t leave; Mom locked her in. So then Mom started looking for her and not closing my door until she could see Squeak in the hallway. That’s when Squeak learned to jump up, grab the door handle with both paws, and swing back and forth until the door opened. I think at that point, Mom finally just gave up.

One time Mom was cutting (shredding?) some meat on the pull-out-from-the-counter cutting board. Squeak wanted it really badly. She jumped high enough that her front claws dug into the board, but the rest of her fell back down. She then started doing pull-ups. She’d flex those little cat-arm muscles until her chin was just above the cutting board, then her muscles would give in and she’d drop back down. She repeated that several times. Funny cat. I’m still not sure why she didn’t just jump up onto the cutting board. I’m sure she was capable of jumping that high.

Squeak’s life slowly came to a close. First she got cancer in her eye. It was amazingly gross to look at. It was all red and puffy and just… gross. Mom and Dad took her to the Vet who removed her eye. Which amazingly was much less creepy than it had been. She did great for quite awhile… until the cancer came back. Since there was no eye to remove this time, the only choice was to put her to sleep. I miss that kitty. She was probably one of my favorites.

(There is another story about Squeak, but it deserves its own post, it’s that amazing.)