The Story of Buster the Cat or How I Survived the Ride From Hell

In 1989 life was sweet!

I had landed a great job as a Forestry Aircraft Pilot and was making enough to support a wife, so I asked her to marry me! She said yes and we became newlyweds in 1990!

Our first home was a small white house, that we rented, and the wife and I moved in right after the honeymoon.

Life was sweet, indeed!

This old house had a mouse problem, and I constantly set out traps. The traps never caught any mice, but the activity seemed to please the Missus.

The man down at the hardware store was delighted too. He did a booming business in mouse traps, and always had a few extra cases laying around for when I dropped by.

At night, after the lights were out, and the place got quiet, we would lay in bed and about the time we drifted off the rodents would crank up the band.

No doubt, some entrepreneurial rat had turned the attic into a night club! Blippity, blippity, blippity...... rattle rattle rattle, all night long!

The rats kept up a commotion that would raise the dead. Not someone recently dead either. Your Great Great Grandpaw might have been resurrected and on his way home to Jesus, on account of he mistook the racket for judgement day.

If the house had been a foot or two closer to the graveyard I'm sure a zombie apocalypse would have transpired.

The mice didn't seem to care a flip about our mandatory closing time. Laws didn't mean squat to a mouse!

I would get fighting mad and take a bat up the rickety ladder to the attic, swing open the hatch, and the dance floor would empty, the band would go quiet and disappear! Nothing to be seen, nothing but a hairless tail disappearing down a crevice. Certainly not the rowdy crowd I expected!

I would climb down, crawl back into bed and drift into the blissful quiet of the dreamworld . BAM, WHOPPITY KERBLIP! The band would start up again.

Blippity, blippity, blippity...... rattle rattle rattle. The dance floor would fill up and away we'd go again!

Had I been able to collect a cover charge, for the use of the facility, it wouldn't have been so bad, but alas, I digress.

I stumbled into work one morning, dead tired and defeated, and there, right on the front steps, was the cutest little half grown tom cat you ever saw.

I asked the secretary who the kitten belonged to and she said, "I don't know, he just showed up. Someone should take him home."

I called up the wife and when she answered I said, "I think I just solved our mouse problem!"

About noon, I gathered up this little fur baby and loaded him into the old surplus truck they let me use to drive back and forth to the airport. I figured I could drop by the rathole, uh house, on the way to the airport and introduce Lesa to our new mouser.

Things started off pretty well. The kitten sat on my lap and rubbed his head under my chin and purred. I started up the vehicle and the purring stopped and he stiffened. That should have warned me.

He decided the noise was not harmful, and resumed his purring.

We pulled out into the flow of traffic and I said, "Hey little fella, you're gonna have to sit over here while I drive," and I picked him up and set him on the passenger seat.

He was fine, at first, then he put his little paws up on the arm rest and had a look outside. I suppose the world rushing by was too much for him because, folks, I'm here to tell ya, that cat went berserk!"

He fluffed up to about three times his normal size, hissed and let out a squall that made my blood curdle! He jumped up on the back of the old bench seat and looked outside at the world zipping by.

He was not happy!

He started at a dead run, right at my head! I threw my head back and he kicked off my face with his hind legs, busting my lip. He bounced off the side window, signaled a left turn, and sped across the dash board!

He bounced off the passenger window and here he came again! This time I ducked forward and I felt the wind as he sped by behind me!

I don't know how many circuits of the track he made but I think he won the race!

I was in heavy traffic, and I tell you, trying to focus on driving and dodging an insane cat is not an easy thing. It was embarrassing too. The looks I got from the lady at the red light made me want to crawl under the seat and hide!

About half way home, the novelty of racing around the interior of that old truck must have worn off, on account of that cat crawled up under the seat and set to yowling at the top of his voice.

I reached down and tried to coax him out but gave up on the idea after examining my mangled hand.

When I drove up the driveway, the Missus was sitting on the steps waiting for me.

Screeching to a stop, I threw the shift lever into park, slammed open the door, and dived out at a run. I sprinted a safe distance away before turning to see if I was being chased.

"What in heaven's name?" said the wife. "Where's the kitten?"

"It's under the seat, but watch out, he's a killer!"

She walked over to the truck whispering, "here kitty, kitty, kitty."

That dang cat crawled out from under the seat, calm as he could be, and let her pick him up and cuddle him to her bosom.

Butter wouldn't have melted in that @#$%$ cat's mouth, he was THAT cool!

"What should we name him?" she asked.

"Buster, on account of he BUSTERED my lip!" I said.

I climbed back into my truck and went back to work.

Ding dang @#%$ schizophrenic cat!

I hope you enjoyed my story. It is based on real events but colored up a bit to make it attractive.

Thanks for reading and,

CARRY ON!

All photos courtesy of Unsplash:Source Link