Taffy May

“Quick! Get Clark and Hold Him Over the Toilet!”

Linda Vernon Pets, Who am I? , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I was growing up, we always had lots of kitties living with us.  There was Taffy May and Buzzel and Merv — but the kitty that stands out the most in my mind is Clark.

Clark was the kitty my mother got my brothers and I to help ease the pain of the divorce.  We moved to a new town after that and took Clark with us.

Unfortunately, the only way we could have Clark in our new place was if we agreed to have him de-clawed.

For some reason, in 1965, landlords thought that one little kitty could destroy an entire property.

Thinking back,  it was a horrible thing to do to our beloved Clark, and I hope it is a practice that has long since been  abandoned.  For you see, Clark was never quite right in the head after that.

Clark had a chip on his shoulder and he liked to take it out on  bare legs. God help you if you walked by him in shorts, he would attack by jumping on your legs and sliding slowly down them like he was a fireman.

Clark also had a weak stomach.  Every couple of days or so, he would meow in a certain way just before loosing his lunch.  When we finally caught on to this idiosyncrasy of his and when we heard “the call” my mother would always yell for one of us to get Clark and hold him over the toilet.

This became a pretty regular routine.  One day my brothers got the genius  idea to impersonate Clark’s up-chuck distress call.

This proved to be great fun especially when our friends were over.  If things started getting dull or the conversation would lull, somebody would impersonate Clark’s up-chuck distress call and without missing a beat my mother would yell from the other room,  “Quick somebody get Clark and hold him over the toilet!”

At this point in time, we also had very old furniture and our couch had holes in it.  My mother was always sewing them up to prevent someone from falling through.

One day my mother couldn’t find her reading glasses and surmised that they must have fallen off while she was sewing up the couch.

So here we all were — a room full of teenagers — watching TV.  In walks my mother with a pair of scissors and asks one of the boys to scoot over a little, he complies whereupon my mother cuts a hole in the couch, reaches in, pulls out her reading glasses, puts them on and leaves the room without saying a word.

Five minutes later someone gave the, by now, infamous up-chuck distress call to which my wonderful mother responded in true Pavlovian fashion by yelling from the other room,

“Quick, somebody get Clark and hold him over the toilet! “

Ah! Those were the days!

Until next time . . . I love you

The Taffy May Incident

The Taffy May Incident

Linda Vernon 1950's, Pets , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Dear Readers.  Is it Lazy Friday Rerun Blog Day already?  OK!  Who am I to argue with the calendar!  (except I do think a week should have 8 days and 3 of them should be a three-day weekend –  but apparently my calendar wouldn’t give me the time of day.)  Here’s today’s rerun:

Taffy May I Hardly Knew Ye

When I was a little girl, the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow was a horse.

I had no preference as to style, make or model.  If it had four legs and knew how to gallop, I’d take it!  We lived in a small town smack dab in the middle of an ocean of wheat, so there were lots of girls who had horses and rode them everywhere.  It would rip my heart out to see a gaggle of girls atop their sterling steeds clip clopping all over town.

“Clip clop clip clop clip clop clip . . . etc.”

I really only voiced the question of my getting a horse to my parents a couple of times, knowing full well that the answer would be no, and, as a matter of pride,  I’d ultimately have to run away from home or –at the very least — stage a runaway as in the following true scenario:

“Look at this Janey,” my father remarked to my mother, “I found Linda’s yellow shorty pajamas in this little 45-record case in the bushes just outside her window when I was mowing the lawn.”

Oh I was going to run away alright . . . eventually.

Ok, fine . . . if I wasn’t going to get a horse, at least I could try for a kitten.  This is how I went about it: 

Step 1:  Convince my parents that I was head over heals in love with cats.  To accomplish this,  I colored umpteen pictures of kittens and scotch taped them to my circa 1959 pink wall.

Step 2:  Wasn’t even needed because Step 1 worked like a charm.  Next thing I knew I was picking out my very own gray, long-haired kitten from a batch of five.

In my excitement, I failed to notice that this particular kitten had issues.  It suffered from the world’s lowest kitty IQ.   Maybe that’s why the name I chose, Taffy May, seemed to fit her so well.

Taffy May was the perfect cat for a little girl to bond with.  Being nearly brain-dead, she allowed me to pick her up and carry her around without protest. 

She slept with me all night under the covers which I thought was because she loved me so —  but more likely she just couldn’t figure a way out.

Taffy May had one batch of kittens – if three can be considered a batch.  But being the little dummy that she was, she managed to lie on all three of them during the night and  in the morning the only one left breathing was my beloved, Taffy May.

Perhaps it was Karma (I know there was a car involved) the day Taffy May shuffled off this mortal world.

I was on my way home from school without a care in the world.  When I rounded the corner, there stood our across-the-street neighbor, Mr. Huey, holding a lifeless Taffy May up by the tail.

I don’t know how many times Taffy May had been run over, but judging from the fact that she was literally as flat as a pancake, it would be safe to assume more than once. 

I screamed and ran into the house where I was inconsolable well into the night.  I never got another cat of my very own, out of respect for Taffy May, who will always have a place in my heart . . . about two feet wide and one and one-half inches deep.

Until next time . . . I love you