Hand-me-down Cat

I want to tell you about an obese declawed Siamese cat who, for reasons he didn’t want to discuss, answered to the name “Lumpy.”

Disclaimer up top: You should NEVER declaw a cat. If you are experiencing claw-related behavior issues with a cat, please explore every other option [including a safe new home] but absolutely do not declaw a cat.

Lumpy came to live at our house in November 1999. We were his third family, at least, maybe his fourth. His previous human – an old family friend – had just died and his widow couldn’t keep Lumpy.

When the cat arrived, he was about 22 lbs and answered to “Big Boy.”

Previously in my family, we’d always had lean outdoor tabby cats. I was extremely excited about this mysterious new fat cat. He hated us immediately.

I can’t say if he was in mourning over his last human, or afraid of his new home, or just mortally offended at being a thrice re-gifted cat, but he promptly launched a four-day hunger strike. We didn’t see him take a sip of water for days. Kidney failure seemed inevitable. But slowly, he began to sneak little bits of food at night when he felt safe and alone. After about a week, he resigned himself to his fate and just wandered around the house looking at us reproachfully.

Ol’ Lumps established a tepid peace. He did not like us. He did not like our house. He had not moved there willingly. He would not be picked up or cuddled or baby-talked. He was not our cat, he was like a hostage in no danger or an unwilling roommate who paid no rent.

After some amount of time, probably most of the first year, Lumpy warmed up to us and very gradually became my cat. My brother already had a cat. My mom had a small dog. And I had a double bed Lumpy could sleep in the very center of and I wouldn’t try to move him.

We had a weird life together. Most days passed without incident, but when things got interesting it wasn’t always for fun reasons.

Once, Lumpy developed a skin allergy and his instinct was to try and chew his tail off. I burned through my accumulated babysitting money to get him patched up and amply medicated.

Another time, we moved into a mobile home very near a railroad track and after a rough first week, everyone, even the cat, grew able to sleep through the earthquake-like rumbling of passing trains.

One of the few ways Lumps liked to ask for attention was to get as close to my face as possible while I was on the phone and yowl. Friends were only alarmed the first time they heard it over the phone.

“What was THAT?”

“The cat. He’s right by the phone.”

“Is he OK?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. His meow just sounds like a cartoon cat scuba diving.”

Despite being old, fat, and without claws, Lumpy was still a surprisingly capable mouser. Lumps was so capable that he – being a noble cat with a sense of sportsmanship – grew bored of puny intruding field mice and longed to pick on someone closer to his own size. Imagine my mom’s shock when she got up early one winter morning and found Lumpy on his blanket in front of the heater, sitting up and meowing proudly for her to acknowledge the hefty rat laying dead beside him. Well, the rat itself wasn’t the shock. The shock came when the rat started to wake up and mom realized Lumpy merely knocked the rat unconscious and then placed it lovingly on his blanket in front of the heater to resuscitate it so they could play more later. Mom, while loudly swearing at the cat, put a coffee can over the rat and a magazine under it and deposited the rat in the trash can outside which I like to think of as Rat Valhalla. Lumpy was outraged to have his social and sporting life so cruelly sabotaged by Mom. He sulked around the house decrying this betrayal the rest of the day.

In his last few winters, when the arthritis common in declawed cats set in and Louisiana’s humid cold snaps were particularly painful, Lumps would let me spoon him at night. This gesture was begrudging on his part. He would try to get comfortable on every other spot on the bed first so he wouldn’t seem eager. He wanted me to understand this was NOT about him being a cuddly little kitty, but about me being his heating pad. I was happy to be of service.

Lumpy died in the summer of 2007. We don’t know how old he was.

(I took this picture in 2006 with the sepia filter on and I don’t think I can fix it back.)