Not such a "Cat Dude" after all...

About a month ago, Biker Dude happened to glance out his south window as he sat reading and saw a cat of the front steps of the house across the street.

Thinking nothing of it, he went back to reading his book.

Later, when it was dark, he kept hearing a cat meow. It continued, and when Biker Dude got up at three in the morning to get some water, he still heard the cat.


The next day he noticed that the cat was still on the front porch across the street. The neighbors came and went, but the cat stayed on the front porch. This continued for several days and during the hottest week of the year.

Biker Dude grew concerned. Normally, he would never have cared about a cat in possible distress. But since the arrival of his cat just over a year before under similar circumstances, he had started liking them and even sort of now considered himself a cat person.

He also had an ulterior motive. The cat was coming over to his yard and going after the birds. So it was going to be either find the cat a home, or war.

So that night he told his girlfriend, whose own cat was over 18 years old and not doing so well. He suggested talking to the neighbors and, if in fact the cat was a stray, taking it in as a future replacement for her ailing cat.

She was planning a lengthy trip and said that wouldn't work out so well.

So another week went by with Biker Dude now seeing not one cat, but two of them. This was even worse. Two potential bird killers on the loose. He began to panic. He started thinking of chain link fence and barbed wire. Of motion detectors and heat seeking lasers. He imagined a two front war... cats on one side, squirrels on the other. He started drinking more beer than usual.

He finally caught the neighbor as she was putting out her garbage cans and found out that two strays did in fact live in the bushes, and if he could find them a home, that was okay with her. He was welcome to take them.

So, imagining himself to be the helper of displaced cats and protector of innocent birds the world over, Biker Dude asked around.

But no one he knew wanted them. This started taking on a deja-vu feeling. He ended up keeping his cat when nobody came forward when it showed up on his doorstep. But no way was he going to take on two more.

He asked his girlfriend again thinking maybe she would change her mind. He tried to word the story to appeal to her compassion. She just gave him a look that could stop a charging army.

That was so not happening. Dang.

So a month went by from the time when he first saw them and then one day, after his girlfriend and her friends had a girl's night out, she told him that Jody, one of her friends who lived on a farm, had lost one of her cats and was looking to get another. She gave him Jody's number.

Wooohoo... This was finally going to work out perfectly.

The next day he called Jody and told her about the cats. She wanted to know if they looked well or if they looked all flea bitten. He said they looked fine and that in fact, they had been neutered and given shots by the local animal shelter. At least that's what the neighbor told him.

Jody said she would come by after work and she would take the cats away. She asked if they were easy to catch, and Biker Dude, thinking he was the newest expert on cats, said, "Sure. And if nothing else, we can lure them with a can of tuna."

Now you can laugh, but, once upon a time, Biker Dude saw the movie, "Roxanne," with Steve Martin. In it, Steve, or his character Charlie, lured a cat down from a tree with a can of what Biker dude assumed to be tuna. If it was so easy for Steve Martin, hey, it should be child's play for Biker Dude.

Biker Dude expected blue jeans at least, or some kind of grubby clothes, but Jody, the farm girl, showed up wearing a mini skirt and high heels. She and Biker Dude went across the street to the neighbors. Biker Dude went to the door. He felt it appropriate to at least tell the people that he was going to be poking around in on their property. The kid who answered the door said, "Okay," and even volunteered a small bowl of dry cat food.

The neighbor kid always held the door open only a small crack. Biker Dude thought that was odd. Then he noticed a foul smell. It happened each time the door was cracked open. It smelled unlike anything he had ever smelled before and he imagined it was the smell of garbage piled to the ceiling. This could be due to the previous week and finding out that his neighbors to the north didn't even live there anymore and that their house was now "Condemned" as unfit for human occupation.

Jody noticed it too and later told Biker Dude that it was cat pee.

Anyway, Jody, mini skirt and all, and Biker Dude proceeded to try coaxing the cats to come to them. They crawled in the grass on hands and knees around the house looking under the bushes. This went on for about ten minutes. Then Biker Dude went back home and got his magical cat catching formula... a can of tuna.

He opened it and set it on the ground and stood up all proud of himself.

And he waited.

and waited.

It was like the moment where all eyes are on you in anticipation.

Nothing happened.

It was like saying, "Look what I have," and showing and then lighting a gigantic firecracker and everyone running like hell and then the thing doesn't explode.

No cats came running. No cats came walking. They didn't even peek out from under the bushes to take a look.

That's the last time Biker Dude does anything Steve Martin says to do.

They left the pet carrier at the neighbors and said if they could coax them into it, Jody would come back and take them away.


And the magical can of tuna...

All it attracted was flies.