Living with Satan’s cat

As parents, we do a lot of things for our kids: we take them to soccer and sports practices, listen as they practice their musical instruments, arrange sleepovers, and cook them their favorite meals.

Of course, sometimes we have to do things we’d really prefer not to. Like sitting up with them in the middle of the night while they puke their guts out – I mean, the least they could do is give me some advance notice that they’re going to be sick so that I can have some cinnamon rolls on hand.

But I think now I’m doing something that goes above and beyond the duty of being a “good” parent. Because now, I’ve let my kids adopt Satan’s cat – at least for a while. I say that because I’m sure the devil is going to show up any day now at our door, asking for his cat back.

What’s it like living with the cat from the fires of hell?

He knocked a picture frame off a counter, pushed over a stool in the kitchen, pawed some medicine off the bathroom counter, and claimed the soul of our neighbor’s child. Oh wait, make that sole – it was the neighbor’s child’s shoe. But still, every sole is important, or something like that.

Remember the little girl that was possessed in the movie The Exorcist? And her head spun around 360 degrees, and she sprayed a vomit-like substance across the

room almost as far as my kids can? Well, I’d choose her 11 times out of 10 over this cat.

How did the cat of Beelzebub wind up at our home? We thought it was an animal rescue, but it was more like trying to rescue someone from the Bermuda Triangle – there’s really no escape.

My daughter’s boyfriend came over one day, and he happened to hear a cat from the engine of his car. We finally coaxed the kitten out, and found what looked like only a small ball of black fur. Little did we know it was a creature that bore the scorching of the devil.

He looked like he was maybe four weeks old. My daughter had him checked out at the vet, and then slowly began to nurse him back to health, feeding him food and water, and taking care of him. It all felt like a good deed.

But as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished. And boy, have we been punished!

He bites and claws the hands that feed him . . . as well as the hands that don’t. He has a tail that looks like it was knitted for a skunk – and he has a smell to match it. You see when he goes to the litter box . . . Well, let’s just say it’s the “Smell from Hell.”

He hides in the pantry, and when you open the pantry door you see those two beady, yellow eyes staring back at you.

And worst of all, he terrorizes our good cat. Okay, maybe that’s not so bad now that I think about it, but he’s not doing it for me, he’s doing it for his own evil pleasure.

I keep thinking that maybe he’ll get better. I mean, there’s only one direction he can go, right? But the only thing he’s getting better at is making a mess.

Sure, he rips up books, will eat anything that you drop on the kitchen floor (even if it’s your own child), likes to climb into the dirty clothes hamper to use the bathroom. But my kids love him. Or at least, they’ve been brainwashed to believe they do.

Yep, it’s true that we’ll do a lot for our kids, even if it means putting up with a little bit of hell to do it.