The Dangerous Side of Life in Puerto Rico

Here is Lorri before the "incident." She says every girl is prettier with a flower in her hair. I'm not so sure. I think she is pretty all the time, with or without the flower, but I have allowed her to indulge herself with this flower thing. 

Anyhow... we were driving down the road today and she literally plucked this thing from a bush on the side of the road going like 20 miles per hour. I know it was around twenty, because that is about as fast as you can drive here without having your entire car swallowed up by a giant pothole that goes all the way to China... or whatever the polar opposite of the globe would be from Rincon, PR. There must be an app for that or something, right? Anyways, back to the story...

This here cat is Pilar (named after Hemingway's Boat). Pilar is the world's most expensive farm cat, because while she was born in our barn back in Iowa, she was immediately recognized as having been born with the congenital physical anomoly known as polydactylism, and was rewarded with first class, cabin airfare to Puerto Rico, that cost even more than mine did, and I outweigh her like, 330 pounds to 1. 

Over the course of her short life, Lorri fell absolutely in love with the cat... and I allowed Pilar to come inside of our house (cat's are usually not allowed unless they bring lasagna or something), because polydactyl cats are also known as Hemingway Cats, and there are even a bunch of descendants of Earnest Hemingway's original polydactyl cats still loafing around his house in Key West. I can only imagine that Hemingway's works may have been that much more expansive and mesmerizing if he hadn't had to constantly be bothered with emptying stinking litter boxes and the like. 

But back to the cat. If you look closely, she has an entire extra paw on each front paw. This isn't some common, run of the mill, six or even seven toed cat. This is an extremely rare, presumably priceless, double-pawed polydactyl Hemingway cat. I was in awe... until we heard from people who had like fifty of them living in their barns, but by that time she had pawed her way into our home and Lorri's heart.

Here, if you look closely, you can see the pads of the extra paw. That is the best I could do, because she is clawing the shit out of my hand with the other eight front claws while "posing" for this picture. I began to learn some of the perils of these cats when she would try and jump up my leg while I was wearing shorts, and sixteen front claws would set into my skin, and then slowly tear sixteen razor thin gashes down my leg.

Anyhow, we have started allowing her outside for short ventures while we are out. And today, we were getting ready to leave and couldn't find her anywhere. We listened for her little bell, but she was nowhere to be found at all. 

Finally, I went out into the darkest realms of the back yard, and there it was... an iguana that appeared to be a stunt double for the raptors in the Jurassic Park movies. I mean... it was massive. 

I called for Lorri, and we stood there, staring at the ancient predator, and looking for signs of blood, or a struggle, or a tiny bell stuck in between the iguana's incisors. There was nothing. Not a sign. Not a meow. Not a tuft of kitten hair. Nada. There was only a huge, fat bellied iguana licking its satisfied lips.

Lorri ran, nearly in tears back into the house while the flower drifted slowly from her hair, and into the grass of the rain forest floor that is our backyard. It was sad to see it lying there, knowing it had been placed in her hair during a brief time of joy before falling during a moment of despair and sorrow. 

Meanwhile, the iguana just stood there staring at me. I stared back and thought about running to fetch my iguana killing stick, until I realized I am completely unequipped to kill a large iguana, and wouldn't really want to have to deal with disposing of the toxic corpse even if I did have one (but they are considered an invasive species here, so I could totally have a killing stick if I wanted one, so take that PETA!).  

Apparently, sensing my weakness, he turned his back on me without concern, and wandered up a branch, over the fence, and off the property. Nasty bastard. 

But also, standing there, I felt of a sense of this being how things work in the wilds of Puerto Rico. The cat had killed at least three small lizards that ventured into the house since our arrival, and she had been, in a karma-like fashion, eventually consumed by a much larger lizard seeking veangance for all lizard-kind. It was an eye for an eye, and I could almost sense that it was somehow a symbol of a righteous universe, at least in the wilds of Puerto Rico.

Rest in Peace, Pilar the Cat, I thought as I picked up the fallen flower from Lorri's hair. I wondered how Lorri would take it as I walked back to the house, twirling the flower between my fingers. I also wondered if the pet store would take back the ridiculously expensive cat tower we had bought for her just a week earlier, or if I would ever be able to find the receipt. These things are hard on everyone, but hey... if I don't have to have a box filled with poop inside of my house any more, there are pluses and minuses to everything, right?

By the time I got to the back porch, I could hear the tingling of the tiny bell coming from in the house. Lorri had been giving a live video tour of our home to someone using her phone and had accidentally closed the cat inside one of the guest bedrooms. Pilar was just fine. Lorri was so relieved.

"Thank god," I said.

"Right?" said Lorri. 

"Yes," I replied. "Here is the flower you dropped in the yard." 

And finally, here is Pilar, the Iowa farm cat, showing off some of her sweet ass ninja catlike moves she uses to avoid being eaten by giant lizards, on her $200 cat condominium, safely here in Rincon, Puerto Rico.