Growing up in the country, whenever a pet died, it was given a proper burial somewhere in the woods and no more was thought about it. Maybe some flowers, or a small shrub, but that was it. Now that I am in a large city, with no grass, I am rather unsure what to do with a dead animal. Thankfully I personally do not own a dead animal, but I saw one last night. And to be honest, I am not even sure if it was a pet. There is a colony of feral cats that live a couple of doors down from me, and I believe it was one of these poor felines that got struck.
As I was out taking Dog #2 for a walk, a white Lexus came speeding around the corner and wailed this cat pretty good. Unfortunately, the cat did not die on impact and was flopping around the road like an epileptic girl, blood spurting everywhere. I went over to make sure it was dead and sadly gave it’s head a good final stomp. There was no rescuing this thing, and I wanted to just get it over with for the poor beast. Then I realized that I have a somewhat large dead animal on my hands. If I put it in a garbage can I will probably be seen and the cops will show up at my apartment and arrest me for animal cruelty.
I called the City’s help number and they directed me to sanitation. I filed a "complaint" - as they called it - with them and filled them into the whereabouts of this mangled kitty.
"Okay sir, where is the cat?"
"Um, like half-on half-off the sidewalk in front of 2243 or 2245 Apple Street."
"So is it on the sidewalk or not?"
"Well, it is sort of half-on half-off. It kind of died that way."
"Okay, so we’ll just say that it’s close to the curb."
"Sure. I just want someone to come take care of it."
"Well sir, that’s what we’re doing. I need to document this information and then sanitation will be down within two business days to pick it up."
"Two business days? Seriously? There is a school one block away from here. This things going to scare the hell out of some little kindergärtners, or at least get bloated and nasty. Ya’ll can’t get here sooner?"
"We can’t guarantee it. There’s lots of things that sanitation needs to take care, but thank you for your concern."
"That’s real nice. Maybe street cleaning will get it tomorrow…"
The conversation went on with her taking my information and assuring me things would be okay. Street cleaning has not come by yet, so I don’t know what will happen to Mr. Kitty, but hopefully someone takes care of his half-faced body and dispose of the poor bastard properly, and not with a wire brushed street cleaning machine.
Cecil B.
