The Cat Trapper Olympics

I wrote this a few years ago. We cat trappers should have been included in the games in China, although there, they kill cats and dogs and eat them and they kill them in horrible fashion. Just another reason not to waste time watching the games there. When their melamin in our pet food killed hundreds upon hundreds of dogs and cats, I wanted to paddle to China on my innertube and go to war with their entire nation, alone if need be.

Maybe one day, sports that produce good things for society, like cat trapping, will become routine competitions in Olympic games! I yearn for that day!

I call the following essay I wrote a few years ago,

The CAT TRAPPER OLYMPICS!

It will come to this, I'm sure, given the competitive edge of the cat trappers I know, myself included.

Like today, I talked to Penny Vance of Roseburg, Ore. Called her up because the Corvallis Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon clinic has only 60 cats registered. I have eight spots. I know Penny is trying to clean up the Roseburg area so I figured she'd want to bring as many cats as she could bring.

So I start out accommodatingly with my hot information about the `short' clinic', but she interrupted to tell me she knows the clinic is shy on cats because Vicki from Sweet Home already told her. Penny says she's bringing 25 cats and that she borrowed a van to haul them all up in and is rounding up carriers to transfer them into after trapping.

I should have been pleased to hear this and I was, but it did trigger that competitive edge. I felt inadequate, outdone. I congratulated her with warm words, but inside I'm thinking “More cats! I have somehow got to round up more cats to bring to that clinic. Penny Vance--ROSEBURG, are not going to out-do me.”

Thank god I have only eight spots. Thank god, for my own health's sake, I have only eight spots, or I'd try to get thirty and be out for 36 hours or more, climbing fences, climbing into the rafters of barns and into the foundations of trailers, through warehouses, knocking on the doors of suspicious looking strangers in gang-run neighborhoods, all to beat out Penny Vance in the numbers game and out of competitive fierce pride.

We cat trappers don't go down easy!

I'm sure this `friendly' rivalry will one day morph into the Cat Trapper Olympics. Of course, by then, with my neck problems, I'll have to compete in the Cat Trapper Special Olympics. I'll be rolling after cats in my wheelchair with my mechanically directed net and any cats I get would have to be heavily sedated or seriously ill. Or, by the time yearly Cat Trapper Olympics are routine, complete with all the glory and opening ceremonies and media blitz, I'll have to enter the special geriatric division. Or get some lifetime achievement award as I hobble up with my cane and neck brace still sporting laceration and bite wound scars.


Cat Trapper Olympics Award Categories

Parasites

The Cat Trapper Olympics will include an award given for the cat trapper who tests positive for the most parasites attained while cat trapping.

Cat Netting

There will be the cat netting relay event. But knowing the difficulty the cat trappers I know have in getting along with each other for more than a couple of minutes, that event probably won't draw many entries.

Triathlon

There will be the triathlon. It will begin with marathon trapping, at night, in a simulated methamphetamine production area, with rubber bullets flying overhead and people screaming at one another and yelling threats into the faces of entrants. There will be varying and conflicting descriptions given by these "participant area residents" of the cats the cat trapper is to trap. The trapper must not only sort out the information and trap the cats as quickly as possible, but also refrain from verbally abusing or shooting back at the "area participants". Normal bodily functions will be allowed, however, in expression of negative emotions.

The second segment of the triathlon will be conducted around a trailer with an adjacent shed loaded with rotting garbage and twisted junk. The entrant must net as many wild hissing agile kittens as possible in a forty-minute time frame within that shed and underneath the trailer.

The final triathlon segment involves loading all cats trapped and kittens netted safely into a car and traveling forty miles to the finish line. The catch in this segment will be that the entrant must fix the car whenever it breaks down or overheats along the way with only tools and supplies found in the glove compartment.

Name the Sex of the Cat

There will be a visual "sex the cat" competition, in which a participant cannot touch the cat in question and must determine its sex only by sight, sound and smell.

Language

There will be a language competition. The winner will be the entrant who can effectively communicate commands in the most feral dialects.

Self Healer

There will be the "cat trapper as self healer" competition where cat trappers must treat their own injuries, ranging from lacerations to infections to broken and dislocated bones, while continuing to trap as many cats as possible in a given time.

Creative Trapper Life Solutions

And there will be the "creative cat trapper life solutions" competition where entrants will face problems such as increasing debt, loss of housing, a failing vehicle, angry spouses, smelly clothes and sanity inquests from neighbors and family members. The most creative solutions to these common cat trapper crises will determine the winner.

Award to Top Cat Trapper

The overall winner, the entrant who places highest in the most events, will stand atop a spay surgery table and proudly be given the title of "Top Cat Trapper". That person will be rewarded further by subsequently receiving thousands of calls and daily e-mails requesting – no demanding - immediately their volunteer services as a cat trapper in the caller's neighborhood now no matter the hour of the day or day of the week.

Here's to all who do TNR. Keep up the great work.